District 24’s newly inducted Representative, Dani Isaacsohn, has begun holding “Student Constituent Advisory Council” meetings for CPS students to discuss issues they face in education and propose possible solutions. 

“I’m a big believer in the idea that the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution, or as I like to say people with lived experience are everyday experts,” Isaacsohn said.  “And so as I’m thinking about how we can have as successful an equitable and fair school funding process as possible…you have to talk to the people closest to it, which are the people in the education system, which are students.” 

Isaacsohn was recently appointed to the Ohio House Finance Subcommittee on Primary and Secondary Education. The Student Advisory meetings are part of an effort to understand how constituents believe the education budget should be spent.

“This is a significant appointment. This is very important, both for our school district, even for our tax base, [and] for you as individual students, I mean, this is money. Money means opportunities and new technology,” Kraig Hoover, the AP Program Leader for CPS, said. 

The first two meetings were held Feb. 4 and 11 at Cohear, a company founded by Isaacsohn that connects community members with companies and government figures. Some of the topics discussed were literacy rates, mental health and student teacher ratios. 

“I definitely noticed some themes from other conversations I’ve had around mental health challenges around noticing differences in how schools operate and what resources are available at different schools,” Isaacsohn said. “I think it will never stop being jarring to hear students talk about feeling set up to fail. And what that says about our priorities as a system [and] as a society that students feel that way.”

Several students who were present plan to take part in future meetings and elaborate on their ideas. 

“[I hope to discuss] some actual action into some of the opinions we had, like I mentioned opening up the gym instead of just locking everybody in the Arcade or making them go out to Blair,” Sophia Lin, ‘24, said. 

The majority of students in attendance came from WHHS, although the meeting was open to all students in CPS. 

“I think I want there to be more schools from the district other than Walnut because what people experienced at Walnut, and the ratios of resources that we have here are completely different compared to the ones at other schools and kids,” Breanna Siatwaambo, ‘24, said.

Future meetings will be held over the next couple months as needed in Cohear’s office located at 791 E McMillan St in Walnut Hills, but people may also contact Rep. Isaacsohn at Rep24@ohiohouse.gov. 

“[These meetings] are just one of the ways in which I want to engage with students and make sure young people are part of the process of governing and legislating,” Isaacsohn said.  “So people should feel free to reach out to me or my office…when other issues are coming up, when they want to talk or if they want to get a group of their friends together…because they’ve seen an issue, whether it’s education related or otherwise.”

These conversations are a small part of Isaacsohn’s long term plan to ensure constituents are more comfortable expressing their needs to their representatives. 

“Part of the mission long term is how do we change the culture of politics and…how people feel about elected officials and their representatives and how do we make it more of a partnership,” Isaacsohn said.