Every April high school students can submit a Google form to try and be elected onto Student Council to represent their grade and the student body. Student Council is made up of 14 different members from each grade level and four main officers work together to run different events within their council. Those four positions include president, vice president, secretary, and communication coordinator. There is also the executive board, which consists of juniors and seniors whose main role is to organize all the events as well as work with the administration to figure out what can be approved and what can’t. There is a president, vice president, membership chair, secretary, communication coordinator, and junior rep.
There are many different reasons why people run for student council. It could be because you want to represent your grade, saw that it was fun, or maybe even was recommended to you by a friend.
“My freshman year I ran because I heard it was fun, and I just thought it’d be a fun club to join. But then I ran again my sophomore year and kept doing it because you learn a lot of really valuable leadership skills…and you get to build connections with a lot of different people,” sophomore vice president Clara Pohlonski said.
Senior executive board secretary Hannah Jeong had a similar thought.
“I ran for Stucco because freshman year I saw that because of COVID the school had lost energy within the school and school spirit, and I wanted to join to promote that energy throughout the whole school and spirit weeks,” Jeong said.
Each year Novi has the same events and each year there is always a goal of making it better than the last, whether that be homecoming, prom, spirit weeks, or even school sports/clubs. Student council has the opportunity to make things in Novi better for all students.
“I hope to bring to Novi more inclusion, with different ideas. I feel that sometimes on student council, we only get ideas from the students on Stucco but being able to have ideas from the whole student body would be something I would love Novi to have,” junior representative Kareena Ashko said.
AP Computer Science teacher Rachel Schypinski, who leads the student council, shares her ideas on what students can bring to Novi.
“The goal is always to bring more school spirit. Plan some events to get the whole school involved and plan a great wish week that we’ll be able to give back to charity,” Schypinski said.
When you are a part of a group there is always a favorite part and you grow a sense of community along the way.
“It’s really fun because we do some fun team building stuff like bonfires and honestly just even running the events is also team building. And you meet a lot of great people there,” Pohlonski said.
Schypinksi said she loves how hard the members of Stuco work to make the events run since a lot of kids don’t fully understand how much work their peers put into homecoming, wish week, or any school event.
Being a part of the student council is not only good for the team aspect but you also learn many valuable lessons along the way. Even if you are not part of the student council, but still want input, make sure to reach out to a member, executive member, or Mrs. Schypinksi to have your voice heard among the student body.
