This article was written by Taggart Schrader, a sophomore in the Journalism Class. This article was written to discuss the upcoming Student Council and report out the election results.
Without a student council in the past two years, the student body of U-32 is lacking a voice in their own school. With this new Student Council, they hope to strengthen the bond between administration and students.
Student union vs. Student Council:
One of the changes the student council has brought up is their own title. They would like to change their name to student union because it better suits what their vision is for this group. “We’re trying to disconnect ourselves from the last student council,” Jasper Lorien said. “Which ended up becoming just a planning committee and we don’t want that to happen to us.” The Student Union wants to symbolize the collective student voice. But currently they are keeping the Student Council name.
The Student Council works for “just basic communication with admin, looking at rules, or even funding stuff, and talking about school board rules, a large range of things that we want to look at” Lorien said. But, they don’t know if they will have a consistent amount of influence in school affairs. According to Lorien, “Admin has said that they’re completely interested in giving us some powers.”
A Fair System:
The School Council’s start-up had to set up a fair system in which the leaders and other members of the Student Council would get elected later this spring. The student body would be able to vote for their peers to be a representative of their grade and of the whole student body as well.
One worry that the Student Council had was that this would be used for popularity instead of a job they need to do. “Every person in that room wants to avoid becoming a thing where people were the most popular” Jack Thompson said. “Take a position and use it as a joke, right?”
Elections:
Campaigning will be at the beginning of May, each person will have their own way of campaigning. They will have to go through a couple of questions and have a few references before they can start campaigning to make sure they are committed to joining and working for the Student Union. Elections will happen at the end of the year, and candidates in grades 7-11 will be elected for next year’s Student Council. Each student will be voted on a 1 to 3 point score and the one(s) from each grade with the most points will be elected.
Candidates have been voted for, and 15 of them will be chosen for the Student council.
Kevin Richards is one of the staff advisors overseeing the upcoming Student Council. There was a high turnout of people that wanted to take part in the student council. “The only bad thing about that is that we’re taking three from each class.” Kevin Richards said. “Some people won’t be on the Student Council Executive Committee.”
Video of candidates- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZatwR8mI0N0X1iiZ3HfOsULGYt2e2yOk/view?usp=sharing
The executive council is the 15 students selected for the council. Each quarter there will be a grand assembly where one person from each TA can bring up problems, the student council and some of the admin will be there to report out to higher powers.
The Election had created a buzz around the school, Richards and Jade Walker both noticed this. “I just feel like in 10 days, they transformed the school in a really awesome and positive way,” Walker said. “We were very clear that there’s no negative campaigns. Everyone kept a really good supportive culture that I really appreciate.”
The candidates were really excited about this opportunity as well. “It was really fun to be a part of a process, and to learn how student election goes,” Madyson Scribner said. “I’m very excited to see how the rest of the election will go.”
The candidates also were ready to get to work as soon as possible. “And if we get elected, I want to deal with racism, transphobia, and school policies; a wide variety of things.” Josie Haley said.
There is a large range of things that want to be covered. “I want to increase academic integrity at the school.” Habib Meiloud said “ I think that’s a major problem.”
Now with the election behind them, they have the rest of the school year to get ready to hit the ground running next fall.
Election Results:
8th grade Student Council representatives for next year are:
Amelia
Elise
Kai
9th grade Student Council representatives for next year are:
Izzy
Mya
Zeke
10th grade Student Council representatives for next year are:
Cal
Habib
Josie
11th grade Student Council representatives for next year are:
Alice
Yolanda
Zoe
12th grade Student Council representatives for next year are:
Hutch
Jack
Jasmine
