Teen forum brings youth’s issues to light
Stewart Smith
Staff Reporter
Huntsville’s youth will have the opportunity to speak their mind and question
local authority figures at the upcoming Huntsville Youth Council Teen Forum.
Scheduled for Thursday, May 10 and sponsored by Huntsville’s Promise and the
Huntsville Youth Council, the forum will allow local junior high and high school
students to confront three different panels of community leaders about issues
affecting teens.
The panels, consisting of leaders from the school district and city government,
will be followed by an open mic time.
“It’s a chance for them to speak their mind about what they’d like to see happen
the next five to ten years in the community,” said Huntsville’s Promise
Executive Director Scott Atnip.
Alexandra Herrera-Schneider, an junior at Huntsville High School and member of
the Huntsville Youth Council, said she hopes the forum will enlighten adults to
issues they are “oblivious to.”
“A lot of it is the boredom kids have and that leads to them doing stuff like
going out and partying or doing drugs,” Herrera-Schneider said. “Parents just
aren’t involved in kids lives anymore. They’ll just hand them the car keys and
let them go off and do their thing. They need to be more involved.”
Herrera-Schneider said she wants adults leaders to communicate more with teens
and students.
“Like this past week at school, it felt like we were on lockdown,”
Herrera-Schneider said. “You had to have passes to get anywhere. Exits were
marked off. It turns out that security was just being tightened because of the
Virginia (Tech) shootings, but no one knew that because no one told us. We had
no idea what was going on.”
Herrera-Schneider encouraged every student to come let their voice be heard.
“It’s important that they have their input heard and let adults understand what
is going on,” she said. “They need to ask higher up officials questions and tell
them what is happening and not just say, ‘whatever’.”
A location and time for the event will be announced in the coming week.
Huntsville Item, 04.30.07
Huntsville's Promise