Alachua County Commission votes to create a Youth Academy and moves toward forming an advisory Youth Commission in the next year

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their February 11 regular meeting, the Alachua County Commission voted to create a Youth Academy modeled on its Citizen’s Academy, add a student member to three advisory boards if the boards agree, and move toward creating a Youth Commission to advise the County Commission.

Staff presented three options

Shannon Hahn from the County Manager’s Office gave the presentation, which arose from a September 2021 motion directing staff to create youth representative positions on County advisory boards. Hahn said the County has three options: 

• Add one youth representative to advisory boards/committees
• Form a Youth Commission to advise the Board of County Commissioners
• Create a Youth Academy, similar to the County’s Citizen’s Academy

Hahn said youth representatives could provide a “youth perspective” to some or all of the advisory boards, giving a voice to youth in the county and helping to “grow the future leaders of our county.” However, she said, teens may have challenges with transportation or may be in school during scheduled meetings. The youth would need to learn about Sunshine laws and would be subject to attendance requirements. 

A Youth Commission would be a small group of students who would advise the Board of County Commissioners. Hahn said that like the first option, this would add a youth perspective and help grow future leaders, but the downsides would also be similar: transportation challenges, Sunshine laws, attendance requirements, and the limited number of students who could participate, depending on the size of the board. 

A Youth Academy could have weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly meetings, and academies could be run at intervals throughout the year. Sunshine laws would not apply to attendees of these events, and 40 to 60 students could potentially be involved. The main downside would be transportation.

Hahn said the academies could have different themes, such as Budget and Beverages, Pizza and Politics, and Cupcakes and Conversations, and she said there are educational tools available that the County can use to develop the academies. 

Staff recommendation

Hahn said staff recommended placing a student representative on the Citizen Climate Advisory Committee and the Recreational Open Space Advisory Committee, developing a Youth Academy based on the Citizen’s Academy that would run during the school year, and returning in a year with an update.

Alford suggests also adding a student representative to the Equity Committee

Commissioner Mary Alford said she would “love to see them all… This is a positive thing that we can do with our youth.” She also suggested adding a student representative to the Equity Committee, “for equity reasons.” She suggested that student representatives be between 16 and 18 to help with transportation concerns, and she thought the School Board might be willing to give academic credit for serving on a board. 

First motion

Alford made a motion to approve the staff recommendations, ask staff to investigate adding a student to the Equity Board, and ask the School Board whether students could receive academic credit for participating.

Prizzia favors a Youth Commission that would serve all the advisory boards

Commissioner Anna Prizzia said that when the 2021 motion was made, “our vision was to have a Youth Commission… of young people, probably 16 to 21, I would argue… I guess what I want to say is that I think that vision requires commitment… of staff, like a staff that really understands how to do youth leadership development, who understands how to work with them and train them and provide them with the appropriate skills and support that they’re going to need.” She said she favored a Youth Commission because then any advisory board could bring topics to the Youth Commission for input. 

Prizzia added, “That board could be really diverse, right? We could talk about geographic location. We could talk about ethnicity, socio-economic backgrounds, like, make sure that it really represents the broad diversity of the youth that we have. And then they could be learning and thinking about all these different issues, and it could rotate on some regular basis.” She said a Youth Commission would take more staff time and more budget, “but I’m actually in favor of that.” She said she didn’t support putting one student on an existing advisory board because the student might not feel “safe to even speak up,” and the board chairs may not “know how to make space for young people to speak up.”

Prizzia added, “I love the academy idea,” and said the students could attend the Citizen’s Academy first, maybe over Spring Break or during the summer, and then the County could recruit from those students. She said she didn’t support Alford’s suggestion to put students on existing boards “because I’m not sure these boards are ready for that.”

Wheeler suggests drawing from students who are involved in Student Government or on debate teams

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler said that students who are already involved in Student Government or on debate teams could be good candidates. She supported a week-long “intensive… exposure to what we’re doing in our local community” but noted that transportation is an issue, so they might consider holding it at Cuscowilla as a sleepover camp. 

Wheeler agreed that trying to reschedule existing boards around school schedules “might be a little wonky.” She again suggested inviting all the students in Student Government at the high schools to become involved: “I just feel like there are ways to engage kids that are already engaged; we just don’t hear from them. We don’t know who they are.”

Cornell: “I’m afraid if we do it wrong, it will fizzle.”

Commissioner Ken Cornell said he supported Prizzia’s goal of a Youth Commission, “but I don’t want to do it wrong. I’m afraid if we do it wrong, it will fizzle.” He said a Youth Academy could get up and running very quickly, and he suggested asking the three advisory committees whether they are ready to add a youth member. 

Cornell suggests coordinating with Children’s Trust, Prizzia adds School Board and City of Gainesville

Cornell noted that the Gun Violence Initiative has youth advisory boards around the county, funded by the Children’s Trust of Alachua County (CTAC), and those students could be added to the pool of candidates. He said he wanted to move toward having a Youth Commission in a year.

Prizzia said she loved the idea of coordinating with CTAC “because I think it could be a joint board. It could be a joint Youth Commission that advises CTAC, advises us – it could even be joint with the School Board and/or the City, like, it could be just a Youth Commission… that could be hearing from different local government boards on issues and providing that guidance,… pulling from all these different areas where these different government agencies are touching youth.” She suggested that CTAC might be able to provide the staff to train and support the Youth Commission. 

Substitute motion

Cornell made a substitute motion to develop a Youth Academy based on the Citizen’s Academy, either structured similarly to the Citizen’s Academy (weekly meetings for some period of time) or as a summer camp; refer to the Citizens’ Climate Advisory Committee, the Recreational Open Space Advisory Committee, and the Equity Committee the idea of adding a youth representative and ask them to bring back recommendations; direct staff to inquire and work with the School Board, CTAC, and potentially the Library District to develop the idea of a student Youth Commission that would serve the different organizations and bring back recommendations at the end of the year; and ask staff to think about the budget that might be required in the next budget cycle for these requests. Alford seconded the motion.

Chair Chuck Chestnut said he would like to do a survey of the high school Student Governments to find out how many students would be interested in participating. He thought the Youth Academy was the most important part, for students to “actually learn about government.”

Prizzia said there are other organizations, like 4-H, that might have candidates for participation. 

Wheeler suggested that a Commissioner should go to Student Government meetings to present the idea and said she would be willing to go, but Prizzia thought they needed a young person to do that, maybe somebody from Student Government at a college. Wheeler responded, “I just feel like it would make more of an impact – if we really want to engage kids, we need to go face-to-face and make it look exciting.”

Alford said she thinks there’s already “interest out there… I think this is going to be more popular than we realize.”

Cornell’s substitute motion passed unanimously.