This past April, students’ Instagram accounts flooded with follow requests from Student Government candidates eager to share their ideas through an online platform. The posters that once lined the walls during election season were scarce, and the familiar hallway banter now transitioned to the Zoom chat box.

In addition to the new style of online campaigning, familiar election events such as democrafest, committee debates, and voting itself were also conducted through a virtual setting. “I definitely think that the digital format made a great positive impact in terms of spreading people’s ideas and getting people to know their candidates on a more personal level and learn about their platforms,” junior and Student Government Media Manager Mia Bronstein said.

Voting via a Google Form took place throughout the school day on May 17 with the results being announced just hours later. Six out of the 20 committee-head positions faced a run-off election the next day.

After the May 18 runoffs, Eli Moog, a rising senior, was elected Student Government president for the 2021-22 school year. A majority of the elected committee positions went to current sophomores and juniors. Different committees have different bylaws stating the maximum number of heads able to run. While most ran this year with either one or four students, the elected Social Committee under the acronym, “CRIME,” was one of the ones with five heads in a group.

“We’re super excited to organize the events that we missed out on last year,” Junior Evan Ehrhart, the “E” in CRIME, said. “We’ll do our best to give everyone an enjoyable social experience at post-COVID Parker.”

While many committees were highly contested such as the Environmental Committee which had four groups in the running, other candidates ran unopposed. Junior Alex Carlin was one of those students. She ran for Treasurer, the position in charge of managing the Student Government budget and running the Participatory Budgeting program.

“Although I did not get to participate in a debate, I enjoyed running my Insta and campaigning in other ways,” Carlin said. “I’m so excited for Student Government next year.”

Despite the unusual format of this year’s elections, some aspects stayed largely the same with only a few necessary adaptations made for remote learning. Senate continued the long standing tradition of hosting debates between opposing candidates, but instead of having the viewers cluster in the Humanities Center, students and teachers were able to watch the events with their advisories through a Zoom webinar.

In addition to the debates, the Student Body was able to learn more about the candidates through a Student Government Instagram account, created and managed by Bronstein. The page featured details surrounding each contested position in addition to information about upcoming election dates.

“People seem really excited about having that centralized account,” Bronstein said. “It felt really gratifying when people would repost my posts on their story and their own personal accounts.” She later noted that over ten people reshared one of the posts about the voting timeline.

There were also many options to stay updated on the election for non-Instagram users. The Directors of Cross-Grade Communication (DOCCs) Grace Conrad and Leila Griffin put together a folder of 45-second videos made by each of the candidates summarizing their platform. While the videos were primarily meant for the eighth grade, the entire Upper School Student Body was able to view them as well.

Now, the incoming committee heads look forward to the first meeting with their faculty advisors on June 2. After a brief introduction, they’ll work to plan their focus points for over the summer and begin to lay out ideas for the next school year.

“I’m excited to be a Pride head in person because we’ll be able to do a lot more fun events and activities that we wouldn’t be able to do online,” sophomore Luca Lennon said, looking towards the future. “Pride 2021-2022, here we come!”