After getting elected to the Student Government Association, sophomores Will Ferrer, Sarah Kenny, Daniel LaBarbera and juniors Emily Sexton and Kevin Lam plan to accomplish far more than overseeing homecoming.
“Planning, running and kind of dealing with all of homecoming” is the group’s primary responsibility, SGA sponsor Matt Axelrod said.
According to Ferrer, the selection of this year’s homecoming theme, “The Party Never Ends”, caused at least three hours of argument among the SGA members.
However, the ambitions of the SGA range far wider.
Lam talked of breaking down the barriers between cliques and spreading familiarity throughout the school, so that “everyone is … really friendly to each other.”
He expressed hope that the two “music appreciation” weeks that Kenny plans to establish will help him meet this goal. During the “music appreciation” weeks, band, orchestra and choir classes would perform for students during lunch.
“The school would not only get to hear some amazing music, but also see talent and creativity among their friends and classmates,” Kenny said.
Ferrer, however, worried about the SGA’s lack of influence in non-homecoming matters.
“We can come up with ideas all we want,” he said, “but we don’t really have the pull to get something accomplished like that.”
According to the SGA’s constitution, one of the responsibilities of the group is to preside over and participate in a Student Congress comprised of the members of the Student Advisory Council (SAC), the class officers and representatives from each active organization at the school.
The Congress is currently defunct. The last Congress was held two years ago, and decided the events and activities of that year’s Spirit Week.
Axelrod is aware of the Student Congress, and said that though he would not force SGA to revive it, he would like to have it once again. “They plan out wonderful things a lot of times … but they actually have to do them,” he said.
SAC represents school at county level
Every year, the Student Advisory Council sponsor Kelly Bresnahan selects five academically successful students who are involved in a wide range of clubs and activities to represent the student body in monthly, county-wide meetings.
Senior and SAC member Madeleine Fleshman described the group as “students who are actually part of the community.”
Along with Fleshman, seniors Brian Potter, Mackie Quirk, Carly Taylor and Peter Bryan make up this year’s SAC.
EJ Coleman, student representative to the School Board and senior at Mount Vernon High School, presents opinions and nonbinding recommendations from the monthly meetings to the School Board.
He was elected by SAC members county-wide at the end of last school year.
In addition to the recommendations provided by the student representative to the school board, the SAC also presents an official opinion on a topic that Superintendent Jack Dale introduces at the first SAC meeting of the school year.
This year’s topic is the issue of technology in schools, such as interior surveillance cameras and courses that are taught entirely online.
“They actually want us to help with designs of ‘learning spaces,”’ Fleshman said.
The technological classrooms would not be available in the near future, but Fleshman took the long view of the potential of the SAC. “It’s … [asking] in ten years, what we can do to make [the school] better,” she said.
Bryan felt, on the other hand, that the SAC lacks the power to implement ideas garnered at the meetings.
“We ourselves can’t really make a difference at the schools. We just kind of suggest,” he said.
Fleshman proposed that the SGA and the SAC be combined in order to more effectively enact changes at Marshall.
“If the motivated achievers worked with ‘people persons,’” she said, referring to the SAC and SGA respectively, “[we’d have] people with ideas … implemented by people who know how to spread it amongst a large group of people.”
Additional reporting by Bruce Ferguson.