By: Matthew Du, Staff Writer
Leadership, known as a class of collaborative students who work to create fun and enjoyable activities for the student body to participate in throughout the school year. But what happens behind the scenes and behind closed doors? How do they prepare for all of these events?
First, they begin the planning process and collaborate as a group to brainstorm what events would be most fun for the students. Typically, they try to incorporate a theme into the event or activity. For example, StressBusters Week, which took place from December 9th to December 13th was made to help students destress right before finals week with an added winter theme. Students got to wear different clothing for each day depending on which theme the day centered.
When planning activities like these, Mills Spirit Committee Leader, Miranda Santos (12) said, “I make everyone sit down with me. I don’t let anyone do anything else and I just tell them that we all have to sit down and we all have to talk and then if we’re gonna plan something. I make sure that we all agree on it and when the week is over, like for StressBusters, we all sat down and we all agreed.”
“If you guys want anything to be changed, you tell me now before we go ask for approval. So it’s just everyone has their own opinion and if they don’t wanna do something or they think that students won’t want to do it, then we don’t do it,” Santos added.
There’s a lot of communication with making these events happen. After they communicate with the group and agree to the plan, they carry out their proposal by showing their advisor, Ms. Dove, for approval and then they bring their idea to the administration. Once Ms. Dove agrees to the proposal and admin approves it, they let stakeholders know about the upcoming event like students and teachers.
Ms. Dove stated, “I think the biggest thing that I wish to be mindful about is communicating so really talking with the students and seeing where they’re at. Then seeing where they need support. My role is really to help advocate for the students with the school. I help them communicate with the administration and let people that need to know what’s going on. I help them kind of facilitate that. I think because of my position as being the adult in the room, I also help them think about things that they might not realize.”
They also have backup plans and alternatives if things don’t go planned. One example of an unexpected challenge during the planning process was that one of the spirit days for StressBusters week. Leadership had the idea of wearing winter sports gear such as hockey, but realized it’s uncommon for students to have hockey gear.
“I think it’s just trying to find, like a compromise or somewhere where we meet in the middle ground…oh, this sounds really fun, but there was also the aspect of like, we don’t know if people are gonna participate from what we’re doing, and we want everyone to be able to participate, but, like, as in like wearing hockey like things, but not everyone has something for hockey,” explained Santos.
Santos noted, “I feel like those are the times where we have issues, it’s just when we all don’t agree on some, but then we all try to just think about the school as a whole and think about what the students are gonna wanna do. It’s not just us.”
“If we do something that students don’t feel comfortable with, or didn’t appreciate, I want them to tell us, because that’s really important.” remarked Dove.
Then, the team ends their week with reflections all together and just talk about what went well and what needs to be improved. They listen to what other students are saying and take that as feedback.
“Definitely utilizing the student voice, because ultimately this is for the students, not for us. We wanna make sure that the students are having a good experience,” Dove concluded.
