Youth tell adults about their generation at summit

Friday, Oct. 23, 2009

To many adults, the life of a school-aged child or teenager is a carefree one.

Not so much, as was indicated at the Calvert Crusade for Children's Citizen Summit II, held at the Elks Lodge in Prince Frederick on Tuesday evening.

"This is when we bring all the community in to get input for how we can improve the community," said the organization's vice president, Guffrie Smith, who explained that like at last November's summit, each table would have student and adult participants discussing issues that youth face in and out of school today.

These issues included community involvement; drug issues; bullying; community service opportunities; and cooperation between schools.

Calvert Crusade for Children President Marie Andrews said that discussion topics for the summit stemmed from the results of last year's summit and therefore came from young people themselves.

She said she was surprised by how many students saw competition between the four Calvert County high schools as a serious issue.

"Maybe there are people who aren't as competitive," Andrews surmised, adding that she also saw a need for Neighborhood Cares programs.

"That's a biggie; it's sort of the other half of Neighborhood Watch," she said, adding that such a program could actually prevent the issues that Neighborhood Watch looks out for.

The event included a panel comprised of both students and adults.

Calvert Crusade for Children analyst and former Calvert County public schools student Robert Poling looked back to when he said Calvert County used to be the third poorest county in the state of Maryland.

Now, Poling said, Calvert is the sixth richest county in the nation.

"We now have the resources to do what is right … we just need to guide those resources," he said, soliciting applause from Andrews, who was sitting on stage.

Calvert County Board of Education Vice President William Phalen, however, earlier told the panel that state cuts to education hurt the counties, which in turn hurt today's youth.

"When you start cutting those [in school] programs, you start cutting a youth's education," Phalen said.

Justin Astafanous, the Calvert County Board of Education's student representative, said that he believes that being involved within the community and in school leads to a well-rounded youth.

"You know what you do is going to be appreciated and meaningful to somebody," he said, continuing that while he believes that bullying is still a problem, its nature has shifted.

"It's happening to a different extent. It's happening less in schools and moving more to cyber bullying, which is a whole new frontier," he said, adding that while cyber bullying elicits the same fear, "it's a concealed fear when it's behind a computer screen or via text."

Calvert High School sophomore Kirsten Sellers attended the summit and agreed that bullying via text usually occurred in school and often between friends.

"Friends will have drama … people will start calling each other names," said Sellers, who recently said she witnessed two of her friends fighting via text over a male classmate while in the same room.

"I was like, ‘really, guys?'" Sellers said.

Not all hope is lost, however, as Huntingtown High School freshman Maryn Jordan and Jessica Norwood said their transition into high school was an easy one.

Norwood said that the only issue she saw among her peers was adjusting to the one-hour lunch period, during which she said some students got a little too friendly with each other through public displays of affection.

"The only issues were a little trash outside the classrooms and PDAs, but [teachers] said ‘stop' and people did."

lbuck@somdnews.com