High schoolers voted for the Student Staff Council (SSC) president for the 2024-25 school year. Junior Natalia Freedman ran unopposed.
Freedman’s term will begin today. High school students and staff completed the Google Form ballot sent via email just after the SSC election took place on Friday, May 17. In her speech, Freedman spoke about wanting to bridge the gap between the students and administration and enhancing school spirit.
One idea she proposed was to spotlight one GDS sports game per week. She also said she wants to continue working on the SSC initiative she focused on this year: bringing a therapy dog to the high school.
Freedman said that she hopes to reestablish the school spirit that GDS had before COVID. She said she spoke to people who attended GDS before the COVID pandemic who said events such as First Friday and Flag Football had high student turnout. “And now, no one shows up to anything,” Freedman said. “I really want to change that.”
Freedman hopes to also bring back SSC Minutes to engage the student body in conversations the council is having. SSC Minutes were emails sent by the council secretary to inform the entire student body about what SSC did in each of their weekly Monday meetings.
When seniors Rand Poellnitz and Julian Montes-Sharp ran for SSC President for the 2023-24 school year, they each wrote a short essay about their campaign, delivered a speech and answered questions from the student body. Because Freedman ran unopposed, she did not have to write the essay.
This is the second time in three years that only one person has run for SSC President; Jacquline Metzger ran unopposed.
Nevertheless, Freedman said she hopes the student body understands her commitment to SSC. “I take this position very seriously, and I want people to think about it as they elect me,” she said. “I promise I will represent them.” Freedman said she will work on her plans over the summer. “I feel like if SSC works over the summer we’ll be much better set for next year,” she said.
When the time came for Freedman to answer the student body’s questions, most of the questions focused on the therapy dog initiative.
One student asked about whether there would be concerns about the dog being harmful for people with allergies and unhygienic. Freedman responded by saying that the dog would be hypoallergenic and would have someone supervising it.
In her speech, Freedman said she would resume the work SSC has done with the academic committee. In past years, the council has been a part of getting rid of midterms and providing freshmen with TI-84 calculators. “We have to make sure everyone’s concerns are being met, and you do that through the student academic committee and spirit committee,” Freedman said.
Freedman has been on SSC since her freshman year. She worked this past year as the council’s vice president.
2023-24 SSC President Julian Montes-Sharp said that the ideal SSC president should be collaborative. He referred to the composting initiative on which SSC worked with Enviro Club to put composting bins around the high school building. “Nothing in this school gets done if you’re working individually,” he said.