To speak for his peers

Nicolas Jaber is now a member of the jet set.

The junior at Newport Harbor High School will serve on the California School Board Assn. as a student representative for its legislative committee.

Translation: At 16, Jaber will occasionally fly to Sacramento to review legislation that affects school districts across the Golden State, including his own district, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

“Basically, the legislative committee looks over legislation that affects schools throughout California and it lobbies either for it or against it on behalf of the school board association,” Jaber said in a phone interview Tuesday. “It seems pretty cool.”

A few months ago, Jaber applied to serve as the sole student representative for the California State Board of Education, but did not get the position. So, a few weeks ago, the Newport-Mesa Board of Education decided to bestow the next best honor on Jaber, who is vice president of the Newport Harbor High School’s Associated Student Body.

Jaber said he plans to fly to Sacramento on Jan. 14.

“We are going to meet periodically throughout the year,” Jaber said. “We actually meet in the state capitol. My understanding is that with Gov. Brown, there’s going to be a lot of budget changes. We’re kind of having to restructure the budget for our schools and across the board in California.

Meantime, Jaber, who is a student representative at Newport-Mesa school board meetings, just took the SATs and is starting to get the college application process “rolling,” he said.

Additionally, he said he’s trying to create a student congress at Newport Harbor and just recently submitted his proposal to the school’s principal.

He said he hopes that the student congress will give the students “more of a voice.”

He added: “I ran for the Associated Student body to fill that gap, and hopefully the new student congress, if it goes through, will do just that.”