Over the course of several months last school year, Jeff Elliott’s advisory periodically stepped away from its usual business, like talking over concerns about mastering classes, getting through the Gateway or coping with the stresses of early college work. Instead, the group debated the finer points of what an effective student government should look like in hopes that establishing one for Metro would lead to greater student involvement in the town meeting and the overall quality of the school. They researched what, within Metro’s structure and bylaws, they could truly hope to influence or change.

After a preliminary presentation at the winter town meeting, the group came back together to discuss the finalized framework of the Metro Council before presenting it to the student body.

“I wanted to honor you guys and congratulate you and offer yourselves a round of applause,” Elliott tells his students.

Under the structure the group designed, students bring issues to representatives in advisory, and those representatives bring them to the larger weekly council meetings. After lengthy discussions about whether it’s better to have the same representatives from each school advisory all year long, or to change those representatives regularly, the architects of the plan have decided on rotating representation. They want an effective and influential student government, not a group of “popularity contest winners.”

There are concerns that the student body may reject the entire proposal. If that happens, Elliott assures them, the months of time and consideration they have put into planning will not have been in vain. They will receive service learning credit and hand off lessons learned to any other advisory that might be willing to take up the charge of refining a structure for student input. It’s time for this group of students to get back to the usual business of advisory.

Staff members shared with Elliott that they think that it might be important to provide one staff member on the council for continuity. He explains that to his advisory, but they like the plan as it stands.

“This plan has got holes big enough to drive a Mack Truck through,” says Elliott. “But that’s okay, so did the Continental Congress. The structure will be refined, but outside of our advisory representatives, it will not by you.”

“The Continental Congress defeated the British Empire, so if it’s like that, we should congratulate ourselves,” one student quips.

The next morning, the proposal passed without a hitch.