“We believe our job as educators is to empower them to be empathetic leaders and to advocate for themselves, their school, their community.” Rifkin along with another humanities teacher and an English language specialist spearheaded an effort to hold the K-4th grade charter school’s first student government association election after seeing the students’ interest in November’s election. Twenty-six students ran for the eight slots, creating campaign ads and speeches. The election was held Friday, and the winners will be “inaugurated” over Facebook Live Wednesday morning. “It’s brought us a lot of hope to see how many students were so eager to be a part of making change, beneficial change for their community,” Rifkin said.

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