Author: Nath
Date: Apr 04, 08 4:10pm (PT)
Subject: Student Government
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How large of a role do you think it should play in how a school is run? Do you think that their decision should be as or more important than that of individual/a group of faculty members?
I made this after some recent drama in my grade. I'll have to give some background information to explain it, but in short I go to a private high school. Each grade has three student council representatives, a president, a vice president, a secretary, and a treasurer. All of these are elected the first day of ninth grade, though there is a middle school on the same campus so most of them know each other. Student council has significant say in what goes on. They plan events and have nearly equal say as the administration the administration on many things. The president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer deal with the grade, and each grade's goal is to raise money for a trip at the end of senior year. The president can also call mandatory meetings of the grade during lunch periods. They student government can also say that somebody either did not contribute enough or would be detrimental to the grade and ban them from all of these activities, as has happened with a friend of mine in a higher grade.
I don't think they should have this much power. Also in short there was a scandal and $200 was spent by the president for their own gain, and they've gone unpunished and I was shut down very fast when I commented on this. A teacher stated how they needed to get their act together, and the vice president announced "it was none of _____'s business to get involved in the way our grade is run." I'm not going to be here next year, so I don't really care to get too involved, but I think that this is an example of giving the student's too much power. Or more accurately, giving it to a few students.
How does everyone else's school run things, and how do you think a school should?
Author: dearest apollo
Date: Apr 04, 08 4:13pm (PT)
Subject: re: Student Government
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well schools need to be overlooked by some form of organization and higher power, cause if they weren't then things would be totally out of place. that said, the department of education has jurisdiction over public schools. of course DoE workers are tied into the government in some form; in my opinion, furtively since there's existing double-standards public schools must follow.
having a really corrupted government is one part. crappy chancellors are the other.
Author: Rome
Date: Apr 05, 08 9:05pm (PT)
Subject: re: Student Government
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I really think the students need a broader way to express grievance and see to it that the educational environment is improved, however, the influence of the students on my school is nothing compared to yours, Nath.
Author: Unity
Date: Apr 23, 08 9:38pm (PT)
Subject: re: Student Government
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The only thing our council has to do with other students is that they vote on disciplinary actions.
Author: Deathsythe
Date: Apr 24, 08 4:53pm (PT)
Subject: re: Student Government
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We have a disciplinary committee in my school for that, but that is only upper administration, no students.
We have the Honor Board which is a judiciary system that debates on honor system infractions, but when it comes to levying punishment the disciplinary committee has the final say.
Student Government is great for PR stuff. Organizing events and fundraisers, budgeting RSOs (clubs), and keeping the fraternities in line.
They have a little more pull when addressing the upper administration only because they are representing the whole student body and they also generally know all of the Deans on a first name basis.
Anything that requires actual decision making should be left in the hands of the administration. Students by all means should be allowed to suggest and recommend things, but that should be it.
Author: Rome
Date: Apr 24, 08 7:17pm (PT)
Subject: re: Student Government
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I agree there, Deathsythe. When it comes to making important decisions like that, most students don't have the wisdom or priorities to be able to do that. They should help organize and communicate, but decisions should be up to the school faculty.
Author: Galacticdramon
Date: Apr 26, 08 1:31pm (PT)
Subject: re: Student Government
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The problem is that a student government should not be allowed to become too powerful. Long before we had a student government at my last school, pupils managed to successfully get one subject obliterated from the timetable and another almost removed because - get ready for this -
they didn't like the subjects. That's the kind of power that can be dangerous in the hands of pupils.
Eventually, they did form a student government. This basically meant that we were supposed to discuss with our "representative" what issues we wanted to have raised at the weekly meeting in the boardroom. Now the first time this worked - purely because we all wanted the same issue (slow computers) being raised at the meeting. And, if I remember correctly, something was done about it. But most of the others were using the meetings to put forward silly and unworkable suggestions. The student government was disbanded after a term or so and nothing seemed to change while it existed.
Then, in my second-to-last year, in a conversation with the headteacher someone jokingly asked him whether we, as pupils, could have a vote on a matter of great importance to the school. His reply, as he laughed, was, "
It's not a democracy". Clearly he wasn't willing to put that to the kids (the governors may have voted, I'm not sure whether there was a vote of any sort); whether he knew better after the first time the student government was formed I'm not sure.
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