Local Students Encouraged to be a SMOB

A Student Member of the Board (SMOB) is a high school student who is elected in the spring to serve on the Board of Education during the following school year.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) is currently looking for students who meet the following requirements:

• Resident of Anne Arundel County
• Junior at a public high school in Anne Arundel County
• Student in good academic standing

The nomination process is now open and will end at 5 p.m. on March 3. Interested students should talk to their principal, SGA adviser, or call the AACPS Office of Student Leadership Development at 410-222-5405.

The Chesapeake Regional Association of Student Councils (CRASC), which is the student government of Anne Arundel County, will hold the election on March 24 at Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park to choose a student to be appointed. The student’s name will be forwarded to Gov. Martin O’Malley, who will make the appointment to the board.

Students have served on the county’s board continuously since the 1974-75 school year, according to the AACPS website. The SMOB in Anne Arundel County is the only one in the nation on a local board with full voting rights and can vote on policy changes and issues that directly impact students, in addition to voting on budgets and boundary changes.

The current SMOB is in Edgewater. She told Patch her reason for getting involved was that she hoped to make some changes to the reading list for her English class. Scruggs went to a few of the meetings for CRASC as one of the students interested in the SMOB position. She was elected to the post last summer and participates in the twice-monthly Board of Education meetings, school visits and public speaking engagements.

Another former SMOB, , wrote about his in high school and now helps cover board meetings as a Patch contributor.

For more information, see the AACPS website.

Mitchelle Stephenson, local editor of Edgewater-Davidsonville Patch, contributed to this story.