Whitefish students take part in growth policy update

Despite school being canceled last Thursday for a snow day, six Whitefish High School students ventured out to attend Whitefish’s Community Development Board meeting and participate in local government by sharing their ideas for the city's updated growth policy.

A team of city staffers tasked with promoting public engagement for rewriting the growth policy, wanted to hear from tomorrow’s leaders. 

Last spring, they reached out to Whitefish High School and Wesley Webb, the lead political science teacher in the social studies department, jumped at the chance to accomplish two things at once.

“I wanted to double down on … getting my students to use their schoolwork as their civic engagement,” Webb said. “I wanted to afford them a direct opportunity to participate instead of assigning that as an extra duty.”

According to Whitefish City Planner Alan Tiefenbach, the city staff made presentations at City Hall to 125 students about what a growth policy is and how it is implemented. 

Webb’s students, all seniors, returned to class and thought about issues that might be addressed by the growth policy. Their term paper assignment was to write an argumentative essay about something the city should include in the growth policy. 

City staff visited classes to help students work through ideas and potential solutions. When the students had completed the assignment, Webb surveyed his students to see who would like to present their papers to the planning staff.

“I couldn’t require them to civically participate but I encouraged them to do so,” Webb said. 

After review of all the volunteers’ papers, a handful of students were chosen to formally present their ideas at the Community Development meeting. 

“The real world civic component of the assignment was that the kids that did their research and developed quality arguments actually got to deliver it to the people who make the decisions,” Webb said. “It doesn’t get any more real than that.”

After reading about a third of the students’ papers, Tiefenbach said several of their ideas were very intriguing and may warrant discussion.

“Regardless of whether the ideas were or were not implementable, it is important to note we wanted to get members of our community, especially our youth, knowledgeable about what a growth policy is and why it is important,” Tiefenbach said. “So to me, we already won.”

Senior Isabelle Cosby presented her paper, “The Whitefish Parking Plague,” which focused on the quality and quantity of parking in Whitefish. 

“I proposed a parking garage located at the corner of Spokane Avenue and First Avenue, where a parking lot already exists,” Cosby said. “I also addressed the need for longer-term parking in town to increase the use of the S.N.O.W. Bus and improve the parking situations of downtown employees.”

An experienced public speaker, Cosby wasn’t fazed by speaking before the board in the City Council Chambers but felt the gravity of the occasion.

“It felt different to know that these people were honestly and wholeheartedly considering my ideas,” Cosby said. “It was a unique experience to not only express my thoughts and ideas to a teacher, but to have a group of influential individuals listen to what I had to say.”

Student Miki Flint argued for the installation of green roofs, roofs blanketed with vegetation, on as many structures as possible.

“As our city's population continues to grow, more vegetation will disappear, and buildings will continue to emerge in its place,” Flint said. “Green roofs can help us support our environment in these times of change.”  

Flint said she is grateful that she and her classmates were given the chance to contribute. She added that her presentation to the board was her first in a public forum.

“I'll admit that I felt pretty shaky and nervous,” Flint said. “Now that I've seen a glimpse of the inner workings of our local government, I absolutely hope to be involved in similar experiences in the future.”  

Webb said he is bolstered by the success of the students, their presentations and with the collaboration with the city, and plans on working to combine schoolwork and civic involvement in the future.

He said he was interested in setting the kids up for success and making sure they know “where the decision making happens and know how to get involved.”

Webb is delighted with the success, calling it the “biggest feather in his cap” as an educator and he is happy with the fact his students are inspirational and motivational.

“They have a different perspective on what’s going on in the world and they have fresh eyes and that’s obviously highly valuable but they shouldn’t be the ones setting the example,” Webb said, adding that he’d like to see the community become more involved. “If my students are inspiring people, then that’s awesome. 

“I just hope that watching my students get up there and do it motivates people to get in the game,” he added.

One goal of Webb’s project was to enable students to use classwork to take part in real-world, local politics. That real-world quality of the Vision Whitefish 2045 term paper and subsequent presentations was not lost on the students.

“Many assignments that I complete in school seem useless and not applicable to the real world,” Cosby said. “Contrarily, this assignment was one of the only times in my grade-school experience that I felt as if what I was doing was real. It seriously encouraged me to seek out real-world opportunities and helped me to feel like my voice could actually be heard although I am only seventeen.

To see the students’ presentations, visit youtube.com/watch?v=SmZ5uoTDE4Y&t=6153s.