This year’s Student Council Association has organized a group of students called the Student Senate. The goal of this group, as described by SCA President senior Hunter Grist, is to bring a wider variety of students together to unify the student body and increase overall student participation.
“We are hoping to improve the school by hearing ideas from other people and doing small things to make school a little more fun. Our goal is to increase interactions between more of the student body and our council, so that the council can communicate the news of the student body with the administration better,” said Grist.
The senate operates with one meeting every nine weeks about upcoming school events and policies. One student from each first period class is selected by the first period teacher to go to these meetings, gather the information, and report it back to the first period class. These efforts are made to ensure that the student body is kept up-to-date with the current school happenings.
This nine weeks, the senate is focusing on homecoming, preparations for Spirit Week and freshman applications for the freshman student council.
During Spirit Week, student participation earns points for each grade level. At the end of Spirit Week, these points are tallied up to see which grade receives the coveted spirit stick. The SCA and the Student Senate are hoping these events will drum up school spirit. This year, the seniors won.
Sophomore Charlie Smith’s favorite part of Spirit Week is the hallway decorations.
“I like Spirit Week because it makes me feel connected to my high school. I feel all the people working together to create something powerful,” said Smith. “I like the hallways because they look pretty cool, even though I don’t really decorate, but they make me feel like I’m in another world.”
The SCA is essential for carrying out the student senate meetings.
Grist explained, “The SCA will lead the meetings and make the agenda about what we will talk about. The council members attend all of the meetings, and at the end of every meeting, we will give the representatives a chance to tell us their concerns, so that we can take those into consideration and talk about them at our next meeting.”
Not only does the SCA give information to the student senators, but the student senators also respond with feedback, such as questions or concerns they have regarding themselves or their classmates. It is their responsibility to represent the needs of their first period class.
“We want to hear from a wider variety of students about the things they think the school needs to improve, so that we can start working on those things. Our council is a small group of people, so we want to hear from the whole school and the Student Senate. This way we can contact all students easily,” said Grist.
So far, the SCA has added benefits for the seniors this year. Now the seniors get to leave five minutes early and have the privilege of eating in the courtyard during their lunch periods.
The Student Senate is also an opportunity to get the freshmen involved in the school.
“Activities that we are doing could bring more of the students together,” said freshman senator Cody Thomas. “I feel more involved because I’m doing more than just sports.”
The Student Senate sponsor is Pamela St. Clair, who also sponsors the SCA and teaches Spanish. RCHS used to have a Student Senate, but it faded a few years ago. St. Clair felt that this loss had a negative influence on the school and that the senate was beneficial in keeping the school more informed.
“We re-instituted the Student Senate in order to have a more representative body of all of our students. We are hoping that the senators will bring their concerns and questions and that ultimately every student feels like their voice is being heard,” said St. Clair.
The SCA works alongside the school administration.
“The administration has been very supportive of our ideas and, because of our close relationship with the administrators, we have managed to get an early release for seniors as a senior privilege. We are really hoping to make RCHS the best possible place it can be,” said St. Clair.