The SSC bulletin is a weekly article covering the events at each Monday’s council meeting.
Student Staff Council (SSC) representatives began to file in at 3:32 p.m. on Monday, March 3 for their weekly meeting. As council members rearranged desks and took their seats, SSC President Natalia Freedman set out a variety of Frito-Lay chips and Chips Ahoy cookies. SSC Vice President Grace Khuzami took attendance on the white board, marking the absence of two freshmen and one senior due to athletics media day.
During this week’s meeting, the council made plans for St. Patrick’s Day, proposed electronic student IDs and brainstormed ideas for Pi Day on March 14 and April Fool’s Day.
The council debated hiring a bagpiper or a fiddler to play music during community time and lunch on St. Patrick’s Day. The council also discussed hosting Irish dancers in the Forum or holding a scavenger hunt for Lucky Charms cereal boxes.
Director of Student Life and Wellness Bobby Asher stopped by the meeting to suggest that a group of students led by Killy should dress as leprechauns and cause mischief around the school. Asher also agreed to head what he described as the “green police” on St. Patrick’s Day, a force whose mission will be to sprinkle green glitter on students not wearing green clothing.
Next, senior representative Michael Dobbs asked Killy if GDS could make student IDs accessible on Apple Wallet, so students could enter the high school by tapping their phone on the card reader. Dobbs believed the Apple Wallet IDs would not violate the phone ban because students would be outside the building when tapping their IDs, which Killy did not dispute. The FAQ page for the high school phone ban says that students cannot use their phones “within sight of school.” Dobbs added that Georgetown University has implemented a virtual ID process, and Killy asked him to reach out to the university to see if GDS could do the same.
The council broke into their four subcommittees: special events, mental health, furniture and food. Each group briefly updated the council on their work and then split into subcommittees to discuss within each subcommittee.
The special events group discussed possible April Fools’ Day pranks for Tuesday, April 1, such as spraying students with confetti cannons or hiring a clown to play tricks on students. They also discussed the possibility of letting students smash pies in math teachers’ faces for Pi Day on Friday, March 14.
The mental health group worked on creating a handout for students about school rules for testing schedules. Their goal is to promote awareness about the rules stated in the school handbook, so students know when and how often teachers can schedule tests. The group also wants students to know they can reschedule their tests if teachers violate school policy.
The furniture group sent out a school-wide Google Form last week to ask about students’ furniture preferences, and the group reviewed responses at this week’s meeting. The most requested change was to replace the mirror in the first floor men’s bathroom, which has been missing since it was broken on Halloween. Other responses included requests for more bean bags and microwaves.
The food group continued to work on plans to prevent students from taking all the snacks at once from the snack boxes across the high school. They emailed staff members to see if the snack boxes could be put in offices or classrooms where teachers would be present. Health teacher Caitlin Hutcheon agreed to keep a snack box in her room, and the group is still waiting on a response from the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office.
SSC then split into grade-level groups to plan grade-specific activities. The freshmen decided to hold another office hours at a future community time to hear ideas from other freshmen, and the sophomores thought of ideas for an end-of-the-year activity such as laser tag or going to a trampoline park. The juniors came up with games to play at their next class meeting while the seniors planned a volleyball tournament.
As the meeting came to a close, members of the council gathered to take a group photo for the yearbook. Killy passed out the unfinished Chips Ahoy cookies as representatives left room 104.