On Tuesday, February 11th, Billings Central’s Student Council voted on election reforms, scholarships, and funding a speaker. The election took place after a short meeting in the club advisor, Mrs. Kulaga’s class. The election was done online where student council members could vote on a Microsoft form. The items that passed were the election reforms and a new scholarship. However, the item that didn’t pass was to fund inviting in a speaker.
Student Council is a club that organizes events like fundraising events, school dances and many other activities. Co-President and senior, Emirie Hastings states, “The thing that I love the most about Student Council is that I can be a voice for our school, and I can organize school social events.”
Proposed by Student Council representative and junior Alex Johnson, the Student Council Presidential Election was changed to allow the entire student body the ability to vote for their Student Council President. All the grade levels will be assigned a specific number of electoral votes, and the candidate who wins in that grade level will receive that grade’s electoral votes. Student Council will also be able to vote and have their own electoral votes.
The election process was changed to give the Student Council more of a real-world style election, and, as Hastings says, “I love the election reforms because I feel like it gives more of a realistic election feel. It will attract more interest to Student Council and cause us to be a more serious group that does what’s needed to be done at BC.” The former election process only allowed members of Student Council to vote, but with the new reforms, the whole school will now be able to vote. Another aspect changed by the reform, was to have a President and a Vice President instead of two Co-Presidents.
Another ballot that passed was a new scholarship that Student Council will give to two students. They will give each student $1,000 to go towards their school tuition. The winners of the scholarship will be decided based on merit and an application form students can fill out. Any student, grades 9-11, can apply. There will also be a committee to decide on the winners of the scholarship. The application form will be about extracurricular activities, GPA, and other factors. A committee consisting of Student Council members and Mrs. Kulaga will review them. The application will be anonymous, which will prevent bias amongst the judges.
The ballot that was denied was to bring in Sarah Swafford, a speaker that touches on being a teenager as well as a Christian. In relation to this ballot, Hastings states, “If I had to guess, Student Council collectively thought bringing Sarah Swafford in might be too much money.” Student Council would have had to team up with a local youth group in order to pay for her visit.
Overall, the ballots that passed will help the student body to have more control over the Student Council’s Presidential Election. Meanwhile, the scholarship will also allow Student Council to help outstanding individuals within Billings Central. The Billings Central Student Council will continue to help the student body through all of these changes.
