The “S” in SMOB stands for stupid. While I’m only joking, I’m sure the statement would be widely accepted by a majority of students and staff in the county. Each year, MCPS likes to wave it in our faces that students are “represented” by a Student Member of the Board (SMOB), who is newly elected around the end of the school year, typically un April, to prepare for their next term, which begins in July.

This tradition of electing a student to represent our collective student voice dates back nearly half a century in MCPS, but I’m sure most students would agree that these students are anything but a representation of the average high schooler. Most often, these students are overly ambitious and like to constantly remind us of the dozens of ways that they’ve been “serving us” from behind the scenes up until the time of their election. They stack up on extracurriculars and are involved in any activity you could possibly imagine. To be honest, most students can hardly even begin to relate to these high-achieving phenomenons.

Did I also mention that the title comes with a $25,000 college scholarship once they’re successfully elected? Yeah, and on top of the pay, the position also practically includes an “admit one” ticket to any top school of your choosing. On top of that, they earn SSL hours and an honors social studies credit. It sounds like a pretty nice deal.

SMOB candidates tend to include unlikely solutions in their campaigns to problems like the increased accessibility of fentanyl strips, which newly elected SMOB Anuva Maloo mentioned well over five times in her candidate video. Yes, schools should make sure to have these strips in their health rooms in the very unlikely event that a student takes a drug that may have fentanyl. That’s pretty obvious.  Maloos’ opponent mentioned his plans to increase security technology if he were elected. No one would argue against keeping students safe, but the logistics of such measures would make getting into the school each morning a larger hassle that many would disapprove of. Other attempts at increased school safety that were greatly considered a failure this past school year were the implementation of the ID policy requiring students to have it on their person at all times to be checked by security when questioned. It feels as though, through most of their solutions, they only create more issues in the system.

MCPS’s efforts to give the student body a voice have only come across as a way to prove that they “care,” but do we really need someone to tell them the issues occurring in our local schools? Are the adults in charge of MCPS  so out of touch that they truly need a SMOB to tell them what is going on in their schools? It’s time for MCPS to step it up and go further than simply saying that a SMOB is proof of their efforts.This institution of a student member simply serves as the Board’s way of pretending student voice matters. Fot the SMOB to be truly effective reform is needed to ensure better representation.