Two Bartlesville students in Elijah Winter and Samantha Simmons are among 97 Oklahoma students who are part of State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister’s Student Advisory Council for 2021. The council met to discuss how they can recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In their first meeting of the year, Winter was one of four students recognized on the Oklahoma State Department of Education Facebook Page and was quoted as saying, “It shouldn’t take a crisis to get mental health support and more counselors. Put the humanity back in schools.”

During the meeting, Hofmeister said believes it is important to get more counselors in schools.