JULIAN NEBREDA
STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT, LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The Student Council group for 2012-2013 is officially together. You’ll recognize the five representatives from each grade on your email list or on the board outside Dean of Students Joe Chodl’s office. But what does it mean for them to be Student Council representatives? Every year we have to face up to this question in a different way. Unlike most other groups in the school, the Student Council really shifts each year, and though there are responsibilities we always hold, now is the time of year when we decide how this Student Council group will be different from others past.

It’s easy to be pessimistic. It’s easy to think, without knowing much, that the role of Student Council in ASL is a sideline one. It’s easy to say that we aren’t decisive and that student voice at ASL is taken by administration with a grain of salt. It’s harder to put in an effort. It’s harder to sit down and have a genuine conversation about the real issues our community faces. It’s harder to talk to us frankly about what ASL needs for the future and then work to achieve it. It’s wrong to think that student input and work isn’t taken seriously in the school when the exact opposite is the truth. The school is inviting and waiting for students to be leaders in ASL, but still it is wrong for us to expect it to be easy.

We need to really be aware of is how great a school ASL is, and how lucky we are to go to a school where our benefits far outnumber our issues. Where, because of our size, there is a genuine closeness between students and the administration. Where kids might believe that we don’t face serious issues. This is the kind of environment we want to maintain and facilitate beyond anything. However, we also need to realize that our community isn’t perfect.

Take our relationship with QK for example. A school that is literally down the block, but whose students and ours are mutually responsible of holding serious stereotypes about one another. We held one joint barbecue, organized with Student Councils from both schools, last year with students from QK, which was a great success. We seek to have even more events with them this coming year. Simply bringing students from both schools together to meet really can make a difference. This is just one example of real impact student organization can have in ASL.

In reality, Student Council’s role at ASL is limited only by our own ambition and the ambition of the student body. We are not interested in doing activities, or work that students don’t care for. So please, talk to the faces you see posted outside Chodl’s office. Make them know what you think and what you want. Help them understand the great responsibility it is to be a Student Council representative.

julian_nebreda@asl.org