Two Monticello High School students, Leanna Auletta and Michael Feltman, joined the Monticello Board of Education as co-members. While student board members do not vote, they do provide invaluable insight to the Board, representing, and advocating for, their peers at the highest level of the school district. Typically, there is one student board member, and an alternate who steps in when the student board member can not attend a meeting. This year, two students decided to apply as co-members, sharing the responsibilities.
Here’s more information on these young leaders, in their own words:
Leanna Auletta:
Rather than a regular board member and alternate you two have decided to be co-members. What led you to that decision?
Michael and I both wanted to have this experience in school leadership and decided to share this position as we both have many responsibilities. We didn’t want to spread ourselves too thin.
Why were you interested in becoming a student board member?
I wanted to see and experience firsthand how the board of education works. I also wanted to help students at MHS realize there is a pathway for their voice to be heard.
What are you most looking forward to/what do you hope to accomplish as a board member?
I’m most looking forward to really being able to see how decisions for the district are made. I’d like to accomplish a successful year of advocacy for the student body.
What extracurricular activities, clubs or sports do you participate in?
I am a participant in the musical, drama club, key club, and student council at MHS
What are your plans after you graduate?
My plans after I graduate are to go to college and become a teacher, while pursuing theater on the side.
Michael Feltman
Rather than a regular board member and alternate you two have decided to be co-members. What led you to that decision?
As active students within the school, we can both become very busy with extra-curricular activities. So, we wanted to be able to have two representatives with equal positions, to alternate which meetings we go to so one could always make it when the other couldn’t. We wanted this instead of having one who was supposed to be at all the meetings and having an alternate just for when the main person couldn’t make it.
Why were you interested in becoming a student board member?
I was interested in becoming a student board member because I am always interested in how the world around me works, and I always love to learn more about it and see how it works. Then with that knowledge I may eventually be able to apply some of it to my life sometime in the future.
What are you most looking forward to/what do you hope to accomplish as a board member?
As a board member I am hoping to make a lasting impact on the school, as other have before me, and take the problems of my fellow students around me to the people who can help and create a solution to solve those problems.
What extracurricular activities, clubs or sports do you participate in?
I am Co-Student Council President, President of Tri-M, Treasure of Senior Class Council and Honor Society. Along with that I’m a varsity athlete on the trap team, do stage crew, where I mainly run the sound board for the Drama, the Nutcracker, and the Musical. I also play the saxophone jazz band.
What are your plans after you graduate?
After I graduate, I hope to go to Clarkson University to study Electrical engineering with a concentration in electrical power engineering.