Council Approves 2018-2019 Club Budget – Council Update (05/23/2018)
This past week’s meeting was the first meeting of the New Council without former members. As such, new Moderator Colm Seigne began the meeting by saying that he was a little rusty on Robert’s Rules and hoped members would give him a break, adding that he also didn’t know everyone’s name yet. Then, new Dresden School Board (DSB) Representative Oliver Minshall gave an update regarding the DSB meeting that occurred the night before. Rep. Minshall said the Board discussed the Community Service Motion but that the memo that was written about it was titled Involuntary Servitude so their viewpoint was rather obvious. Moderator Seigne then informed Council that Principal Campbell will veto the Dress Code Motion due to a minor wording issue. Next came the first item on the agenda, which was the Presentation of 2018-2019 Club Budget.
Co-Treasurer Tessa Stewart explained that clubs were given money based on what they do, how much they fundraise, and other factors. Mod. Seigne added to this that they spent most of their time looking at clubs that requested over $500.
Co-Treasurer Stewart stated that they were conservative in awarding funds because they want to encourage clubs to fundraise.
After the club budget was presented, Council proceeded with Committee Sign-ups. New AMOD Romaney Granizo-MacKenzie told Council Members to write down their top 3 committees. Beforehand, each committee gave a quick pitch to the members. AMOD Granizo-MacKenzie explained that Administration (Admin) Committee is the liaison between administration and Council and that they also organize MLK day events. Senior Rep. Elizabeth Napier explained that Curriculum Committee discusses everything under the large umbrella of curriculum at HHS. Co-Treasurer Tessa Stewart said that members of Student Activities Committee (SAC) put together club budget allocations and spends the rest of their time organizing winter carnival and other events. Freshman Rep. Ellie Stannard said that Organizational Engineering Committee (OEC) helps make sure bylaws are updated and organizes elections. Fellow member and Staff Rep. Ms. Ceplikas then added that they need more people this year. Sophomore Rep. Alice Garner advertised that Student Life Committee visits a different school every year to get ideas on how to improve our school. Mod. Seigne concluded the discussion by saying that all the committees are really awesome and that Members should stay open minded in regard to what committee they sign up for and get assigned to.
The last item on the agenda for the day was the Bylaw Notification for Assistant Secretary and it was brought by former Assistant Moderator Jasper Meyer. Meyer began by reminding Council that Bylaw notifications come a week before bylaw revisions. He then explained that the bylaw change would be to add another position, Assistant Secretary. Meyer clarified that the Assistant Secretary would take a few of the secretary’s responsibility because recently Secretary has been a job that had too many responsibilities for one person to handle. Meyer also clarified that if passed, the goal would be to have one for next year with an election occuring by the end of next year or at the beginning of next year.
Having finished the set agenda, Council moved on to Notes and New Business. Mod. Seigne began by asking the 8th Grade Representatives if there was anything they wanted to discuss, to which they responded that they planned on pushing for freshman off-campus privileges like many classes before them. Next, former Moderator Aisling Kelly gave a CPP (Committee on Programming and Procedure) update. Kelly said that CPP had discussed a possible motion to make it a requirement for teachers to put all assignments on Schoology. On the subject of Schoology, Freshman Rep. Sage McGinley-Smith complained that this might lead to having more overdue assignments on the right drop down bar on Schoology, making it hard to find actual assignments. To this, Kelly emphasized that the mere posting of assignments isn’t happening and that making more requirements would assume teachers are already using it how they should.
Former AMOD Meyer said that he thought life without Schoology freshman year wasn’t that bad and that sometimes the old-fashioned way of just writing down homework isn’t that bad. Sophomore Rep. Ian Nolon said that a lot of teachers don’t like Schoology and technology in general and are pulling away from it, adding then that Council shouldn’t make teachers use technology if they don’t want to. DSB Rep. Oliver Minshall concluded the discussion by underscoring the fact that there are a wide variety of systems that work and that he thinks flexibility is important on this issue.
