Mt. Carmel High Junior Appointed New Student Board Member

The students of the Poway Unified School District will be represented on the Board of Education next year by Anna Page, who will be a senior at Mt. Carmel High School during the 2012-2013 school year.

Page will become the district’s third student board member, a position that was created in 2010 and held by Poway High senior Gustavo Lopez this year.

Student board members sit on the dais with the other board members during meetings and participate in discussions about student-related agenda items. They have preferential voting privileges, meaning they can express a formal opinion that will be recorded in the minutes prior to the official vote of the board. A preferential vote does not serve in determining the final outcome of a vote on an agenda item.

Seventeen juniors in PUSD high schools applied for the position, according to a staff report, with six landing interviews. Superintendent John Collins said the screening committee had a tough time choosing among the applicants, but decided that Page was the best candidate.

The Board of Education unanimously approved Page’s appointment at its May meeting, and she thanked the board and noted that she has “some very large shoes to fill once Gustavo leaves.”

“I really look forward to getting to know all of you, on a personal level as well as a business level, and I know that we’re going to accomplish great things next year,” she told the board.