Stephens Media
Stephens Media
It’s a different kind of county council — one in which high school students run the show.
The 2012 Hawaii High School County Council — nine students elected from four Hawaii Island private and public schools — convenes at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Hawaii County Council chambers in Hilo, said County Clerk Jamae Kawauchi, whose office implemented the pilot project. There, the students will hold their own version of the island’s official legislative body, the Hawaii County Council.
The students will consider five still-being-edited measures during the meeting, Kawauchi said. The student-drafted measures touch on a variety of topics including the quality of health care on Hawaii Island, teen pregnancy and bus stops and shelters.
“These measures were all up to (the students),” she said. “These are the topics and concerns they’ve selected to discuss.”
The measures, as well as an agenda for the meeting, will be available online today at hawaiicounty.gov/county-council-student-project.
Four high schools took part in the project during its first year: Honokaa, Konawaena, Keaau and Kamehameha.
At those high schools, the office worked with students, between the ages of 16 and 18, during civics classes to get “well over” 700 students pre-registered and registered to vote. Students were also trained in how to operate a voting precinct, Kawauchi said.
Students were then urged to seek election to the 2012 Hawaii High School County Council, she said noting similar to real Hawaii County Council elections, the candidates had to sign up and submit five nomination papers. An election, run by the student precincts, was held at each of the schools during April.
Nine students, not necessarily assigned to a County Council district, were elected by the students, she said.
From West Hawaii is Honokaa High School’s Cheyneille Pacheco and Lauren Busby and Konawaena High School’s Chris Jones, Matthew Yamada and Casey Wooten. Keaau High School is represented by Ayanna Silva, Nitasa Freund and Phoenix Simeona while Kamehameha is represented by Makaala Gahan.