While Westminster’s student leadership system is a great start, it is now the time, in our growing size and dedicated student body, to make the step into the realm of student governments. Many think these two things are two of the same, think again.
A student government system calls for the student body to have more of a say in the rules and events that affect them on a greater level. This can be from as small as a jeans day, or to whether we should have prom. The possibilities of the students’ power and say are endless.
The Westminster student leadership system was once adequate, but it is now under grown and obsolete. The system calls for a student council and a set of class representatives such as class president, vice president, secretary, spirit chair, and service chair, and then a set of STUCO chairs.
However, there is some friendly opposition to the idea of a student government.
“We have great system now so why change it? We have a system where students can voice their opinions,” said Dr. Sefrit, head of upper school.
Yet, students still feel that they have little influence in the student council.
“The system we have now is a good start, but it’s missing something,” said Dominic Franceschelli, junior.
With student council focusing on activities and events, Id like to see another body that tackles actual issues.
While our system is more expansive than schools like Chaminade, Westminster has grown to the size of its rivals and should be jumping on the train of Whitfield, MICDS, and even CBC. John Burroughs has a student congress, which is much like our student council, but they focus on issues within the student body and present them to the administration.
In all these schools surrounding ours, Desmet Jesuit’s student government system is the most developed. With chairs ranging from student body president, to a sports chair, the expanse of the student power is great. The school even recently added a social chair that is directly tailored to the needs of students.
Westminster can take a few easy steps to get on the right path to student government. First, start a dedicated student government. It’s a new name and a new organization change that would function in addition to student council to become a student congress. Students would then bring their ideas to the congress.
Second, keep the class officials the same, just tweek their job descriptions. Give the vice-president more duties.
It turns out that many WCA students agree with the need for a student congress – somewhere they can bring their problems.
“I think that giving the students more of a say will throw a new dynamic into the current system and give it two sides,” said John Eric Steiner, senior.
When polling a total of 87 students from all grades the results showed that, 74% of pollers wanted a student government system as part of student leadership. Through these results, it is clear that students want more of a say in their school related lives.
“I think that students need more of a voice in what affects them, and we, as student leaders, need more of a voice to give our own ideas to the high ups of WCA,” said JD Klein, junior class president.
From freshman to seniors, students are ready to make a lasting impact on the academy.
Students of today want to change the school for tommorow, and a student goverment would give them the chance to do that. That, in itself, is change for the future of Westminster and its students.
