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Faith Mekonen, a rising senior at South County High School, will represent students in county education policy discussions during the 2025-26 school year.
The countywide Student Advisory Council elected Mekonen to a one-year term beginning July 1. She will attend board meetings as a nonvoting member and succeed Megan Sawant, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.
Mekonen will become the board’s 55th student representative. Her three main priorities are reducing disparities in student discipline, strengthening student involvement in policy decisions and overseeing the implementation of revised grading and cellphone rules.
The continuing debate over grading practices, including retakes and consistency among classrooms, is a particular focus. Mekonen said the policy was created to encourage equity and mastery-based learning, but teachers and students have raised competing concerns about whether it is too restrictive or too lenient.
As a member of the Grading Standardization Advisory Committee, Mekonen has already collaborated with educators, administrators and students on ways to make the policy fair, effective and supportive of learning.
She plans to gather student feedback through social media, surveys and the student representative newsletter. Mekonen also intends to draw on her two years with the Student Advisory Council to bring students’ perspectives into decisions affecting their education and well-being.
Her experience includes serving as vice president of South County’s Ethiopian & Eritrean Association, Model UN secretary and a youth adviser to the U.S. Department of Education. She has also been a Harvard STRIPED youth policy translator and participated in a student leadership development program for the county’s public schools.
Mekonen’s other roles include Civics Unplugged fellow, policy researcher for The Perrin Institution, Los Angeles Times High School Insider and Virginia legislative director for Voters of Tomorrow. She was also a state finalist in the Technology Student Association’s forensics competition.