Student Council, a way we South students can have our thoughts and issues heard by some of our peers with some authority. Student Council has done a lot this year for us; they have given us a new electronics policy which allows us to use our cell phones and ipods during passing time and our lunch periods. Little do students know that they have done quite a lot more.
There are three main committees in Student Council, the community service committee, events committee, and public relations committee. The council currently meets both individually as committees and as a whole on Wednesdays.
Junior Lena Pelini is the Dance Chair for the council and leads the committee that organizes all of the dances that occur throughout the school year. “We meet every Tuesday after school whether there is or is not a dance.” said Pelini. The planning of dances consist of hours of brainstorming, preparation and the approval of the administration.
Pelini says that during the month leading up to a dance, spends on average six hours a week on planning. The committee is already planning sweethearts even though it is over two months away.
“A lot of work goes into setting up a blood drive, from organizing it and to choosing a date.” said Sophomore Loren Torres who is head of the committee that organizes the blood drives. On average Torres committee organizes four blood drives that occur year round.
South and Southwest compete against each other to see who can donate the most blood. Though Southwest has collected more blood in the last few years, South is working hard to increase their numbers by upping the numbers of drives as well as advertising to encourage more students to participate.
Increasing the number of blood drives has proven to be difficult for the council as it takes a lot of space as well as takes students away from their classes. Spaces that are big enough to accommodate the amount of people involved, such as the gym, are rarely available for use. Last year the number of blood drives was cut from four to two, but this year the number will be closer to the original.
“A lot of what we do is not hindered and we work together with the administration.” said Junior Sam Holt, a member of student council. Council members work alongside of executive members of the council who then with the help of their advisor, Nicole Schneider, to present the proposition to the Assistant Principal Rasheedah Ali.
“[There will be] open applications next semester, and [can be] picked up the first week of the semester in Ms. Schneider’s room and they have to go through a GPA check, an attendance check and a teacher recommendation form and they get accepted based on that.” said Batts to students have an interesting in joining student council.
Though most students know of the existence of student council, a large portion of the work done by student council goes unnoticed by the student body. “The impact we have on South that students don’t see, is that we do a lot of fundraising. The funds that are raised go to dances and the money made at dances is used for Winter Olympics.” said Batt.
Students often misinterpret Student Council to be the same as the National Honors Society (NHS) but in fact they are to different organizations.
“Basically NHS and Student Council are kind of the same, in the sense that we both have the same ideals. We [Student Council] look at community service, leadership skills. We [Student Council] are pillars of the community, the only difference is structurally a little different.” said Schneider, who is also an English teacher at South.
There are only 57 members of student council to represent all the students at south. However, Student Council makes sure they are truly there for the student body. They encourage any student to make suggestions.
“They can come to any student council students or they can come to me or they can put it in a suggestion box in the office, so that any time kids have issues they want to bring up it in.” said Schneider.
