Hillhouse junior Johanelyz Arroyo (center): "Hear us out." Elevating the voices of 19,000 New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) students may no longer fall just on the Board of Education’s two student representatives — if the school district agrees to a new ​“liaison” role drafted up by city high schoolers. Nearly 100 New Haven students took a unanimous vote in support of creating that new role Friday morning during their monthly Citywide Student Council meeting, held at the Floyd Little Athletic Center on Sherman Parkway. NHPS’ Citywide Student Council group is made up of high school leaders who are part of their individual schools’ student government groups.That vote marked a first step to creating what the students deemed as necessary positions, known as ​“NHPS student liaisons,” which would help make sure that all high schools, no matter their size, have their voices heard by the Board of Education.Student liaisons would interview seven to 15 classmates at their respective schools each month, and then create reports based on that student input. Those reports would be provided to the Board of Education’s elected non-voting student representatives to present in their student reports at the school board’s regular meetings.Wilbur Cross senior and Board of Education member John Carlos Serana Musser explained that the role would provide the district with school-specific data that would help the board to better understand student perspectives and needs.“We could consistently get info from schools and have them represented in student reports,” he said on Friday. ​“It creates a more dependable line of communication.”This school year, Serana Musser joined NHPS Supt. Madeline Negron to create a Student Culture and Climate Committee to support increased student input for the school board. Serana Musser is one of 10 students on the committee, representing high schools throughout New Haven. During the first weeks of the school year, the committee members conducted interviews at their schools with their peers to understand how students view the school board’s presence around the district. The input gathered exposed to Serana Musser that students desire a deeper connection with Board of Education members and district-level decision making processes. This led to the committee working to draft a proposal for new student liaison positions in all high high schools that would serve to collect monthly data through interviews with high schoolers around the district. The 80-plus students at Friday’s Citywide Student Council meeting unanimously approved the proposal set forth by the committee. Next, Serana Musser plans to present the proposal to the full Board of Education for possible approval. Serana Musser’s goal, if approved, is to get applications for the liaison roles open in the Spring. While presenting the proposal to the student council leaders Friday, Serana Musser got several head nods from the group as he discussed the disconnect between the school board and students. After students reviewed the proposal document, they asked questions like where they can find the application and when and who can apply for the role if approved. The liaison position would be open to rising sophomore and junior students, Serana Musser informed the group. He said further details will be worked out around biweekly meetings and interview trainings with a committee mentor if approved by the full Board of Education. Others relayed their interest but shared that they likely couldn’t apply because they would want to prioritize their academics and current extracurriculars. Hillhouse junior Johanelyz Arroyo asked, ​“Why can’t we leave this to admin and teachers,” because students like herself are so busy with academics, sports, and being a Miss Puerto Rico Court Member. She said she trusts her school’s staff to represent her and her peers’ interest and inputs. Serana Musser said details still have to be worked out but the goal is to have the number of liaisons at each school, particularly the larger high schools, proportionate to the student populations. He also hopes for some of the student liaisons that apply to be multilingual to represent the diverse range of NHPS students. Just before students voted to approve the proposal, Serana Musser asked the group, ​“Do you think this would actually help you guys be represented on [the] board?”Every student’s headed nodded in agreement Friday. Arroyo, who is Hilhouse’s junior class vice president, added Friday that students deserve to have dedicated community members who ​“take their time and hear us out.” “Half of the time we’ve let the adults decide for us. We want to take initiative for what’s going to go on for the next years. This could really be impactful,” she said. She concluded that opportunities around advocacy have pushed her to improve her academics from her first two years of high school and build her confidence. She hopes that will be the case for her peers who are interested in the liaison role and that it will motivate students currently not involved in student advocacy work to join. “We want to learn together to make a better environment in New Haven,” she said, while noting areas to focus in on at Hillhouse including that the school still does not have free menstrual products stocked in its bathrooms. “We have the dispensers but they don’t put anything in there. These are things we could have a liaison telling the board that this is important to us, including other things like climate change,” she said. Serana Musser said he thinks the liaison positions will improve culture and climate dramatically because Board of Education members will also be able to make inquiries to student reps that can then be relayed to student liaisons to form questions around for monthly interviews. A mentor will be assigned to the committee to support student liaisons and help students craft unbiased questions. “It will provide school-specific data and counters the narrative that the board doesn’t listen to students,” Serana Musser said. He concluded that it will be a very useful project as the district considers how it will role out its phone restriction policy for high schools for the 2025 – 26 school year.During Friday’s meeting students also began drafting logos for the Citywide Student Council group and discussed creating a student petition to present to the board to advocate for funding to be bussed to Hartford and rally for fully funded public education. Students vote for "liaisons" at citywide council meetup. Metro senior Adinah and freshmen Madeline and Chardell look forward to student liaisons. They hope the roles will help the school's neglected internal bathroom plumbing problems. They think the internship could be opened to all grade levels. High schoolers ask Serana Musser about liaison role.