On March 10, LCPS Superintendent Aaron Spence visited Rock Ridge for a town hall event in the auditorium, where he answered questions from the student body about new policies and concerns.

Spence has already visited several LCPS schools this year, including Tuscarora, Briar Woods, Dominion, and Stone Bridge, with the main goal of these events being to communicate with students and give them a space to voice their concerns about their school system. “I really haven’t had the chance to just sit down and talk with students outside of the classroom setting and just hear what’s on our students’ minds, so this year we decided that [the school board] would host these student town halls in all of our high schools, and I’m really enjoying them, so I plan on continuing doing it,” Spence said. 

One major concern brought up in the town hall was the new grading policy and the maximum 70% bar for retakes. Students expressed concerns about the retake policy not allowing students to reflect their efforts on their grades. “What we can do [to address these concerns] is offer recommendations for policy adjustments, and we have a couple of different mechanisms for doing that, but I’m going to go back and talk to my team about this again [to see] if we need to do some surveying to find out about the impact of the grading policy changes,” Spence said.

Students also voiced their thoughts on wanting changes to the summer program, such as accommodating it to fit more students. “I definitely heard students wanting to know more about our summer programs, so I feel like that’s something we need to lean into,” Spence said. “[We can figure out] what changes, if any, are we making to our summer programs and how are we being responsive to student needs.” 

Students, like senior Sahasra Daggu, also expressed worries about Rock Ridge students not being able to balance their work with their mental health. “I was wondering if they could advocate for more mental health days, not just for the students who have mental health issues, but also for everyone because Rock Ridge is a pretty competitive school, and we’re all very talented people, but we’re also very competitive and take hard classes,” Daggu said.

The use of AI was brought up as well. Spence offered the idea of integrating AI into school curricula once they find ways to keep students’ data safe. 

When asked about the long school day for high school students, Spence made it clear that school start times are completely up to students, reminding the students to fill out student surveys in order for them to have a bigger voice in the decisions being made around them. 

Spence hopes to continue and meet students to hear about their problems in order to make the school system better for the students. “It was a little bit selfish of just wanting to spend more time with students and then also wanting to hear directly from our students about what’s on their mind,” Spence said. “I’m actually curious and want to find out how to meet our students’ goals [and see] if they feel like they’re being heard and have the opportunity.”

Students such as sophomore Rishi Selshe expressed that they felt like this event helped them feel heard by the county. “I learned truly about how other students are feeling,” Selshe said. “And I feel like Dr. Spence also learned how other students were reacting to the school’s initiatives and decisions. So with that, it really creates some awareness, and hopefully Dr. Spence and the school board members will try to do something based on these town hall meetings.”

Spence will continue going to schools to hear from students about their questions and concerns, which he plans on addressing to the school board. “At the very end, all the way up to the very senior levels of leadership in the school division, all adults really care about you all and your experience,” Spence said.

Spence and his team hope to hear more about students and plan on addressing any concerns that the students of LCPS are worried about. They encourage students to make their opinions heard by talking to their school board representatives (Amy Riccardi for Rock Ridge), filling out student surveys the county sends out, and communicating their concerns in their feedback form.“We are constantly always thinking about how to make sure that you are successful and feel like you belong in your schools, [and] make things better for you,” Chief Communications Officer at LCPS Natalie Allen said.