Making Time for a Little Democracy - washingtonpost.com: A Guatemalan immigrant who arrived alone in Arlington County a few years ago, Ramiro Cortez longs for many things: a high school diploma, the ability to speak English with ease and the means to earn more money than his job as a waiter will ever pay.
For now, though, he will settle for one simple title: student council president.
As the nation's attention was tuned to a historic election, an unexpected display of democracy was playing out among an unlikely group of students at a Northern Virginia school. At the Arlington Mill High School Continuation Program, where many students are immigrants, there had never been a student council. But in the past few months, three students from different Latin American countries worked to change that.
On Tuesday, the student council met formally at the school for the first time.
About 85 percent of students at the school are Latino, and most are older than the average high school student; there is no upper age limit for enrollment. For many of the students, work shifts slam into class schedules, with little time to study and sleep, let alone participate in extracurricular activities."
