Student Government: Advice

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Hey Everyone,</p>

<p>I recently became President of my school's Student Government after serving in it in various other positions for many years. However, my school's student government, has decayed a ton in the past decade as the advisor told me. We used to have representation officially ("Senators") From homerooms and clubs and such, but now meetings are simply stocked with whoever wanders in at the moment. I have many ideas for changing my school's student government this year, but with such a bastion of experience here at college confidential, I'd like to see also what advice any other people who have been involved in Student Government can give to a new President. Basically I'd like to hear stories and advice about how to get representatives from homerooms and clubs, and also how it should be reorganized. Seriously, right now Student Government has no serious organization, and technically I've been granted dictorial powers to do anything and everything I see fit to repair it - it's in that bad of shape. So thus, I'd like to hear ideas so I can begin planning this summer already and perhaps end this year off with a bang as well.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Bump .</p>

3

<p>well what exactly does your student government do? do you plan social functions, fundraise for the school, or just a liason between administration and students? first of all, i think your should require student council members to attend all meetings and functions. maybe start a three strikes policy in which they can only miss three meetings or functions before they will kicked off. as for organization, in my school we have reps from each homeroom, a class president and vp for each level and then an executive board which represents the entire student body. depending on the size of your school, you can have something like that, as long as each level is represented. each week the entire student council has a meeting in which we discuss the upcoming plans (we print out sheets with the minutes from the meeting). then each level has an individual meeting to discuss their own plans and what was discussed at the large meeting. then, each homeroom has a meeting in which they discussed everything that was discussed at the other meetings. all positions are elected with the executive board (well you wouldn't need this since you're student body president alone) presidents and vps being chosen in may of the previous year and homerooms reps being elected in september. as for reps from clubs, you could meet with club leaders once a week to discuss any issues or ideas. well that's basically my student council in a nutshell, if you have any questions about it or want more advice, you can pm me.</p>

4

<p>Announce (through the school's broadcast system, flyers, visiting clubs, homerooms, etc.) that you wish to revitalize student government, and you would like suggestions from others who care about this. Provide your e-mail and phone #.</p>

<p>Take the time to talk to other student leaders -- officers of clubs, captains of teams, etc. - to get their input and enlist their support. </p>

<p>As you do all of this, also have some kind of rough plan to share with them. Based on your post, this should include restarting the system of homeroom representatives.</p>

<p>Talk with administration and set a date in the fall for the election of homeroom representatives. </p>

<p>Talk to student leaders at other schools to get ideas about what makes their SGAs effective and ineffective. Also examine SGA web pages.</p>

<p>Get permission from the administration and your advisor to establish an SGA web page, and start this over the summer. See if you can get another student to work with you to design it and maintain it. By delegating responsibilities like this, you involve others deeply in assisting with SGA. The mark of a good leader is having people who provide major assistance and ideas. A good leader should not try to be in charge of everything.</p>

<p>Use Facebook or similar sites to establish a way of students to informally connect with you. Make sure that your sites are professional: Not a place to post anything that may embarrass your school.</p>

<p>See if there's any way that you can get some leadership training over the summer such as if there's a local program for young leaders</p>

<p>Read biographies and autobiographies of people who were effective leaders.</p>

<p>If there are colleges nearby, meet with their SGA presidents, VP, and get suggestions about how you and your SGA can be effective. You also can get these suggestions via e-mail.</p>

<p>Obama is doing a very effective job of exciting youth about his vision, and involving young people in his campaign. Check out his site as you may get some good ideas for your work.</p>

<p>One last, very important thing: Sit down and talk with not only your advisor, but also the principal, vice principals, and your guidance counselor. Get their suggestions. Let them know of your ideas. If they view you as collaborating with them to improve the school, they will be in a position to do lots to help you institute your plans and revitalize the SGA. If they view you as somehow being in opposition to them such as if they interpret your hard work as indicting that they are ineffective -- they will block you every step of the way.</p>

<p>Don't surprise the administration with major plans and ideas that you've run by students, but haven't checked out with the administration and your advisor.</p>

