Beginning in July, Kenai Central High School junior Josh Bolling will have the ears of Alaska's top education officials as their student adviser.
“My role is to bring perspectives and thoughts of students around the state, to the State Board of Education, and those can be to affect policy and like everything in the schools that affects students,” he said.
The 17-year-old already has some experience with leadership roles. For the last two years, he’s held a similar position on the Kenai City Council, updating members on school events and the things on students’ minds. And he was also selected by a group of fellow Kenai Peninsula students to serve on the school district’s educational material review committee.
He says it’s important for students to be involved, especially when it comes to education.
“These policies and these rules and laws that are made by the school board and the Department of Education are what affect the students,” he said. “It's what affects us every day, in our school, in our environment. And I think it's important to remember that these politicians, they seem so big and scary, but you know, at the end of the day, they're just adults.”
Bolling says he’ll advocate for further increases to the base amount of money the state gives school districts per student. And he’s especially passionate about career and technical education, or CTE. He says he’d like to help expand CTE programming for students around the state, like the computer design and manufacturing class he’s taken for his three years as a Kenai Kardinal.
He thinks that passion helped land him his position on the state board.
“In my interview, I talked a lot about CTE and representation for students, and why I think that that's so important,” he said.
Bolling moved to the central peninsula when he was 10 years old. He’s a baseball player and advanced placement student who owns a landscaping business.
Alaska’s state school board is a group created by state law to head up the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. There are nine members, including a military member and a student representative who casts advisory votes. The state board passes regulations and policies that apply to public schools. For example, the group recently published guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence in classrooms.
State School Board Chair Sally Stockhausen said the board received six student applications this year. Some came from freshmen and sophomores, who Stockhausen said should reapply in the future.
“It's exciting to see so many young people, so passionate and well spoken, who are already committed to serve their state and community,” she said.
Amber Sherman agreed. She’s the board’s current student representative and goes to Career Tech High School in Wasilla.
“I'm very excited to work with you for the remainder of my term,” she said. “I'm glad to have some help. And then I also want to say thank you to everybody who applied for the role. You all had amazing responses. And I am very happy to see how many people have an interest in student voice.”
Now that he’s been selected, Bolling says he’ll get an email affiliated with the State of Alaska, which he’ll use as his primary way of communicating with board members and students around the state. He says he’d like to reach out to superintendents and other education leaders to get their ideas and perspectives as the board considers different issues.
