Describe your role in the Student Council. What does it mean to you?

I am the vice president of Student Council, and I believe that I’m sort of the bridge between the student body and the leadership team. I listen to students’ ideas, concerns and aspirations. I do that through sometimes sending some Google Forms, about maybe movie nights or just getting an insight or being open to conversations. I make sure that all voices are heard, and I do not only help with the day-to-day activities, but I also bring new ideas. And I’m sort of like the backbone of my team to make sure that everything is working and always step in if there’s anything that goes wrong.

What inspired you to join the Student Council and how did you become interested in your role?

Okay, so I actually had the same beliefs as Aimeé (president) when stepping into the Student Council. I wanted to strengthen the sense of connection in our school, even though it’s an online school. It is very important to have an environment where everybody feels like they are heard. And sort of, I wanted to make the school more like an actual school and not just an online place where we go and learn. I wanted to advocate for the futures of our students and bring different perspectives together because I love hearing different perspectives, and I’m very interested to see how our students are doing outside of school and what backgrounds they come from.

Can you briefly summarize the events and activities that you’ve organized so far? What are your personal goals for the upcoming semester?

Yes, so we have created some events which I’ve actually really enjoyed myself. I’ve actually created many friends and communicated with people. We had a baking class. We baked some cookies, which was really fun, just conversing about them and different topics. We had a movie night and a whole week of Halloween and all the Padlets were super fun.

But for next semester, some of my goals are to achieve maybe study groups, implementing some study groups and just connecting more of students and for them to see how actually so fun it is to join these events and talk to people and create connections. And I would like to create some diversity inclusion projects and maybe a blog for celebrating achievements. After break, we’ll just have so many more holidays to celebrate together. And as Aimeé said, we are planning some senior and junior events regarding their future. So, we could be a help and talk about the SATs, ACTs, colleges and just have a conversation so they do not feel like they’re alone in this.

How do you plan to collaborate with one another as members of the Student Council to achieve these goals that you have?

Well, so I believe that over this past semester we got to know each other and see our patterns and I think that we are a really good team, and we complement each other. So, all of the events we have created, we created pretty well and if there was any issue we solved it quickly. So, for the next semester, I believe that all of these goals that we have and dreams and hopes, we will collaborate with them. We do have meetings each week where we share our goals and some ideas that we might have, and everybody is open to listen and give advice. And then we sort of put that into plans and start working on it. So, I really love working with this team. They are really great listeners and give great advice.

How do you plan to foster school spirit in an online environment?

I believe that me and my team are very passionate about what we do and about all the activities we have planned. So, basically by sharing this passion that we have with others, we’ll keep the school spirit, and we’ll even further make it better and bigger because we have so many ideas that we have planned. We keep talking about them in each meeting and we find out that there’s just so many ideas that we have that sometimes we don’t even get done with the meeting and just keep coming up with new things. So basically, by sharing this passion, I’m sure that the school spirit will keep present.

How do you believe that your involvement in the Student Council will contribute to your own personal growth and development?

I have grown a lot during this first semester, and it’s all due to the connections I’ve made. Because I believe that in my life, every connection and every friend, every person I’ve met contributed something to my life. And by being a vice president and communicating with the students and seeing their ideas, it’s just so interesting. I’ve become a better listener and really got to think about others’ points of views and see how different backgrounds affect people. And they just had some great ideas. By connecting with everybody and listening, I’ve grown, and I’ve been able to adapt and solve problems. It’s just been a wonderful experience, and I can’t wait to grow more in the second semester.

How do you think your role in Student Council will prepare you for future roles that you might take on later?

I believe that the Student Council will prepare me for my job greatly as I am considering becoming a lawyer. I believe that leadership positions are essential for me. And I’ve learned the importance of negotiations and finding common ground, which is crucial for this occupation and for goals I have prepared for me in the future. It’s just been very important to see different opinions, and the kind of work I will be doing in the legal field is finding common ground. And this is what this has been about, bringing the ideas of students and of our Student Council representatives and just creating it. It’s a whole idea. And I think I am growing with this and will be taking it to the future with me. I will remember this, as Aimeé said, for the rest of my life.

What are your personal top priorities for the school? How do you plan on working toward them in your role in the Student Council?

My top priority, as I said in my slogan, stronger connections, better directions. I believe that fostering stronger connections among the students will really up bring the school, create some opportunities for personal and academic growth. As the vice president, I’m working on these things by making some virtual groups and many activities that we have planned, which can help these students support each other academically, such as the senior and junior things, which we’re so excited to kick off next week, and prepare some partnerships and just make our school more inclusive. I’m committed to creating events where everybody’s voice can be heard and we can have a conversation, help each other. By focusing on these priorities, I hope to make the school a better place where everybody feels supported, connected and motivated to keep studying and keep coming to George Washington University Online High School each year.

Share a fun fact about your time at the Student Council.

We were brainstorming some ideas for the Christmas week, and we were talking about Secret Santa. However, we realized we might not have enough of time to pull this off. So I believe somebody made a joke about making it for Valentine’s Day. And then we kind of started brainstorming more about that idea and we decided it would be a great idea to just send out some Secret Santa virtual letters videos or something around that area. We still have to work on it. But basically, implementing Secret Santa into Valentine’s Day and sharing positive things about each other as friends and students and as a community. So, I believe that was pretty interesting to find that out during our brainstorming session.