<p>Communicating early with the administration, and doing this in a way that gives them a chance to suggest modifications -- will help the administration feel that your plans are also their plans. The more that people -- administrators, faculty, students -- feel part of what you are doing (including by having their ideas and suggestions be part of your programs), the easier job you'll have in establishing an excellent SGA.</p>

5

<p>In our school, all council members like secretary, treasurer and house captains meet on monday to discuss and organize a school event such as a dance or housewarming day or candy grams. We bring in grade reps once a year to ask for help during the dance, and if they miss the meeting three times, they lose their position, and new member is chosen. Our school has very strict rules and they are really serious.
Try to make lots of events and make more position members involved.</p>

6

<p>I've been President of my class of two years and I've just been reelected for a third term during my Junior year, so I've had a lot of experience with this type of thing. </p>

<p>I'm not sure how your government works, but I know that I have a cabinet within my grade that supervises different things. What you need to do is make sure that you have several people that you can rely upon. These people don't have to be your friends and in some ways shouldn't because you may feel reluctant to fire them if they don't do their job. Once you have several people helping you, you will be able to more effectively complete your job.</p>

<p>As Northstarmom mentioned, you need to make sure that you keep in close contact with your advisor as well as the administration of the school. Any major ideas that you may have should first go to the advisor. If he/she approves, then you will most likely have to present your idea to the administration. If your advisor doesn't like an idea, ask why and try and see if there is a way to revise it.</p>

<p>As for Homeroom Representatives, our school formally elects them at the beginning of each year. Unfortunately (for my school at least), the majority of these elections are popularity contests and end up getting filled with people who don't care. By the middle of the year this past year, I was ready to fire practically all of them because I had not heard from them at all. You need to make sure, however, that you alert them about meetings via morning announcements, typed letters, email, etc. because people often don't realize that meetings are going on. To make use of homeroom representatives, however, you may be able to just ask people to sign up and pick from those who do rather then have an election (which may be what my school does next year).</p>

<p>When it comes to clubs, many people within our student government are already part of them. Thus, they have representation through us. We don't have any "official" ambassadors like that, but I don't see why it couldn't work if you really want them on there. </p>

<p>Well... that's all I can think of now. Feel free to PM or ask questions in the thread because I'll check back.</p>

7

<p>Wonderful responses, thanks a lot everyone - here's my ideas that I had been developing before and I was wondering if they could be evaluated.</p>

<p>Background: My student government technically has jurisdiction as a liason between the students and school, and is in charge of most events and spirit-type items at the school. Currently there are class officers, and a few elected positions for the general body (P, VP, Sec., Treas., Sarge at Arms). There are some people who are very active in it but currently they have no formal position because of the decay in the organization. </p>

<p>Plans:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Currently meetings are held once per month but I plan to make it so they are held twice a month for all the representatives and officers. An easy format such as the first activity period of every month and the first activity period of the 3rd week of every month, unless otherwise noted. I think this will be a easy way to remember rather than trying complicated communications and signs.</p></li>
<li><p>To make it so dedicated people have a means besides being just a "member" to work for student government, rather than a cabinet (Though I might still make one - but I think it would be less effective since it would place more responsibility on one person per subject), I plan to establish 4 committees. My SG had committees back about 15 years ago but eventually it fell apart after a decade or so because of the trend. One committee will focus just one events and raising money, another on recruiting representatives, informing representatives of events, and making sure they attend meetings. Another committee will focus on relations with the school administration and keep active contact with them, and will be the place to see what concerns there are in the student body. And lastly, a committee to evaluate the organization of the student government currently, and come up with suggestions or ideas to make it better. </p></li>
<li><p>I plan to make club representatives an official seperate distinct position since I believe club representatives seem usually more dedicated as they already are part of a club and were chosen as such so that makes it more likely for them to be devoted than random homerooms organized by last name. The last SG President tried to do that but eventually (...) forgot that she did that and so the representatives sortof just mixed into the crowd and eventually just stopped coming. Before my election I had campaigned at several clubs telling them that I would make sure student government would be much more friendly to clubs and such with representatives and some other programs. </p></li>
<li><p>Before the end of the year I'll talk with some teachers who've had experience with other school's student gov. and the administration (we have a new principal this year who's pretty hardcore - he was some CEO guy before he retired to come be principal) and get their ideas as well.</p></li>
<li><p>What sort of events do you suggest would be good for SG? Right now we hold dances and have some stuff at sports games, but generally that's about all. I was thinking mabye assemblies and such every so often about various things, but I'd like to hear more suggestions on things besides dances/sports games. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks for the comments and advice everyone - this thread is incrediblely helpful.</p>

