My name is Katie Webb, and I am a Senior at Portales High School as well as an advocate for tobacco-free schools and the 24/7 campaign through Evolvement. This is my second year in Evolvement, but my first on the Leadership Team. I have participated in so many 24/7 events and have met personally with every principal in my district to gain support for a district-wide tobacco policy change. While meeting with every principal took a lot of effort, it was just the first step towards my ultimate goal, meeting with my superintendent and school board one-on-one to discuss these changes. I want to be the person who helps implement the 24/7 policy in my district and have worked tirelessly to make this happen. 

I was able to coordinate a personal meeting with my superintendent and an advisor from Evolvement where I sat down and discussed the changes. Of course, my school board has declined a policy change on multiple occasions in the past, but I am determined to change their minds. The nerves before this meeting were huge. I have done many meetings with principals in my time with the Evolvement organization, but I have never met with someone as high as superintendent one-on-one. My first principal meeting was scary, but I did not know my superintendent and was going in to essentially challenge his current policy. Let’s just say this meeting had a lot of built-up anxiety. I do not want to scare other Evolvers who are thinking about doing a similar meeting though, because once I got into his office, the conversation came naturally. I knew the information I was portraying and what I wanted to say, so the meeting went very well. Unfortunately, my superintendent did not agree that a policy change is in our district’s best interest and suggested that the school board would probably agree. He said he would look over the information and discuss it with the school board, but this is probably something for the future. I still felt this was a successful meeting as he took what I said into consideration and had a model policy and a breakdown of how our policy is not comprehensive to take to the board.

This meeting with the superintendent of my school board was important because it allowed me to have a personal discussion with the leader of my school district, and I was able to gauge his opinions on the topic as well as educate him on some of the issues he was unaware of. While he has heard me speak at all my school board meeting presentations, having a sit-down one-on-one meeting with him was much more valuable, and I am very happy to have had the opportunity. From this experience, I realized that speaking with the highest person possible, is scary, but possible in most cases. I never thought I would be sitting down and discussing a school-wide policy change with the superintendent in my district, but it was surprisingly not as scary in the moment. Although we did not gain his support during the meeting, I think it was a very good discussion that widened his view of the issue in our district. He has now spoken with a student who has experienced the tobacco problem firsthand on campus and knows a lot more about the problem at hand. I think he is more likely to advocate for our campaign now that he has gained respect for me and the organization I am with as well. He may end up bringing this issue to the school board and trying to pursue this farther in the next couple of years based, in part, on the passion he experienced in our meeting, and even that is a very good step in the right direction. 

While no changes have been made yet, I am very proud to have had the opportunity to speak with my superintendent about something I am so passionate about. It was an amazing experience to bring support from every principal in the district to the superintendent for a policy change. Although he is not currently on the page, I see it in the future of my district. Although some school districts are stubborn and stuck in their ways with their outdated policies, I believe persistence is key to making a change!

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