Ann Wheeler, Chair of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) and Dr. Babur Lateef, Chair of the Prince William County School Board held a virtual event on Tuesday in order to connect with and hear from local students.

The event, titled “PWC Youth in Conversation with the Chairs”, featured Wheeler and Lateef speaking to nine students and recent graduates from Prince William County and answering their questions. Topics included: police brutality; police presence in schools; the renaming of Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas; police background checks; protecting undocumented students; teacher diversity training; armed school resource officers; PWCS hiring practices; and racism in the PWCS code of conduct.

Wheeler said that she feels the current climate has made conversations like this more important than ever.

“I grew up in the ‘60s and the ‘70s, and often the adults would say ‘the children are our future’,” Wheeler said when asked about the idea of the event. “And I didn’t really understand that until now. Change can take time, and as much as we, as adults, can make change, really the future of the world is with the people who come behind us.”

The conversation gave students the opportunity to share their experiences with racist incidents in their schools, stereotypes, and the miseducation that surrounds racism and the Civil Rights Movement. They also detailed teachers making racist remarks and not including Black perspectives in their curricula.

“We need to do a better job with bias training for everyone,” said Lateef when asked about what actions PWCS can take. “Whether it’s teachers, admins, or even students.” He added that we need to expand the curriculum to include history about what happened in Africa rather than just focusing on European history.

“I believe a student voice is vitally important,” said Lisa Zargarpur, who holds the Coles District School Board seat. “Students have great ideas for solutions in our schools.”

This event marks the first time in history that the Chairs of the Prince William BOCS and the Prince William County School Board have held a joint event to hear from local youth about what matters to them. At least in recent history, no county-wide elected officials in Prince William have held conversations with students.

The full video from the event can be found here.