Twenty Platte County High School students recently took part in a Virtual Student Exchange via Zoom, with 20 students from Truman High School in Independence. Dr. Keith Jones, principal at PCHS, had organized the Virtual Student Exchange at the previous high schools where he worked and wanted to introduce it to Platte City.
Kyle Perkins, Amayia Williams, Madelynn Darst and Marcus Gardner were four of the students who participated in the event, which focused on learning about others schools, discussing various topics around equity, school culture and how to lead during a pandemic.
Each school put together a 5-7 minute video to highlight the great things about their schools.
As student council sponsor for Virtual Student Exchange, Kyle Perkins’ role in the organization was to recruit members of the PCHS Student Council to participate.
“Once I found participants, I found a pair of students to create a virtual tour of PCHS to share with Truman High School,” Perkins said.
Although the virtual event didn’t make the students’ experience as authentic as a physical visit, they were still able to share their experiences and exchange information.
“Our students were able to share what they do at PCHS. To have a better idea what it’s like to be a student at PCHS,” Perkins said. “Despite the limitations due to the pandemic, this was a positive learning experience for both the PCHS and Truman students. Hopefully students from both schools realized teenagers are going through some of the same things even though they’re at different high schools.”
The main topic students discussed was what school looks like during a pandemic. They compared hybrid schedules and how learning was different in the last year.
“PCHS had just returned to full in-person learning, so our students were able to share what the first few days of that experience was like,” Perkins said. “The focus of the day was more on sharing what programs each school had to offer and what a day looks like in each school.”
The school’s video was a walk-through of the school building. One of the students gave a tour as they would with a new student.
“Our students were able to compare our school to Truman High School and see similarities and differences,” Perkins said. “Hopefully, our students learned that the way PCHS does things isn’t the only way, or necessarily the best way. I also think it was good for our students to share what it’s like to learn during a pandemic, and hopefully made them realize there are people outside their school or friend group that had similar challenges. I think it was neat for our students to hear two educators discuss problems in challenges they faced by teaching during a pandemic. But the best part was listening to our own students sharing what they’ve experienced regarding equity. Their experiences at PCHS were quite eye opening. One of the students in my group was a black student that attended Barry Middle School. Listening to her share her experience coming to PCHS as a freshman and not seeing as many people that ‘look like her’ in class made her experience somewhat intimidating. I hadn’t considered how difficult that transition from Barry to PCHS could be for a black student. That conversation made me grateful for the amount of diversity represented in PCHS Student Council. I wish I could take credit for that diversity. Our program is fortunate that we have Student Council sponsors at both of our middle schools that provide a great experience and students want to continue with Student Council when they get to PCHS.”
For PCHS student, Madelyn Darst, the event was a chance to interact with students from other schools.
“In a normal year we have events where we collaborate with different schools, sometimes we meet each other and become friends at football games, etc.,” Darst said. “This year due to COVID we didn’t have a chance to do that. I also wanted to see how other schools were dealing with this crazy year. My hope was that maybe if there is something they were doing to handle COVID that we liked, we could adopt it and vice versa.”
During the small group time during the session she was paired with the Student Council president of Truman and liked having the chance to see Truman from the view of the most influential person in their student body.
“She had a wonderful outlook on this hard year and shared so many ideas that helped improve her school,” Darst said. “Seeing how much change and good she brought into her school even inspired me to run for Student Body president of PCHS. I hope I bring the same new ideas and good things during my time as Student Body president next year that she brought to her school this year.”
One of the most memorable things she learned about Truman High School was how career-driven their school is. Instead of having a separate program geared toward preparing for future careers, everything in their school is directed towards a student’s future career. Starting as early as the first class in freshman year, Truman has students pick a career path and plans classes based off of their choice.
