Council Update

By Gabe Brison-Trezise

I am glad to report that Council’s first few meetings of the year were engaging and productive. Although the school year is still less than a month old, Council has already discussed and passed several important motions.

Composting motion: passed.The Environmental Club and members of Council have been working diligently to implement a school-wide composting program for the 2011-2012 school year. During an activity period in the near future, Council members will be trained to compost and will later teach the other students in their Common Grounds how to compost. Some Council members raised concerns over the cost of the training Council will be receiving, but Council funds will not contribute a dime to the training cost. The motion to have Council members trained in composting was passed.

Footlighters motion: implemented without Council passing a motion. The motion, verbatim, is: “I move to have a certificate of recognition awarded to students who achieve honor roll while participating in a Footlighters production. This certificate would be similar to the ones awarded to students for achieving honor roll while participating in athletics.” The student who brought the motion to Council discussed its feasibility with Ms. Piro and got the drama department on board. These certificates should be awarded following the next Footlighters production.

Common Ground switch discussion: referred to the Common Ground Steering Committee. If students switched Common Grounds every year, they would undoubtedly get to meet and interact with a greater number of other students. Some Council members said switching Common Grounds every year would make Common Ground more interesting and exciting for students. However, as one Council member noted, the camaraderie that develops in Common Ground over four years is unique and fun and fosters lasting relationships among students and between students and staff. Council was pretty evenly split on whether switching Common Grounds annually would be a good thing, and an amendment to have all students switch Common Grounds every two years was met with ambivalence. Council will continue to discuss this issue in future meetings.

Locker room clocks motion: passed. This motion was to install wall clocks in both the girls’ and boys’ locker rooms. Council passed the motion, and the clocks will be put up in the near future.

Google Doc motion: passed.This motion, brought by Ms. Doyle, was to create and maintain a public Google Doc with all of Council’s motions and their statuses. With near unanimous support, Council passed the motion. The creation of this Google Doc marks a major step in Council’s ongoing commitment to inform and involve the wider school community.

100-point GPA discussion: ended after order of the day was called. Last year, Council debated a motion to change HHS’s 4-point GPA system to a 100-point one. Council ultimately failed the motion, but the idea of switching systems was brought up again at a recent meeting. Proponents of the 100-point system cited its greater accuracy and fairness, while some Council members said such a system would promote more grade grubbing and possibly encourage cheating. The prevailing sentiment seemed to be that the current 4-point system reflects student performance well enough. Council moved onto discussing the Wednesday break motion after order of the day was called.

Wednesday break motion : referred to Student Life Committee. This motion is to extend the Wednesday lunch break by five minutes, which would push the end of the school day to 2:00 PM. Mr. Bourne, who made the motion, noted that students effectively have five minutes for lunch on Wednesday, with five minutes of passing time to and from lunch. He remarked that students are very frequently late to their fifth period classes on Wednesday, because they do not have enough time to get lunch or do whatever else they need to do in the time they are alotted. Council voted to refer the motion to the Student Life Committee, which is working with the administration to deal with the bus schedule conflicts that would arise if the school day were extended by five minutes.

For the latest information, visit our website, linked to the HHS website under the “Resources” tab or talk to your Council Rep!