Students from three San Mateo Union High School District (SMUHSD) high schools, Aragon, San Mateo, and Hillsdale, arrived together at San Mateo Hall on a school bus on the morning of Oct 15. For the 77th Annual Youth in Government Day, 21 Aragon High School seniors made the trip to San Mateo City hall to experience local government. Youth in Government Day took place Oct. 15, and students missed the school day to attend this field trip sponsored by the SMUHSD, San Mateo City Council, and San Mateo Rotary Club.
Financial aid advisor and the Aragon liaison Melissa Aliu for this field trip says, “The purpose of the Youth in Government program is to involve students enrolled at San Mateo City high schools with the procedures and functions of a local government. What I think is great about this field trip is that their intended goal is for young people to become inspired, interested, and present in local government.”
Students gained knowledge on the workings on city council by being introduced to a relevant and current city topic. The topic of discussion was affordable housing units being open to the public. The SMUHSD seniors separated into smaller groups to discuss this issue and come up with a solution. Finally, students arrived at Poplar Creek Grill in San Mateo for a catered lunch with representatives of the San Mateo Rotary Club and city council members and to present their solutions on affordable housing.
Senior and current government student Francis Vasquez comments on his purpose in attending this day and says, “[I wanted] to learn first hand about how it feels to be apart of the government. In class we learned about how the government works everyday, but I feel experiencing it will give me a new insight rather than reading about it in textbooks.”
Senior Alexandra Magnoli feels similarly saying, “I decided to go because I wanted to know what our city government deemed important in their discussions as well as try to see if my opinion could be of use to their decision making.”
Magnoli compares similarities she saw between local government and her school experience noting, “We were greeted by two of the council member Rick Bonilla and Jack Mathews who is the Deputy Mayor and they introduced us to the makings of our city government, how they have agendas like we do in our senior class council meetings, and how they’re open to the public. They also have multiple different commissions like in leadership which handle different cases that involve the city.”
Aragon government teacher Jon Felder says, “[The city has] a topic: affordable housing in the city, which is a real challenge right now. Some of our students and their families are experiencing that challenge right now. They were looking for was many types of solution as they can find to try to address this issue.”
Magnoli’s group considered how to create more living spaces for future or current residents. She says, “In our discussions and presentations we discussed adding more units by adding height to buildings, designating residential spaces to allow for more tenants, and things like that since San Mateo has more people in it than housing to help them all.”
Senior Elias Chanteloup’s group decided on a different solution to tackle the problem. He says, “We decided that we should add a minimum density rate to apartments and raise the height limit. Also we would add more public transit between these places of living and popular areas.”
Chanteloup further elaborates on the solution saying, “Buildings in San Mateo have a height limit and in order for us to increase the amount of housing we would raise it as well as add a minimum density rate in order for landlords to strive to get people to move in.”
After spending the day with San Mateo Councilmen, dining at the luncheon with San Mateo Rotary members, and learning and discussing solutions, Aragon seniors came back with a new experience and information.
Chanteloup had a unique experience at Youth in Government. Chanteloup says, “ I learned more about how our city hall is structured. I also found out that a neighbor of mine is a councilman which was surprising.”
Senior Jennifer Virgen comments, “My favorite part was interacting with the city council and actually hearing from them the issues that are affecting us.”
Virgen continues by noting her largest takeaway from the day saying, “Having the chance to talk to someone that’s behind how San Mateo is being run is pretty cool. You’re able to realize the job is not at all easy. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into it. Maybe you feel strongly about a topic and you want to change it but it’s not as easy as you think. There’s a lot that goes through it.”
Felder believes the importance of the event lies on the experience more than the discussed topics. He says, “Learning about government, we do a lot learning about it in the classroom. We use the textbook, we discuss topics, we read about different topics, we interact with what’s going on in terms of politics today, campaign,s different branch of government. But a big part of government is being involved-civically involved. This seemed like a great opportunity for that… It was a good way for students to meet their councilmen, speak their minds, have their voices be heard, and collaborate with other students.”
