Joseph shares student government example and encourages engagement

Well, thank you for that.

That was one of the questions.

I was at Queens College yesterday, and they were like, so how do we get involved?

And I'm like, high school students, you can start with your SLT, with your school leadership team.

You could start on that.

And I said, there's a stipend.

There goes an incentive.

So I...

There's a program that I used to run when I was teaching.

I taught from K to 5.

My student had a student government.

From kindergarten, their needs were different.

They wanted to put more playtime versus the second graders versus the kids who wanted to play more gym.

But every month, they met with the principal, and they gave her ideas, and that's how we came about having a salad bar.

In the cafeteria, we're having water fountains in the cafeteria.

That's because they were engaged.

And when I was running for office in real time, I was their current events.

Like, council member, we saw your poster.

We saw you doing this.

And then we kept them engaged.

So there's a program in Brooklyn now for that where the kids are actually running for offices in their own school.

They campaign.

They look for endorsement.

And they have debates.

And they bring us in as judges.

So I think that should spread across New York City.

And this is the reason why we had this hearing.

It's like, okay, what do we have and how do we perfect it?

Thank you so much.

And welcome.

We look forward to working with you.