Amid a cacophony of crunchy Doritos and noisy scribbling on Hopper-green slips of paper, Student Staff Council representatives sat anxiously at their desks, waiting to find out who their cabinet members would be for the upcoming school year. But within a few minutes, their anticipation dimmed as Assistant Principal for School Life Quinn Killy strolled back into the room and announced that the election at hand had resulted in a tie. Twice.
During SSC’s weekly Monday meeting on Monday, May 18, representatives elected sophomore Elliott Etter to be vice president, sophomore Ella Maas to be treasurer and junior Jonah Levy to be secretary for the 2026-27 school year.
At the beginning of the meeting, SSC President Willa Wible gave introductory remarks. “We have to hit the ground running next fall,” she said. Wible said she hopes to hold voluntary SSC meetings in August to prepare the council for the upcoming school year.
“I want to try to minimize that transition time between this past year’s SSC and this next year,” Wible said in an interview with the Bit. “We’ll see if this comes out either in the next couple weeks or maybe early in August, but we’d like to send out a data collection form and just have a bunch of people at our school [do] ranked-choice voting, like, ‘What issues do they really care about?’”
Wible asked the room whether there were any pressing issues representatives wished to address. Representatives’ ideas included securing calculator charging strips, supporting the student body with academic stress and improving school wifi.
In order to be eligible to run for an SSC position, a representative must be nominated by another student on the council. A different representative must then second the nomination. Every candidate for a cabinet position delivered a speech before the council voted.
First, the SSC held their vice presidential election between Etter and Maas.
In Etter’s speech, he stressed the importance of communication, both among representatives and with the rest of the student body. Increasing SSC’s presence in the broader school community, Etter said, would hopefully compel more students to come to the weekly meetings and allow the council to hear a broader variety of ideas and perspectives.
SSC members cast their votes anonymously on slips of paper. After tallying them up, Killy announced there was a tie. Etter and Maas each delivered a second speech before another vote.
In Etter’s second speech, he added that, if elected, he would encourage more participation in student–teacher office hours: occasional meetings where teachers, students and SSC representatives convene to discuss issues in the school. While SSC currently holds grade-wide office hours, Etter said he wants to invite faculty to join.
After counting the votes, Killy announced that Etter had won.
Next, the candidates for treasurer gave their speeches. Maas, freshman Jonas Grossman and juniors Alicia Kim and Matias Sevak were all nominated. Junior Jonah Levy was also nominated but declined the nomination.
(Levy is a sports editor for the Bit.)
The first round of voting resulted in a tie between Maas and Sevak.
In Maas’ speech, she emphasized her dedication to the role of treasurer and said she planned to start working on budget plans over the summer. Maas said she wanted to allocate funds to specific projects before the year begins so SSC can make the most of their budget. “If I was able to, during the summer, take a step back [and] look at where we’ve spent our money over the past two years, I could make a plan of where we want to spend it this coming year,” Maas said in an interview with the Bit.
SSC is allotted a 10,000-dollar budget each year. According to Wible, the council spent about 8,000 dollars this year.
“I’m a big fan of planning ahead,” Maas said. “I really think that the answer isn’t always spending more money or spending less money—really stepping back and doing a financial analysis can make a big difference.”
After the second vote, Killy announced that Maas would be treasurer next year.
In the final election of the day, Levy and freshman Aliana Cromer ran for secretary.
(Cromer is a reporter for the Bit.)
In Levy’s speech, he spoke about his experience as vice president under former SSC president and graduating senior Grace Khuzami. Levy said he took notes at every meeting as vice president and would continue to do so as secretary.
“I want to be more clear about what SSC is doing on a weekly basis and share that with the school through more consistent [SSC] minutes,” Levy said. SSC minutes are emails that the SSC secretary sends to the high school detailing SSC’s recent initiatives.
After Killy tallied the votes for a final time, he announced that Levy won and would serve as secretary next year.
Levy explained that he thinks the secretary position is better tailored to his strengths than the role of SSC treasurer—a role for which he declined his nomination. “Initially, I’d hoped to be president, and so I ran for that, and that was kind of what my goals were set on,” Levy said. “The day [leading] up to the meeting, I realized although I hadn’t won for president, I still wanted to play a major role on [the] student council.
“One of the things that Willa talked about in her campaign is that she’s really action-driven, and I think that’s one thing that Grace [Khuzami] did very well with,” Levy continued. “I think it’s something that Willa will continue to do well with, not just saying you have a plan, but really putting that plan into action.”