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Student nominees joined in the MPR on May 31 to give their speech on why they should be elected to students who came.

Due to frequent complaints and concerns from students and staff on how the student body dealt with schoolwide campus activities, the administration decided to overhaul the current student government structure in replacement for a simpler one.

“We wanted to make the school better, function more formally and create more student buy-in and accountability,” junior class sponsor Nicole Bootel said.

Four student body members were elected on June 1. Junior Dean Khazanov has been elected for the role of Student Body President, Angel Rivera as Student Body Vice President, Kevin Garcia for secretary and Francheska Vicents for treasurer.

Instead of four officers, there will be two class representatives from each grade level who will be chosen in the fall semester. While the titles of the two representatives from each grade have not been decided, they will join the Student Body members and the leadership class for monthly meetings where voting and decision-making will take place.

This change was created as an attempt to increase organization and communication of events, plans and decisions within each grade.

However, there had been a powerful backlash from the junior class. Many members of the junior class were upset due to the fact that the students did not get a say in the creation of this drastic change to the organization of Student Body. Many believed that they need to improve their class and gain stability, instead of take part in a test run to see whether a new system will work.

“Personally, I was a bit frustrated with this decision,” junior Mirabelle Chernick said. “I feel like since it is affecting us, we should have had a voice.  If we, as group, had voted in favor of the new system, it would have been resigned.”

Juniors Jade Ajileye and Chernick had begun a petition after the junior class meeting that took place on May 19 as a way to express their grievances and have their voices heard. In one day, they obtained over 50 signatures from students of all grade levels.

Despite the efforts of the juniors to curb this new organization of the Student Body, there has been confirmation that this plan will be introduced for the upcoming school year.

“We are the ones who stood up against something that we perceived to be extremely unfair and refused to blindly accept what was spontaneously thrusted upon us,” Chernick said. “Regardless of the outcome, we did something and that, in itself, is something worth commending.”