Some East Leyden High School students tried their hand at running the village last week.
“I like politics and learning how I can get involved,” said Kenia Garcia, one of the students who participated in last week’s mock meeting as a village trustee. “I mostly am interested studying law and maybe politics later.”
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Students were able to shadow elected officials before sitting on the village hall’s dais to preside over a mock meeting using that night’s meeting agenda. With a little prompting from village trustees on proper procedure, the students were able to get first-hand experience on how a village trustee meeting is run.
“I felt like a nice rush,” said Hubert Kicinski, another student from East Leyden, after the mock meeting concluded. “I’ve always wanted to be in some type of government type of environment.”
Rob Fowler, a teacher at East Leyden for the past 22 years, said students from his school have been able to experience local government like this for 15 years.
“I took over for a teacher who retired from the political science class,” Fowler said. “It’s been a nice program. It gives our kids a chance to come out and get to know some of the community leaders and shadow them a little bit and then come see what a village meeting is like.”
Alex V. Hernandez is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.