In mid-October, 10 BCCHS student council members—accompanied by math teacher Kristin Kulaga, the group’s faculty advisor, as well as counselor Nate Kavanagh—attended the 68th annual Montana Association of Student Councils Conference for the first time. The conference was two days long, taking place from the 15th to the 17th, and involved schools from all over the state.
The conference hosted many different speakers and organizations, allowing Student Council members to attend meetings with everyone from an Olympic hurdler to a representative of the Montana Board of Public Education, offering insight and motivational stories on multiple topics. It took place in two locations: Carroll College and the Montana State Capitol building.
Overall, however, for BCCHS students, the reception was lukewarm, with many student council members and teachers hoping to reallocate the money used on the trip to help with community or school-based projects. “Mostly, it was a fun event socially,” Kulaga explained. “We all felt like we didn’t get a ton of information out of it…we could use the money and the time in a better way, more specifically, for our school in the future.”
Another remark was that the conference was more based upon leadership building instead of being student council oriented. This provided the students with some strong tools to use in the future, but not many suggestions for their student councils, according to both Kulaga and junior Russell Johnson.
Overall, the general consensus was that the student council could better use their allotted funds to help the school, but the event was a fun get together where student council members were able to mingle with and learn about other schools.
