This Superintendent Turns to Students for Advice

When he needs to make big decisions for the 11,000-student Cherry Hill, N.J., school district, Superintendent Joseph Meloche turns to a familiar sounding board: the students themselves. In the two years since he took over the district, Meloche has held multiple town halls with middle and high school students, whose feedback helps bring problems to the surface that school leaders don’t see on their own. The students have helped pinpoint solutions, too. “I believe we need to make sure [students’] voices, their opinions, their thoughts are shared and that we actually listen to them,” he says.