In just a few months since the opening of this school year, the Student Council has organized a number of events to increase student involvement and promote school spirit.  The Student Council aims to offer something for all students reflecting the wide breadth of interests in the school community.  Some activities sponsored by the Student Council were more socially oriented, while others focused on athletics and sporting events. The school year kicked off with a freshman orientation to help acclimate students to the high school experience. Other activities in the autumn included the popular foursquare tournament, a fall pep rally and preparations for homecoming. The homecoming dance and festivities were a huge success with several hundred in attendance, including a number of guests from neighboring schools. Representatives from Student Council are currently busy with preparations for a flag football tournament in response to students’ request for more sporting events. Based on the students’ response, more tournaments such as dodgeball may be added to the school calendar in the future.

Student Council is comprised of 17 members, many of whom were new to their roles this school year. Junior Ajay Sivakumar was eager to share his experiences as this year’s President of Student Council. This was a new role for Sivakumar and he reported that he “met numerous times with senior Armaan Agrawal, Vice President of Student Council and fellow junior Umang Sharma, Secretary of the organization to get activities organized and start new initiatives. It was amazingly time-consuming.”   Sophomore Sophie Yao shared the experiences of the Service Learning co-heads: “So far we’ve focused on supporting events like homecoming, gatherings, and pep rallies, but we’re looking to hold more fun and engaging service events this year.” The leadership team of Student Council was also assisted by the guidance of their faculty advisor, English teacher Ms. Manners. Sivakumar further explained that “I was surprised by the workload involved with a leadership role, but I was excited to get to work and make significant accomplishments for the school community. I really want to make a positive difference and make school a more enjoyable and a better experience for all students. Student Council aims to meet everyone’s needs.” To that end, the leadership team, along with other student representatives, worked to build a more robust social media presence and launched an Instagram account.

Ms. Manners has served as the faculty advisor to the Council since 2018. While she was reluctant to speak for the students, she offered a great deal of insight into the work and the learning curve involved for students serving the school community. Ms. Manners shared, “I wouldn’t want to speak for the students…wouldn’t that sort of seem counter to the spirit of Student Council, which is all about amplifying student voices?” She further added that the students had so many great ideas. “It’s great to see ideas that start as vague or amorphous start to clarify, and to see things that students have been excited about actually come into being.” She agreed with President Sivakumar that the House Cup foursquare competition this fall involved a great deal of work and planning with the end result being “a great, low-key, fun way to spend some time during lunch.”  The Student Council “has made a significant effort to figure out how to organize these opportunities for the student body to get together and have fun; the more we can normalize that, the better off we’ll all be.”

It is not all fun and games for the Student Council; there are times that they also have to address more serious concerns facing the student body. Ms. Manners explained that there are instances when the school administration “needs input from the students about new or changed policy, and there is also something really powerful about seeing the members of the Council listen to the student body’s concerns and brainstorm ways that they can work with the administration to come up with a solution that works.” Her final take-away concerned how everyone needed to not just come up with ideas, but also the hard work of learning how to execute those ideas. “The pace of the school year and the structure of our schedule means that we never have quite as much time as we’d like–but the StuCo folks step up, and we get done what needs to get done.”