Palm Springs is first district in the Coachella Valley to pay student school board members
Palm Springs Unified School District has become the first district in the Coachella Valley to pay its five student board members a stipend of about $296 per month for attending meetings, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2024.
Lota Uyanwune, a senior at Cathedral City High School who has committed to UCLA, said the compensation will alleviate the financial stress of attending college in the fall. “I have a lot of expenses that I need to pay for,” she said, “Having that little bit of extra pocket money is going to be so helpful and will be a nice little cushion.”
Earlier in the year, board member Sergio Espericueta proposed the idea during a meeting, prompted by the adoption of a new state law amending California’s education code. The law permits school districts to provide financial compensation, course credit or both to elected student board members. At the time, San Diego Unified School District made history as the first in the state to provide payment to its student board members. (PSUSD also announced its board policies are now available in Spanish.)
The new law, Assembly Bill 275, also seeks to level the playing field by ensuring that every student board member, regardless of their income status, has the opportunity to participate as board members even if they need to work.
“This year, we gave a lot more voice to the student board members and everything came together quickly,” Espericueta said. “They deserve it. This group pushed us to a lot to more things related to student board member issues. We think it will motivate more students to participate.”
To Philip Gonzalez, a junior at Rancho Mirage High School, the experience of letting their voices be heard, particularly from a student’s point of view, has been profoundly impactful. “Other students don’t get the same perspective as we do,” he said. “I’m just super grateful for being able to work with the board and especially these student board members.”
Espericueta shared that the school district is currently working towards enabling student board members to vote at the board meetings. At Coachella Valley Unified and Desert Sands Unified school districts, student board members have the opportunity to share their perspectives through preferential voting — a process that allows them the right to vote on motions before the other board members, although their votes do not ultimately decide the outcome of a motion.
“I really never thought I would be able to be a part of this,” said Julianna Ledezma, a senior at Desert Hot Springs High School, who is set to attend UC Santa Barbara. "Having the opportunity to have our voices heard and sitting up there with the members and seeing parents’ perspectives and then putting in our point of view, I feel greatly impacts how our schools function and how everyone works around it.”
The next school board meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 14 at Richards Center for the Arts at Palm Springs High School. The lobby of the performing arts theater will soon be named The Coffey Lobby after Nancy Coffey, an alumna of the high school, who donated $500,000 to the school district's nonprofit foundation.
Jennifer Cortez covers education in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at jennifer.cortez@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs Unified first local district to pay student school board members
