The SSC bulletin is a weekly article covering the events at each Monday’s council meeting.
Members of the Student Staff Council (SSC) entered room 104 for their first meeting since winter break. Last week’s meeting was cancelled due to a snow day. Assistant Principal for School Life Quinn Killy was met with words of approval from the sophomore representatives as he set the day’s snacks on the table: graham crackers, Tootsie Rolls and Goldfish.
The events on this week’s agenda were planning for the Winter Semi-Formal (WinFo) bake sale, debriefing National Rubber Duck Day and brainstorming ideas for Valentine’s Day.
The council discussed plans for a bake sale on Jan. 14 to raise funds for a photo booth at WinFo. The next morning they sold bacon, pancakes and banana bread. After deliberation over how to cook the bacon, the council planned to use electric skillets and pancake makers for the breakfast bake sale.
SSC then went over their plans for WinFo decorations. Killy announced that he bought an excessive amount of Christmas lights at a 75 percent post-holiday sale that could be used for WinFo. Additionally, the council decided that snacks will be provided at the dance.
During the meeting, the council debriefed students’ and teachers’ reactions to National Rubber Ducky Day. SSC chose to celebrate the day to make the major assessment week less stressful. The celebrations included administrators handing out rubber duckies in the morning, a duck scavenger hunt and a duck-themed Kahoot at class meetings.
While the council found the day to have generally been a success based on students’ reactions to the celebrations, they noted that some teachers found the rubber ducks to be a distraction in class due to their frequent squeaking noises. Killy said that the administration will choose a different theme for future obscure holiday celebrations so the day will always be a surprise.
The council spoke about a proposed food drive for the week of Jan. 20. Donations to the food drive would go to Martha’s Table, a non-profit organization that fights food insecurity in the D.C area. Junior Emma Renigar planned to do a food drive the same week for her Upper-Level American Government class, so she and the council combined food drives.
Next, the council scheduled the first rehearsal for their group dance performance at the variety show on Jan. 28 during the Mental Health Teach-In Day. They considered dancing or lip-syncing during their performance and planned to rehearse again during the SSC retreat on Jan. 27.
Killy is still waiting for a response from Farmer’s Fridge, a company that may supply GDS with a new refrigerated vending machine with healthy food options, including hard-boiled eggs. Some representatives shared that they had heard students did not want to buy hard-boiled eggs from the vending machine. Killy assured the council that the eggs would be replaced frequently by Farmer’s Fridge.
The council contemplated how to give out candy grams for Valentine’s Day. Last year’s method of giving out the candy in advisory will not work for this year’s Valentine’s Day, as it does not fall on a Wednesday when advisory is held. They concluded the best idea was to leave candy in every first-period classroom, and to give out candy at a separate table for students who have first period free.
The council then broke into grade-level groups, with the seniors brainstorming a January grade-wide activity and the juniors planning a Valentine’s Day–themed game for their February class meeting. The sophomores planned on making candy salad and having a trivia game for their class meeting, and the freshmen worked on making a Squid Game–themed activity.
Representatives began to file out as grade-level discussions came to a close at 4:23 p.m. The last sophomores and juniors to leave were left debating who should take the graham crackers with them.