Public Comments? Public Comments.

My day at the School Board meeting started out with a derp moment. Sounds like a typical thing I would do. Don was taking roll by cohort name and I half way raised my hand for Vanderbilt before I realized what I was doing. Joceline, who was next to me, laughed and said, "Same, I did that for Cornell too." We both laughed really loud and I missed raising my hand when Don called out Chicago's name. DERP. Oh well. 

Listening intently

After Don gave out some instructions, we went inside the cafeteria for the meeting. It was cold so we used the Chicago banner kind of like a blanket to keep our legs warm and huddled a little. A1 creativity. 

After some introductory things, there was a part in the agenda called "Public Comments" before we went on. I didn't know beforehand how much I would enjoy it. Along with some other concerns people had, many were there to fight against the movement of the Serra Adult School. The stories of the adults were so moving, I almost cried to one of them. The time to speak was limited to one minute, and after ten more seconds, the School Board members cut off the mic. I understood the need for a time constraint, but completely cutting off the mic was very unprofessional to me. Then, I noticed that one of the women who needed a translator wasn't given extra time. For the other woman, the Board members paused the timer, but for this one, I'm guessing they forgot to. They had her conclude her remarks the same time as English speakers, and I found that quite unfair. 

Lindsayyy speaking

One woman stood up and spoke strongly against the disrespect. She pointed out how outrageous it was that the public was being given a mere one minute to speak about the problems of their daily lives, and then being cut off after a few seconds past one minute. She said that if the School Board really wanted time to discuss everything, they should have their own separate meeting, but allow the public to actually have a voice in this public meeting. And best of all, she walked away right when the timer said 0:00, giving no chance to anyone to tell her to conclude her remarks. My jaw just dropped. If there's a way to get your point across, it was the way she did it. I wish I got to talk to her and ask for her name, because I had just found myself a new role model. 

It was then our turn to get up and announce ourselves. The chaperones and cohort speakers made their great speeches. I especially loved Robson's line "1200 words for a $12,000 scholarship." After all the flawless speeches (You go Lindsay!) we went outside for a huge photo-shoot. 

Probably the best picture I have of my family

Sadly it was windy so there was a lot of hair going all over the place. The pictures must have been hard for poor Don who had to deal with the many random hands raising to fix hair over and over again. The Chicago squad found a balcony to take pictures from, and we tried out multiple poses in hope that at least one will make a great banner photo. After a while, it was getting cold and pretty much everyone had left so my family finally decided it was probably time for us to leave too. I left wondering what our Chicago photos ended up looking like, but even more, I left wondering how much fun I'd have in Chicago with these people. 

Squad once again

At least Bianche and I tried something different, even if it didn't work out as expected