PITTSBURGH — When students at Pittsburgh Obama 6-12 graduated Wednesday night, one among them did something this year that had never been done before. Orli Trumbull had a seat on the Pittsburgh Public School Board.
Trumbull and Allderdice rising-senior Chris Graves were chosen at the beginning of the year as PPS’ first Student Board representatives.
“I was really interested in local government, and this is a form of local government that directly impacts me every day,” Trumbull said.
Trumbull and Graves sat in on board meetings and shared perspectives from the students’ point of view.
“When I went into the school board, I was a little scared to like ask questions,” Trumbull admitted. “It has been great throughout the year to realize that really all the board members are just people trying to do their best and figure things out along the way, and that it’s great to ask questions and really figure out what’s going on.”
Trumbull and Graves then got to hear the reasons behind the board members’ point of view.
“I think another important part of this experience for me is just seeing how there can be adults who have the same end goal of benefiting students, but they approach it from different ways,” Trumbull said. “Seeing that productive conversation happening has been very inspiring and a great demonstration of how government can work really well.”
At Trumbull’s last school board meeting in May, the board presented her with the Plate of the City, an honor reserved for outgoing board members.
Trubmull and Graves were selected for the program from a pool of 26 applicants. The program will continue in the coming school year.
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