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 at 3:32 p.m. on Monday for their first meeting since spring break. No senior representatives attended the meeting, so SSC Vice President Grace Khuzami, in place of SSC President Natalia Freedman, wrote the agenda on the board. Freedman was absent from school on Monday. Assistant Principal for School Life Quinn Killy brought Chips Ahoy and lemon Oreo cookies, and Khuzami brought matzah toffee.
This week, the council brainstormed ideas for teacher and staff appreciation, planned springtime activities and set up the Nintendo Wii gaming system on L1.
SSC discussed plans for National Teacher Appreciation Week, which is the week of May 5. Representatives plan on sending out a Google Form where students can share their favorite moments with a teacher of their choice. The council will then print out the notes students write and give them to teachers. Killy suggested that the council send out another Google Form where students can sign up to stay after school and clean up community spaces, such as the Forum, to appreciate the maintenance staff. The council will also ask students to write messages of gratitude to the maintenance and security teams.
The council then started planning school-wide springtime activities. The sophomore representatives proposed holding a shaving cream fight, and the freshman representatives suggested having a ball pit in the Forum. SSC also discussed holding an Easter egg hunt, but Killy said the Christian Student Union had already requested to hold one later this spring.
SSC then split into its four subcommittees, which focus on furniture, special events, mental health and food.
The furniture group went to L1 to set up the Wii gaming system during the meeting. Representatives brought a TV to the L1 common space between the elevator and stairs and rearranged the furniture around the Wii.
Before spring break, the special events group organized a school-wide bracket competition for the March Madness college basketball tournament. With the tournament over, the group brainstormed prizes to give to the winners of the pools for the men’s and women’s tournaments. Potential prizes included custom t-shirts made to look like basketball jerseys with the winners’ last names on the back, trophies or championship-style rings.
The mental health group continued to work on their flyer about the rules for scheduling major assessments. The group’s goal is to ensure that students know they can reschedule their tests if their teachers schedule more major assessments per day or week than are allowed.
The food group confirmed that the smoothie bowl company Playa Bowls will come to GDS as a lunch vendor on Thursday, April 17. The group also looked into hiring ice cream trucks as lunch vendors, but Killy said to wait to see if enough students buy from Playa Bowls before asking other vendors to come to the school.
The council then split into grade-level discussions. The juniors made flyers for their grade-wide soccer tournament, which will take place on the high school field during the class meeting on Monday, April 14, and purchased supplies for the tournament. The sophomores planned to hold office hours within the next two weeks and decided to have Easter cookie decorating at the office hours to attract more students. The freshmen planned to make snow cones at the next class meeting. The class meeting was originally going to take place on the high school field but will now be held in the quiet side of the library so as not to interfere with the juniors’ soccer tournament. There was no senior group discussion because none of the grade’s representatives attended the meeting.
The meeting adjourned early at 4:25 p.m. The previously full bag of matzah toffee lay empty on the snack table as representatives filed out.