On Sept. 6, leadership announced the new slate of student council officers for the freshman class of 2017. Josh Dewitt was elected president, Isabella Duan and Jason Leung were elected co-vice presidents, Nicoletta Della Bordella was elected secretary, Emily Mao was elected treasurer.
Thirteen freshmen ran for the four positions. “It’s one of the higher numbers we’ve had running for a class,” says leadership head Catherine Williamson.
This year, there was a tie between Isabella Duan and Jason Leung for the position of vice president. Leadership decided against having a tie breaker, creating a student council of five officers instead of four. The two will share the responsibilities and duties of the position. “Only about a third of the class votes. That’s typical. Some vote for one office and then don’t vote for the others,” Williamson says, explaining why there was a tie in the first place, and why it would be difficult to break it.
Both Duan and Leung are pleased with the partnership. “I think it’s nice because you can depend on each other for the work and you can share ideas and, you know, help each other out,” Duan says.
The group held its first student council meeting on Sept. 18 to discuss fundraisers, plans and goals for the year. Duan says, “Our main goal is to have freshmen be very spirited. We want everybody to dress up and stuff on the dress up days, come to the lunchtime activities, to show a lot of Aragon spirit, so people come to fundraisers and football games.”
“It’s highly likely that we’ll do a poll in the near future to figure out what students would like,” says president DeWitt, discussing plans for future fundraisers that students can go to. “One thing that came up was a fundraiser at a milk tea place.”
The freshman student council has big ideas for the coming year, and they seem up to the challenge. They’ll be looking to do fundraisers at restaurants such as Amici’s and California Pizza Kitchen, or cafes like Quickly. “I know like places that my mom’s friends own that might fundraise us,” says Mao.
They’ll also be helped along by the new freshman class advisor, Spanish teacher Maria Cheever. She was a class advisor at her last school, Newark Memorial, and volunteered to be the freshman advisor when she heard that they didn’t have one. “It was really great being an advisor,” says Cheever. “I wanted to help the new class because I’m also new to the school.”
Williamson adds, “This is the first year in a long time that we have all four classes covered with an advisor. So many of our very active teachers are busy being club advisors that it is difficult to get class advisors.”
All in all, the new freshman class student council is prepared and enthusiastic for the coming year. Says Duan, “I’m really excited, I hope that we can do a lot, I hope we can do a lot to get students active at Aragon, and, yeah, I’m really looking forward to it.”
