FALCONER – Students in Jacob Proper’s government class at Falconer High School have gotten a unique opportunity as part of a recent assignment.

The assignment gave students a first-hand experience, involving attending some sort of local governmental meeting. Not only does it seem that students are developing a greater appreciation for local politics as a result, but the children are actually getting to see how these boards operate.

Proper noted that this assignment is a tradition that the school has long held. Previously, a teacher named Michael Ginestre would give the same assignment to students, according to Proper. Ginestre has since gone on to become the superintendent of the Sweet Home Central School District in Amherst. Proper also noted that a teacher by the name of Bill Hennon, who came before Ginestre, had also given the assignment. While Proper did not create the assignment, he recognized the benefits and continues its long tradition today as a result.

The assignment sees students having to attend some sort of local governmental meeting, said Proper. This can include a school board, village board, town board, or even a County Legislative meeting. Proper discussed students that have attended meetings for the town of Ellington, town of Ellicott, and village of Falconer. However, Proper stated that most kids seem to migrate toward the district’s school board meeting, as it is of greatest convenience and relevance to most students. While attending these meetings, students will take notes on the topics that the board is discussing. With these notes, students will go on to writing a three-paged paper discussing what they heard at the meeting, said Proper. Proper also said that students must put their own opinions into the paper and discuss what their views were on the matter discussed by the board. Students are graded on what they write and how well it follows the guidelines given to them in advance.

“What I hope to give them is an idea of what the government process looks like,” said Proper. “I want them to see how a meeting is run, what they talk about at these meetings, what the mayor and the trustees do, what the school board members do, what they talk about, the different subjects and how it’s done.”

While Proper stated that students were not necessarily surprised by what they saw at the meeting, many did seem to show intrigue. Proper noted that many students’ interests do not typically extend beyond national politics. As a result, Proper hopes that this assignment will encourage more youth to participate in local governmental activities. Proper noted that many students that participate in the activity not only seem to have a better understanding of the importance of local government, but also seem to be intrigued by the matters they heard discussed.

“Actually, I thought they were going to be really bored at these meetings, and they go and they kind of like it,” said Proper. “When they leave the meeting, most of them will tell me that ‘actually, I was kind of glad I went to one of those’.”

Proper stated that this first-hand experience has even proven useful to helping students better understand lessons in the classroom. Being able to draw comparisons to many of these local governmental systems has proven quite effective in explaining some high-level governmental bodies, stated Proper. Since it is something that the students have experienced themselves, Proper said that the students ability to rewind to that experience has helped make sense of some of the class work.