The Villa Hills City Council meeting looked a little different Wednesday evening. Not only was it held at Villa Madonna Academy instead of the usual police department, but fifth-grade students from River Ridge Elementary School, St. Joseph Catholic School and Villa Madonna Academy presided over the meeting for the city’s annual “shadow night.”
“Our hope is that one of these kids–and that’s out of 255–if just one wants to go into public service and replace one of us, who are eventually going to leave these jobs, that would be a success on our part,” said councilmember Scott Ringo to open the meeting.
According to Ringo, 12 students out of a pool of over 250 students from the three schools were chosen based on essay applications.
Honorary mayor and River Ridge Elementary School student Delaney Donovan kicked off the meeting by calling the meeting to order with a bang of the gavel.
Each student was paired with a city official or worker who sat next to them during the meeting. The students, however, proxied the role of their adult counterparts by giving reports and voting on legislation under their guidance.
When spells of bemused silence filled the Villa Hills Auditorium, the city mentors whispered instructions to their shadow students to keep the meeting flowing. After the students gave their reports, smiles spread across many of their faces. Some mentors offered their shadow students quiet congratulatory remarks that snuck through the microphone into the crowd.
Toward the end of the meeting, the city council passed a resolution thanking the schools that participated in the program and approved a resolution to uphold the decisions made by the shadow students during the meeting.
Ringo said the tradition for students to shadow the governmental process in Villa Hills has been around most of the time that he’s been on the council.
“I’ve been on the council for 20 years,” Ringo said. “We’ve been doing it almost every year for 20 years,” said Ringo.
Every year, he said, the event is the most nerve-wracking meeting he partakes in.
“It’s my most nervous night because I’m scared to death for my kid. I want them to do so well.”
