Hello everyone, and welcome back to school!

Hope you all had a fun and relaxing summer break!

Last spring, you all, the student body, voted for a student representative to the ETHS District 202 School Board as the advocate for your voice in the 2023-24 school year. For this school year, I will be serving as YOUR rep; my goals as your student rep are to represent all of your voices and experiences to help the administration, like Dr. Campbell and Dr. Kinzie, better support the entire student body with our visions in mind. 

The student rep is a non-voting member of the District 202 school board and attends monthly meetings with the school board. Like all school boards across the nation, members of the board vote and decide on policy changes within the district, but we are very fortunate to have a student board position where student voice is considered in important policy change decisions. The student rep delivers a report about any main points of feedback students have been buzzing about in the past month and updates about student life in the building. 

In my role as student rep, I am the voice of the entire student body, meaning that if you have any issues or concerns this year, you are always welcome to reach out to me or the Student Union, not to be confused with our Student Council, which is mostly in charge of planning student activities.

The student rep is also responsible for leading our school’s Student Union, our all-volunteer student government, where the only elected position is the role of the student rep. In previous years, passionate students just like you have tackled issues like the unfair dress code, tardy policies, and climate initiatives to create positive policy change inside and outside the ETHS community.

In the 2022-23 school year, we hosted the Student Voice forum in December, where you all had the opportunity to speak face-to-face with some of the administrators in the building. The Student Union meets every Thursday after school in W311, where we discuss the feedback that students are sharing with us and create action plans to find solutions to those issues. Almost every week, new students come to our meetings and share new insights or perspectives that they have experienced. The goals of the Student Union are also to represent and advocate for the entire student body’s voices. If this sounds interesting to you, and you’d like to meet new people and engage with an incredibly caring and supportive group of fellow students, come join us on Thursdays after school!

For this school year, one of my goals is to connect with the entire student body more frequently on a larger scale with experiences just like the Student Voice forum. Part of this goal is also keeping you all updated on the changes that are happening in the school through media platforms such as the Evanstonian! This year will be mostly focused on collaboration and transparent communication between students and administrators; collaboration between other student groups like SOAR and ASAP are anticipated as well! As for the Student Union, we want to continue representing all the diverse experiences in the building and recruit more passionate students! 

Thank you all for being a part of the change you want to see, and I look forward to seeing all the great things this school year will bring!