While students may learn all about the checks and balances of the federal government during history and government classes, some Buffalo Grove village officials decided a few years ago that young people could learn more about local politics by leaving the classroom.
The result of that decision, the village’s annual civics forum, matches about 30 area high school students with Buffalo Grove administrators for some real-world experience in municipal government.
The 4-year-old program includes three sessions spread over 10 days. One is an orientation session, and the second sends students to sit in the audience during a Village Board meeting.
Those sessions prepared the young people for a presentation they made Monday night to the board, offering solutions to safety and environmental problems.
Students tried to find a way to get people to buy more recycled goods, addressed the safety of skateboarding and attempted to justify the cost of lifesaving firefighting technology as part of the project.
The students spent most of Monday afternoon holed up in rooms in the Village Hall, police station and fire administration center putting together a two-page solution and preparing to present their findings to the Village Board that evening.
Later Monday night, the students, who attend Buffalo Grove , Wheeling and Stevenson High Schools, made 30-minute presentations to board members during a workshop session.
Trustee Bill Reid, a former high school history teacher, gave the young men and women high marks.
“All of these are real problems that we’ve got to deal with, and they had some good input,” Reid said. “There are some things that we heard last night that our staff will end up bringing back to us as proposed solutions.”
The organizers try to select policy topics that the students will find interesting, said Phillip Versten, Buffalo Grove’s administrative assistant.
The high school students have been meeting with village staff members since Oct. 17, when they attended the orientation session.
To be chosen for the forum by their teachers, the students must show an interest in local government and enthusiasm for working on the project.
The students also attended a Village Board meeting to prepare them for their presentations.
Although some said they found the meeting a bit of a bore, the students said they understood that local issues can be interesting when you have a personal stake in the board’s decisions.
“This is the government that will actually affect you more than the federal government and Bill Clinton,” said Alan Gilbert, 16, a junior at Buffalo Grove High School.
The civics forum provides a more hands-on experience for students than the village’s previous Government Day, in which 8th graders shadowed a local official during a typical day at work.
The civics forum, organizers said, forces the students to participate, rather than merely observe.
“I want them to know that getting involved in local government is an easy thing to do,” said Janet Sirabian, Buffalo Grove village clerk. “In the next five or 10 years, they will be establishing themselves in communities, and I want them to find out how rewarding it can be” to be active in their towns.
While the students may giggle and poke fun at each other during the brainstorming sessions, once they arrive at the board’s meeting room, they’re all business, one teacher said.
“They really take it seriously when they see how the board treats them as adults in terms of their policy recommendations,” said Spiro Bolos, a teacher at Buffalo Grove High School, whose students participated in the forum. “The board is really into it, and they question the students about the specifics of their program,” Bolos said.
The board members treated the young people with respect, and seemed to value their ideas, said Joslyn Cohen, 17, a senior at Wheeling High School, who has worked on the civics forum project for three years.
“It’s just something I enjoy, being able to work with my classmates on issues that actually concern us,” she said.
