Student Council December Meeting Recap
By: Kendall Haney
iGlobe Student Council Correspondent
The Student Council kicked off December with an action-packed meeting led by moderators Ms. Oates-Robesch and Mr. Hassler. They planned a fun-filled and productive meeting with several different activities for students to participate in.
Ms. Oates-Robesch started us off by explaining the agenda of the day. Different activities like the infamous icebreaker and a leadership building activity would happen. Students would examine their final version of the Constitution. Ms. Oates-Robesch explained that they would vote in January on different sections of the document. After the end of the evening, students would get to see a special spring term preview of what was to come. Finally, they would discuss upcoming leadership opportunities for the 2015-2016 potential officers.
After explaining the agenda, the moderators moved onto the icebreaker for the meeting, composed by Hanan Ali. The icebreaker had students answer different questions. For example, they were asked to name a person in history with the same initials as themselves, or what were some goals students had for themselves. Students and teachers alike spent about five minutes answering the questions, and then moved on to other activities.
Ms. Oates-Robesch showed the classroom the next slide, which was the leadership activity. However, before the students started, Ms. Oates-Robesch shared a few ideas from a book she read entitled Primal Leadership. The premise was that, as leaders, people must adapt to the organizations they are a part of. The leadership building activity seemed to be somewhat based off of this idea.
Ms. Oates-Robesch read aloud the different types of leadership that was on the board. The different qualities one might find in a leader were things such as commanding, democratic, visionary, pacesetting, affiliative, or coaching. She then asked students to place a marker next to the type of governing style they thought would be best for the Student Council.
One student did respond, “I think that our student council will work well in the Democratic style. If the people in the council are committed to working towards goals we set, we will accomplish a lot as a whole. If people aren't really committed or do not have a set of goals to work for it wouldn’t be as productive.”
After the activity, Mr. Hassler took over. As always, he led the students through a clear and well thought out web tour so that they could see the Constitution for themselves. They skipped to Article V of the Constitution, which explained in detail the duties and requirements of someone on a committee. They then moved on to Article VI which discussed the election, role, and responsibilities of the faculty advisors.
There were no changes to the constitution suggested. Afterwards, students learned that the teachers went ahead and changed a few things to Article VII because they were more ‘behind the scenes’ as it relates to how teachers would be selected to help with this club.
January will be a critical month for those who want changes to the constitution. It would be the final meeting where changes could be made before it would be formally adopted, and students would vote. Students must attend the January meeting live if they want to vote.
After they finished their review, Mr. Hassler asked if students had any questions regarding the constitution. No one did. However, should anyone change their mind and like to offer a thought or two, they are welcome to contact Mr. Hassler directly through the student council email. That e-mail can be found by searching for “International Academy Student Council” under “Teacher” in k-mail.
The spring preview that ended the meeting was a bevy of opportunity for the Student Council enthusiast. In addition to ratification, officer ballot applications would be handed out in January. In February, students would have the opportunity to attend a Campaign Development Workshop. March blows in a Speech Writing Workshop followed in April by the first Student Council Election Convention and Election of Officers.
A total of nine officers will be elected to the first student council to serve in the year 2015-2016. There will be the President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Historian, and there will be officers to represent each grade level from 9-12 plus one at-large representative. Responsibilities will include attendance at meetings to occur at a minimum, per the teacher changes to the constitution, biweekly. However, meetings could be called more often.
Teachers encouraged all students to be responsible in choosing what they are willing to commit to do for the student council. All were told to carefully review position descriptions before committing to a run for office. Anyone who is interested in creating an icebreaker slide for a future meeting is encouraged to do so as well.
The meeting was an informative and productive meeting because of all the effort the two moderators had poured into the meeting and the involvement of student participation. It will be interesting to see who in the Spring shows up not just at the ballot box to vote, but on the ballot as well.