Quarter One Council Update

Last year, Council passed the Town Hall Motion to require each class to “hold one town hall meeting each quarter for the purpose of intentionally including the student body in the democratic process, to take place during an Advisory Circle period.” Council began the year with discussions about how Town Halls would be run, and with them now in full swing, will be fine-tuning them as the year progresses.

Council also began discussions of the “No Award Ceremonies” Motion, brought by Shayna Rockmore (‘24), which would abolish the underclassmen end-of-year award ceremony and Senior class night. Every June, ninth through eleventh graders gather in the gym for underclassmen awards, ranging from department awards to Junior book awards and other special honors. At the Senior Class Night ceremony held before graduation, there are student performances alongside an awards ceremony including honors like the announcement of valedictorians and three-sport student-athletes, the 13th Award for the person ranking thirteenth in their class, and a number of different scholarships.

Those in favor of this motion claim that abolishing award ceremonies will not only free students from sitting through a long ceremony in the hot gym but would also “support the social and emotional connections of students at Hanover High School in order to promote an intentionally inviting and kind school.” Proponents of the motion also point to the fact that the same few students seem to receive award after award every year. Those against the motion say that we need to be able to celebrate the success of our peers, and recognize that high school is not a zero-sum game. Others’ success does not mean that you have failed.

Next, Council failed the “Plant Motion” brought by Theo Burdick (‘24). This motion would have allocated $30 to the Concilio advisory to purchase a Monstera plant. Some saw this as a no-brainer, as plants have been shown to improve mental health, but others were not so keen to pass the allocation. Many brought up concerns about the precedent passing this motion would have set for Council allocations. In the long term, funding allocation requests made by advisories throughout the year would be financially untenable, thus resulting in limited funds for clubs that seek funding throughout the school year. Council has already allocated over $14,000 to clubs this year, leaving about $3,000 in the Council fund for the remainder of the year.

Most recently, Council began discussing a motion brought by the administration to change the school tardy policy. Currently, students can accrue up to three tardies in an individual class before receiving a warning, and after five in one class, they are scheduled up. In theory, the current system allows students to be tardy 14 times a quarter before receiving a warning from Administration. The change would make it so that a student accruing a certain number of tardies across all classes would receive a warning and subsequently be scheduled up. In debate, Council members favored this change but disagreed over how many tardies students should receive before a warning or a schedule up.

As always, we hope to see you during Wednesday lunch in the Chorus room!