You’re sitting in class and all you can hear are your friends discussing the new general obligation (G.O.) bond. You’ve heard your teachers talk about it for weeks, but still you don’t understand why it is such a big deal. Luckily for you, sitting to your right is your student school board representative, Evelyn Hernandez-Luna, who knows all about it.

The role of a student school board representative is to connect the school board to the students, and the students to the school board. Occasionally, at meetings, Hernandez-Luna is tasked with presenting to the board about student views.

“You’ll see me asking [students], ‘Hey, what do you think about this? What are some areas of growth? How do you feel about the lunch that we’re serving?’” Hernandez-Luna said.

Not only is Hernandez-Luna approaching students, but some students are taking the initiative to bring the questions to her.

“Having people come up to me sometimes and ask, ‘Hey, I saw this on the video that was put on YouTube, can you tell me more about it?’’ It’s nice to see that,” Hernandez-Luna said. “It’s nice to be able to give people that information.”

For some students, it takes a lot of initiative to want to attend board meetings and be aware of what is happening in the district beyond their own school. Initiative seems to be a value that was easily displayed by Hernandez-Luna before she became the student board representative.

“She puts everything into it. She follows through. She goes beyond,” Ankeny High School (AHS) science teacher Carol Walters said. “If there’s a question, but it’s something she’s really interested in, she’ll ask more questions to find out more about it. Or she’ll look at things outside of school and then bring them to me and say, ‘Oh, look what I saw. Or look at what I did.’ She just takes it to the next level, instead of just stopping where she could have stopped.”

While initiative is important when representing a population of people, there are many other traits that aid in being an advocate for students, one being empathy.

“She tries to understand what would be good for the school as a whole, not just her or people who have her same viewpoint,” junior Clarissa Masters said. “I think it is very beneficial for us as a community in school, because she’s looking out for all of us.”

According to Forbes, there was a McKinsey study that concluded that effective communication improved productivity by 25 percent, partly because members felt connected to their cause. Clear communication and active listening allow all perspectives to be heard and have an equal input.

“She’d be working in her group, and sometimes you have individuals that just want to take charge and say, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’” Walters said. “Her approach was more question and answer, ‘Well, what if we did this? Okay, I hear what you’re saying. What if we tried it this way?’ So it was really more just a nicer way of debating.”

Hernandez-Luna still stood by her opinions, but she was able to understand another perspective, too. Understanding is not equivalent to agreeing, but it can promote healthy conversation, which can lead to new ideas and collaboration.

“Sometimes when we are very passionate about something, we can get loud, we can raise our voice, and that’s not going to get us anywhere,” Hernandez-Luna said. “It’s not about making your voice louder. It’s about being heard, and people can hear you if you say the correct things, if you say it in the right way, where it lands, just to plant the seed that, ‘hey, this has to change.’”

While Walters and Masters have both described Hernandez-Luna as an amazing communicator and listener, this was not a behavior that she was simply gifted with; it was learned.

“Coming here to Ankeny made me see a different side of myself, to say you can stand up for what’s right, and you can stand up and lead people through things,” Hernandez-Luna said. “And I think this position is really pushing me to do that, to explore that side more, because I am a person that is not very confident in my judgments. And what this is showing me is that your judgments are correct most of the time, and to take input and criticism in the best way.”

As Hernandez-Luna has gained confidence in her own voice, she is also leaving impressions on others. Masters described her presence as warm and explained how Hernandez-Luna has pushed her to look at different perspectives, Walters explained how even after Hernandez-Luna had finished her class, she still stopped by to say hello. Not only has she built connections, but she has also maintained them.

“I’m not just doing this for myself to look better on college applications,” Hernandez-Luna said. “I’m doing this because I want every student of any type of background to feel like they have a place here at Ankeny, that they have a voice here in Ankeny Schools.”