“Another thing I found very memorable is how their theatre program has been running during COVID,” Darst said. “As a theatre kid myself, I was very interested in seeing how they have been doing. I was very happy for them to hear that they have been able to safely have performances with COVID restrictions. I shared with Truman a lot about our school from the theatre perspective. I talked them through how well we do even with a smaller budget. I also explained how the arts at our school have been dealing with COVID in a very safe manner all while making us kids happy.”
Darst said one of the biggest similarities between PCHS and Truman is how community-oriented both schools are.
“Both of our schools really strive to make our school feel like a community,” Darst said. “We both value students’ voices and their safety. I think this was a wonderful learning experience for me. I left the exchange feeling extremely inspired and full of new ideas for our school. We discussed many different topics from how good our food at lunch is to the Black Lives Matter movement. I loved that everyone in this discussion was mature enough to respect different opinions and didn’t shy away from the tough topics. We talked a lot about what everyday life is like at each school and how things happening in the world impact that.”
Amayia Williams wanted to participate in the event because she was interested in seeing how other schools are structured in order to see the similarities and differences, and if she could contribute anything she has learned from Truman to her school.
“I was paired with Joshua Dixon, a senior at Truman, who I ironically already knew and have been friends with for many years,” Williams said. “One of the most memorable things I learned is that they are set up for success from the beginning of their freshman year by being able to set a plan for themselves throughout their four years of high school. I’ve learned that every school isn’t perfect and that we’re all trying to make our schools better places, especially when it comes to being inclusive.
Williams said this event was a great learning experience for her because she was able to take ideas from Truman that she had never even thought about. She also appreciated getting to network with students from a different school.
“There weren’t many differences besides that when they want to form a club they bring the idea to Student Council, rather than administrative, and that they have a program that is similar to NCC and NCAPS that they have here,” Williams said. “But they’re able to do that in school and have classes dedicated to their future career path. I shared with them how we have been able to contribute to our school community within the pandemic and how we have been able to make things fun and as normal as possible.”
Marcus Gardner wanted to experience the Virtual Student Exchange to meet students from a different school and see how their school does things.
“We started by giving them a virtual tour of our school, showing different areas and the variety of posters and art on the walls. In the groups, we shared with Truman that we spare no effort in celebrating something, such as Black History Month, Women’s History Month, among others. We shared the different ways students participate, dressing up, making art, and so on, in our school Spirit Weeks, which happen at least once a month.”
The most memorable things that Gardner learned about Truman are that they take core classes and college readiness extremely seriously. “They have ‘pathways’ that students can take. Each is based on a career (like medicine or law) with different classes that you should take throughout the years you attend. Also, when it comes to clubs, if any Truman student wants to start a brand new club, they can find a sponsor, pitch the idea to the student council, and get it certified as an actual club. Meaning Truman allows a lot of student-driven projects, which I found really interesting and memorable.”
He said the similarities between the two schools are many. Both schools emphasize education. “Platte County has its variety of courses to take, if you want to get a leg-up into college, take dual credit,” Gardner said. “Want to earn some extra credit toward a degree, then take AP classes. Truman has its aforementioned ‘pathways’ where students in higher-level classes can participate in job shadows. Another similarity between Platte County and Truman is we both play hard. Both schools have a plethora of extracurricular and sport-related trophies and accomplishments. In the world of high school sports Truman’s teams are some of the best.”
The Virtual Student Exchange proved to be a good learning experience for Gardner since he has only been in Missouri for about three years and he didn’t know a lot about other schools in the area. He learned that each school has been impacted in about the same way due to the pandemic, including limited social gatherings and little to no sporting events that allow students to attend.
“We talked about a variety of topics. We started by splitting into small groups and discussing, and then sharing as a whole,” Gardner said. “We started by talking about different things school does for the students, like Spirit Week, and Black History Month. Then we moved to more serious topics, like racism in schools, and how we combat them. The biggest difference would be the size of the school, to me, Platte County High School is a little cozier, we are like one great big family, whereas Truman (in my opinion) has a ton of students and has a more bureaucratic feel.”