Students from a variety of clubs including Mock Trial, ODFL, Everytown Club and ASB participated in this year’s Mountain View Mayor’s Youth Conference. This year’s conference was held on Wednesday, November 4, in downtown Mountain View. Students from the school were under the direction of Assistant Principal Cristy Dawson.
The conference was put on by Mountain View’s Youth Advisory Committee (YAC). Students departed from the school early Wednesday morning. They then met up with over 130 students from a variety of other schools at the Center for Performing Arts in Mountain View.
Dawson called the Mayor’s Youth Conference an “exciting opportunity for kids of different high schools to get together and discuss future projects for their high school and clubs.”
The conference was run by Mountain View Mayor Tom Means. Each year the conference has a theme. This year, the theme was “Your Vision, Your Community and Your Impact.” Students took part in workshops and worked together both in small groups and larger groups.
“It was interesting,” senior Talea Seyed said. “Some workshops were more interesting than others.”
The purpose of the event was for students to share their ideas with city officials and other community members. It also aimed to give city officials a chance to hear what students had to say. The event closed with two guest speakers: Mountain View High School junior Akash Nigam, founder of “Kick, Lead, and Dream,” a soccer program for at-risk youth, and Los Altos High School’s ODFL president senior Mandeep Chahal.
Means proposed a challenge for those attending the conference. This year, Means challenged teams to implement the visions that they came up with in their groups and use them to generate an impact in the community. The team that wins the challenge will be recognized at the City of Mountain View Spring Parade in April and will be awarded a $250 grant toward its cause.
“Each group did proposals on a project, and each workshop focused on how to make them better and how to achieve them more effectively,” Talea said.
