By Madison Preuett

Reporter

There has been a growing need identified in schools in recent years for students to get their voices heard. With programs like SOS helping kickstart this movement, administration felt like there needed to be an easier way for students and staff to connect on issues including mental health, academic and diversity in the district.

One way they chose to solve this problem was the creation in 2018 of a group known as Spirit Council in 2018. This group of students is there to comment on issues around the school and have been involved in things like getting WIN period every week and are now seeing what they can do about helping incoming freshmen and what they can be involved in. Spirit council is different than student senate because senate is elected juniors and seniors who are enrolled in a class called “leadership” that is taught by Susan Bublao. While spirit council includes students who are invited by administration and former members of the council.

Associate principal Shelley Brown, the director of the council, said that “Spirit council was initially started as an initiative for the high schools to get a diverse group of kids together and talk about things like social climate and academics.” SPIRIT stands for Student Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together. According to Brown, they meet once a month and have spokespeople from all different communities in the school, ranging from kids with not-so-great grades to kids who don’t have great grades.

Senior Gadiid Mohamed, a member of the council, said that the group iscurrently trying to adjust the AP scaling and give more rewards to kids who go out of their way to take those classes. He also states that he likes hearing students voices and that the group is “well-rounded.”

Junior Hatty Monroe, a non-council member, says “the problem is that I hardly know who these people are, if these students are representing us then it should be easier to contact them and discuss issues as an outsider.”