Clarke Central High School juniors Grace Gilbertson Hall (far left), Grace Upchurch (far right), Felder Vereen (second from right), Farooq Robinson (middle) and Cedar Shoals High School sophomore Tykerius Monford (second from left) stand in front of City Hall on April 7. The five of them, including CSHS junior Tristan Lankford (not pictured), helped organize the Mayor’s Youth Commission. “Right now, in its earlier stages, we are just trying to get the commission started. The long-term goal is to be able to have a body of teens who learn how government works from watching the current mayor and commission interact,” Monford said. Photo by Elena Webber
The Athens-Clarke County Unified Government recently established an 11-member Mayor’s Youth Commission that will engage high schoolers with local government and community service opportunities.
The Athens-Clarke County Unified Government recently established a Mayor’s Youth Commission. The 11-member commission will run from September through May and allow students to work with members of the local government, weigh in on important issues and enhance their leadership skills.
“I was doing a little research on the internet, and I came across these great programs in other cities where they were creating a Mayor’s Youth Commission similar to what we’re doing. So, (various members of the ACC government and I) planted that seed in our manager’s office and, with the new mayor elected, it just kind of took off from there,” ACC Director of Leisure Services Kent Kilpatrick said. “(It has) gained a lot of momentum. We think it’s got some tremendous potential.”
The goal of the Mayor’s Youth Commission is to create opportunities that will engage high schoolers and allow them to work with the local government.
“The purpose is to give teens that voice and it forces that dialogue, forces the government to actually listen to that age group, to that generation and future generations to come, so that we are better connected,” Kilpatrick said. “It’s going to give the government a lot of wonderful feedback to hear from teens, but it’s going to give teens just valuable experience to be able to put on their resumé and their college applications to say they were part of making a difference in their community.”
Kilpatrick and various members of the ACC government worked in collaboration with Clarke Central High School and Cedar Shoals High School students to plan the organization of the commission.
“We approached a peer leadership group at Cedar Shoals initially. We were meeting with them about another summer program we’re doing for teens this summer, and we were getting some ideas, but then we also floated the concept of this youth commission with them,” Kilpatrick said. “There were several of them that got very excited about that, and it led to more conversations with students that helped start building the idea and the concept.”
CSHS sophomore Tykerius Monford was one of the students in the peer leadership group that Kilpatrick approached and helped set up the commission.
“My hope is that we (as teenagers) can actually help make a difference. I hope we can talk to people in our community, talk to our friends and our fellow students and get a feel for what they need, what they feel like our government should be doing and helping the government implement these ideas,” Monford said. “(Also the Mayor’s Youth Commission will be) providing the support that I think, sometimes as students, we feel like we don’t really get an input or a voice.”
According to Monford, the commission is looking for students who have a drive to make a difference in their community and the long-term goal is to open up the commission to more students.
“We’re starting right now with just Athens-area public school kids like Cedar Shoals (High School), Clarke Central (High School) (and) Classic City (High School), and we want to expand to get kids in the surrounding schools like maybe Athens Academy and the private schools, even some of the middle schools, (involved),” Monford said. “Ideally, we want a diverse group of people. We don’t just want the top of the class. We want it to be a diverse and representative group.”
CCHS Family Engagement Specialist Christan Barner sent out an email to CCHS student body on March 26 providing information about the commission.
“To me, it was very exciting to learn about because I think (the commission is) a great step. Our current mayor Kelly Girtz used to be the principal over at Classic City High School, so he’s got a connection here to the school district, and I think it’s great that he’s using that experience that he had in the past to kind of reach out and bring (teenagers) into this,” Barner said.
According to Kilpatrick, the 2019-20 session of the commission will be an opportunity to develop and refine the structure of the commission.
“We’re not trying to come in with a set structured environment and (say), ‘This is how you’ll do it, and how we say you’re going to do it, and that’s the way it goes.’ We want the teens to help us create the model for what this can look like,” Kilpatrick said. “We’re thinking that there could potentially be two meetings a month. (We are estimating) possibly committing somewhere between six to eight hours a month towards the commission, whatever that may look like, and it could vary from month to month.”
