Starting with the 2015-16 school year, Niles West’s student government will not be planning the pep assemblies.
Student activities director Katie Odell, along with various sponsors and students, will be running the assemblies instead.
“I have a couple of sponsors who are helping me, trainer David Smetana and executive secretary Judy Wheatman. We’re also going to utilize some of our wolfpack and different student leaders to help with throw out some things like that. The government is more then welcome to help at any capacity that they want but I like to get their focus back to focusing on student body,” Odell said.
Odell and student government sponsor, Matthew Weimer, have been working toward this change since last year and both of them agree that it is for the better.
“This was a decision that I talked about last spring with Ms. Odell. I thought that maybe we could have student government change its focus on more issues of the student body and do more service projects, fundraisers and that kind of stuff,” Weimer said.
Odell and Weimer agreed that student government should be more about addressing student issues and less about the pep assemblies.
“The idea of student government not focusing on the assemblies anymore, is so that they can focus on student voice and making changes within the school and really being able to address concern of the student body has,” Odell said.
Student government has the ability to meet with the board of education, principal Dr. Jason Ness, and vice principal, Mark Rigby to work towards the changes the student body wants to see.
“They want to make it known that they’re able to resolve different conflicts that students might have with various policies or procedures we currently have,” Odell said.
Many years ago government used to be two separate committees and later joined into one. With the new changes, Niles West will be reverting back to the old system.
“When I started with student government, I was in charge of student senate. There used to be a student senate and student union which were two separate bodies. We merged into student government like 8 years ago and even though I never wanted to to run assemblies then, I have ran it very willingly and gladly,” Weimer said.
Odell thought that there was a lot of focus put on the assembly and the important issues were losing focus and she wasn’t the only one. Student government president and senior Lamia Chacriwala thought along the same lines.
“I think it’s a good thing that student government isn’t doing any assemblies anymore, it’s giving the government more time focusing on other things like more issued base things for students and I think it’s a good thing. We haven’t done that a lot in the past and so it’s good to have that!” Chacriwala said.
Student government meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the student commons during fourth period.
