Good morning LM_Netters.
Thank you so much to those who shared their ideas with me. Here are the
responses I received about the student council activities. I had no students
show up for the first meeting, but I'm going to really promote it next week
when we come back from the holiday. I now have this great list of things to
encourage the students to get involved. Thank you so much. Have a great
holiday.
Carla
POST:
I volunteered to head up the student council in our middle school. I am new
to the building and new to the position dealing with student council. I have
an idea of what they do, but it seems so broad I'm not even sure what to
tell students when they ask. We won't do elections because I'll be lucky if
I even get enough students who are interested (we have about 75 students in
our middle school). So I was wondering if you can tell me some of the things
that the student council has done in your schools. I would like to hear
about the large and small activities.
Thank you.
Carla
RESPONSE:
Oh gosh! I think you'll have so much fun with your group. I was the
sponsor for many years and loved it! We did a variety of things, including
community service (food drives, adopting a family at Christmas, candy grams
on Valentine's Day - a blowpop attached to a cut-out heart- with the money
going to charity, etc). StuCo was also in charge of planning our quarterly
pep assemblies and dances. The possibilities are truly endless...have fun!
Our student council sponsors the school throughout during the school year.
(approx 5) In the past, they have sponsored a Coats for Kids campaign to
collect winter coats for a local shelter. They have worked with our service
learning coordinator and collected canned goods for the local food bank.
Also, once they collected supplies to send to our soldiers overseas. Often
our SC combines efforts with other service groups in our school and
co-sponsors drives. Hope this helps.
Our student council does an annual canned food drive. They also go on a
field trip to watch a city government meeting. They really don't have much
input on the running of the school, so it almost seems a wasted effort to
have one.
Some general things my JH StuCo does:
--Serves punch/cookies at Open House and/or other parental functions
--Provides a teacher's luncheon in May for Teacher Appreciation Day
--Canned food drive around Thanksgiving/Christmas
--Veteran's Day program with major help from JH Councelor, Secretary and
Principal (this has become a rather huge deal for our small town)
--Candy gram fundraisers (usually during Homecoming Week and Valentine's
Day)
--Birthday cards with soft drink coupons for all students
--School Board appreciation gifts in January
--Red Ribbon Week in October--hand out stuff each day
--TAKS (state testing) week we hand out little magic notes to encourage
staff and students
These are just some of the brainstormed ideas off of the top of my head. It
is not a complete list.
I work in a K-12 school and we have two Student Councils - an elementary one
(5-6) and a high school one (7-12). Both are quite active in the school and
it is a pretty big deal to be part of them. Here are some of our
activities:
1. Homecoming - the high school Student Council plans all of the Homecoming
activities for the week (which is a huge deal at our school)
2. Food/ clothing drives for the needy
3. At Christmas, they decorate a tree with paper ornaments - each ornament
lists a specific wish of a needy person. Other people take an ornament and
buy the gift and the Student Council delivers the gifts
4. Also at Christmas, the Student Council takes orders for candy canes -
people buy them and fill out a message; the Student Council delievers them
all on the day before break (they do something similiar at Valentine's Day
as well) (just an FYI with this - we go through all the kids in school and
anyone who doesn't get a treat from a friend gets one from "Your Secret
Friend" or something)
5. They act as guides/ greeters when we have guest speakers at school
6. They help with Junior High Orientation
7. They help at the Blood Drive that we have at school
8. They lead morning prayer on the announcements (we are a Catholic
school).
There is more, but this is a good start!
I work in a K-12 school and we have two Student Councils - an elementary one
(5-6) and a high school one (7-12). Both are quite active in the school and
it is a pretty big deal to be part of them. Here are some of our
activities:
1. Homecoming - the high school Student Council plans all of the Homecoming
activities for the week (which is a huge deal at our school)
2. Food/ clothing drives for the needy
3. At Christmas, they decorate a tree with paper ornaments - each ornament
lists a specific wish of a needy person. Other people take an ornament and
buy the gift and the Student Council delivers the gifts
4. Also at Christmas, the Student Council takes orders for candy canes -
people buy them and fill out a message; the Student Council delievers them
all on the day before break (they do something similiar at Valentine's Day
as well) (just an FYI with this - we go through all the kids in school and
anyone who doesn't get a treat from a friend gets one from "Your Secret
Friend" or something)
5. They act as guides/ greeters when we have guest speakers at school
6. They help with Junior High Orientation
7. They help at the Blood Drive that we have at school
8. They lead morning prayer on the announcements (we are a Catholic
school).
There is more, but this is a good start!
This is not specifically about Student Council, but next week we are having
a dodgeball tournament (fund raiser for local family)--admission one dollar
or food bank-type item; plus a Bake Sale for the Junior Class. This is
happening on the same night as the elem. and middle schools have parent
teacher conferences.... and the advisers want to make this a community
event. We'll see how it goes. One disadvantage is that Monday is the last
day before T-giving break, so some people may already be gone.
Our school is small too....but not quite as small as yours. We have about
450-500 in grades 6-12.
My point is that it may make sense to" bundle" some activities so you can
draw more people.
One problem here has been that in the past our SC (more accurately, the
advisers) has had a tendency to bring in "speakers" with a message ...they
do BMX tricks, or play "music", or talk about their lives as drug
addicts,etc., or how they wound up in a wheelchair because of a drunk
driver, then hit the audience with a religious message. A few of us find
this objectionable, but we've been over-ruled. I think this is permitted
because there are not many presenters available (we're 60 miles from a large
city), and we live in a semi-religious area, so the admin. rubber-stamps
these requests. It bothers me to see our kids so taken with a little bit of
flash....we don't do the "assembly thing" very well.
I'm new to the district, but I think their biggest event is the homecoming.
They may also do a food drive.
This is not specifically about Student Council, but next week we are having
a dodgeball tournament (fund raiser for local family)--admission one dollar
or food bank-type item; plus a Bake Sale for the Junior Class. This is
happening on the same night as the elem. and middle schools have parent
teacher conferences.... and the advisers want to make this a community
event. We'll see how it goes. One disadvantage is that Monday is the last
day before T-giving break, so some people may already be gone.
Our school is small too....but not quite as small as yours. We have about
450-500 in grades 6-12.
My point is that it may make sense to" bundle" some activities so you can
draw more people.
One problem here has been that in the past our SC (more accurately, the
advisers) has had a tendency to bring in "speakers" with a message ...they
do BMX tricks, or play "music", or talk about their lives as drug
addicts,etc., or how they wound up in a wheelchair because of a drunk
driver, then hit the audience with a religious message. A few of us find
this objectionable, but we've been over-ruled. I think this is permitted
because there are not many presenters available (we're 60 miles from a large
city), and we live in a semi-religious area, so the admin. rubber-stamps
these requests. It bothers me to see our kids so taken with a little bit of
flash....we don't do the "assembly thing" very well.
Carla Boyington
School Media Specialist
Goshen-Lempster Cooperative School
29 School Road
Lempster, NH 03605
(603) 863.1018 FAX (603) 863.2451
cboyington@gl.k12.nh.us
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