8

<p>a good thing you could do is a fundraiser. it could be either for your school or for another cause (one we tried to do this year but couldn't was raise money for mosquito nets to help prevent malaria in Africa, they only cost $5 each).. we had a dance-a-thon but other ideas we had were baking contests (people like to bake at our school lol), a car wash, soemthing with making a teacher wear a chicken suit, a flea market, and a dance-off competition. we also have coffee houses/battle of the bands with local bands, haunted houses, and lots of contests between grades.</p>

9

<p>S helped organize a schoolwide penny wars that raised money for tsunami victims. Penny wars are a wonderful way of raising class spirit and unifying the school around a cause.</p>

<p>In the war that S helped organize, a randomly selected student from the winning class got to pie the principal (who, of course, had agreed in advance to be pied). Lots of fun!</p>

<p>Another idea for a fund raiser would be a talent show featuring teachers and the administration.</p>

10

<p>This thread might also be of interest to you:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/456798-how-does-one-become-good-leader.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/456798-how-does-one-become-good-leader.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

11

<p>Here's how to organize a penny wars fundraiser: Do</a> Something | Penny Drive or Penny War</p>

12

<p>Hey! I'm class president and I've been elected student council president. Our student government is pretty big, very active. We have about 100 members in a school of 700 or so, (elected and non-elected) and operate with a very large budget. We also have a school board rep, tons of commitees. </p>

<p>As far as what events you might do, we do just about everything from planning homecoming and prom, pep rallies, fundraisers, granting money to various organizations because of our funds. But, look for events that fit your school. We just hosted the annual male beauty pageant, which is a complete joke but features talent and evening wear, etc. It's a great fundraiser and it's hilarious. We've thrown around ideas for an annual, student-run film festival and coffee houses with bands from the local music scene. Invite a guest speaker that will interest students. Run a used book drive. </p>

<p>For commitees, we've tried to have one upperclassmen and one underclassmen head each commitee. (We form commitees for every dance, spirit week, bonfire, coffee house, etc.) This way, when a student graduates the knowledge of the nuances in planning these events isn't lost. </p>

<p>Oh, and we're launching a website! Personally, I'm really excited for this because it means getting our name out and being able to have a downloadable notes, budget, and important dates in one place. Hosting of sites is relatively cheap and I'd bet there are some students in your school who design websites. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

13

<p>Usually its reps from grades not homerooms or clubs. Seven votes per student, Seven reps per grade. Clearly kid from a grade can only vote for kids in there grade. Like that</p>

14

<p>I'm our newly elected SCA Co-President, at a small school of only 400. We can't get anybody interested in SCA, elected or non-elected, but I think that your ideas for reorganization are great. We only have 15 or so members of SCA, and all we really do is the Homecoming Dance and the Teacher Luncheon. I think that that will change next year, because I want our group to become involved and more "influential" on student and school policy. It's nice to see that some people at CC are in the same boat as me.</p>

15

<p>At S's high school, the SGA organized a really cool pep rally that included recognition of the academic as well as sports teams, and also included some great prizes (including an Ipod!) that were given away through some kind of lottery system.</p>

<p>I'm sure that took a lot of extra work, especially to get the prizes donated, but it started the school year off wonderfully.</p>

<p>The SGA there also was responsible for organizing an annual Relay for Life.</p>