Senior on State Cabinet

Senior Brings Passion for Diversity to State Student Cabinet

When Luna Lyman ’22 heard last fall that applications to the Maine Department of Education Student Cabinet were being accepted, she decided to go for it. “I’m pretty impulsive with things,” Luna said.

She filled out the application for the two-year appointment, which included responses to several open-ended questions, and then sent it off with “no expectation that I was actually going to be selected.”

The DOE staff members, educators, and student representatives who reviewed the application must have liked what they read, because Luna soon heard from then-Chair Casey Maddock, a student in her final year on the cabinet. “She actually called me.”

The first person Luna shared her exciting news with was math teacher Martha Horne. “If it weren’t for her, I would have never even known about it,” Luna said.

“I was so pleased that Luna took the initiative and applied,” Martha said. “Luna is a very caring young woman who wants to make a positive difference in the lives of others. She is a wonderful listener and observer, a deep thinker, and I think a strong voice on the DOE Student Cabinet.”

Initially, Luna wasn’t sure what being a cabinet member entailed, but that wasn’t a disadvantage her first year. Typically, members meet quarterly with Commissioner of Education Pender Makin to talk about “educational opportunities, improvements, and policy,” according to the cabinet website. But with the ongoing pandemic, in-person meetings were not possible.

So instead of business as usual, the 33 members, from all of Maine’s 16 counties, met online about once a month to discuss state proposals. One such proposal was for an online “platform where kids from different schools could socialize,” which they couldn’t do in person “because of COVID,” Luna said. “They wanted to see if it was something students would really be interested in and how it would most benefit us.”

The result? The late winter debut of the state’s WAVES program, virtual communities led by educators from across Maine that focused on student interests ranging from Black history to electric guitar to marine science.

In addition to considering state proposals, cabinet members also raised topics of their own. Luna brought up diversity. “That’s what I’m most passionate about. There isn’t a lot of diversity in schools here, and it’s not like anyone’s at fault,” she said, “but there is a lot of ignorance of other cultures, also misrepresentation.”

And there’s a lack of awareness about what could be considered disrespectful, she said. Luna, who grew up in Mexico, recalled seeing some students here dressed in ponchos and sombreros for Halloween. These students might not have chosen to wear the clothing of another culture as a costume “if they were in an area that had a lot of different cultures,” she said. “I personally did not feel that bad about it, but I don’t speak for everyone.”

Luna hopes that GSA students have the chance to learn more about different cultures. “My main thing is trying to see if there is a way we can incorporate more about different cultures with accurate information and representation.”

Best of luck, Luna, in achieving your goals on the Student Cabinet and at GSA!