After a restful summer unplugged from technology, I’m back to blogging! For new readers, my name is Toni and I’m a senior instrumental major at LaGuardia Arts high school. I am also a member of the New York City Student Union, a student-run organization whose mission is to serve as a powerful, collective voice for NYC’s public high school students.

The student union began in 2006 after a cell phone ban was placed on public schools. Four high school students (who are now in college) were reading articles together about the ban and kept reading quotes such as “a parent says,” “a teacher says," “a principal says," “the mayor says," and “the chancellor says.” They noticed that while students were more affected by the ban than anyone else, their opinion was not publicized at all.

These four students organized a student protest outside City Hall, but very few students showed up. They realized that there was a lack of unity and communication among students across the city, which made it difficult to organize and defend our rights as students. That year, the New York City Student Union was born.<!--more-->

Now entering our fourth year as a union, we remain true to our original mission of student voice and unity. We are open to all public high school students, and we are constantly trying to expand our membership. As a union and as individuals, we speak on important issues in our schools through our blog, petitions, press releases, forums, representation at larger meetings and forums, letters, internet campaigns, and collaboration with other education organizations.

One of our main projects right now is the Student Government Project. The goal of this project is to create, improve and connect student governments in high schools around the city. We believe that effective student governments are extremely important in the fight for student voice and power. Last spring, we held our first student government forum, which was attended by student government members from high schools around the city. The forum involved a discussion of what makes a good student government, strategy sharing, and exchanging contact information to work together on common issues in the future. We will be having another one this fall.

We are open to all public high school students, and are always interested in forming relationships with other groups in the education activist world. To contact us, email union@nycstudents.org. If you are a student interested in coming to a meeting, directions can be found at nycstudents.org, under the “meetings” link on the right side. Free pizza at every meeting!