After election season, Parker’s Upper School Student Government begins a new chapter as the elected Cabinet members step into their positions. These individuals have been chosen by their peers to guide Student Government. The 2023 to 2024 Student Government President, Treasurer, Director of Committee Affairs (DCA), and Senate Heads say they are thrilled to assume their roles.

Rising senior Sarah Matthews is taking on the role of President. Emerging victorious from the run-off election, Matthews’ focus was on “bringing life back to Student Government.” Matthews ran on three main goals: engagement, impact, and transparency.

“Since COVID, there has been a clear lack of interest in the high school for activities, including Student Government,” Matthews said in her platform. “Bringing fresh and exciting changes into the institution will not only bring back the upbeat vibe that Student Government once had, but make the experience more enjoyable for everyone, no matter how invested they are in the institution.”

Her second priority was to increase the impact of Student Government. Matthews plans to accomplish this by utilizing Plenary time for affinity group meetings at least once a semester. She believes that introducing more diversity into the Plenary topics as well as facilitating the creation of spaces where students can feel comfortable will overall improve the Student Government environment. 

Matthews’ third priority is to have a better and more trusting relationship with the administration. “Change is only possible when both sides (the students and administrators) are transparent,” Matthews said in her platform. “Facilitating this through Student Government is a vital step to making a difference.”

Rising senior Calan Scherer was elected Treasurer. After being fascinated by the position since freshman year, he made it his goal to learn and improve on the job. “What I find so remarkable about managing the budget is the sheer amount of people it can bring joy to and the real, material results it produces,” Scherer said in his platform. “The impressive events committee heads throw and the conversation-promoting food at Senate are all funded by the Treasurer and incentivize the entire Student Body to participate and recognize the hard work these student leaders do.” 

Scherer plans to distribute funds to the Student Body in a manner that ensures no money is wasted. He hopes to accomplish this by determining a fair and sufficient budget for each committee individually, by reallocating money left unused, and by creating a Google Form for groups to request additional funds. Next, Scherer plans to improve the accessibility of the budget for all committees and student-led groups. He wants to ensure that all committee heads know their budget and how to acquire funds and to rework the process by which money is distributed to the Student Body. 

Lastly, Scherer wants to increase transparency between the Treasurer and the students. “Many students, including myself, want to have the ability to observe the state of the budget but don’t know how to go about finding it,” Scherer said in his platform, “As Treasurer, I will make sure committees know their budgets at all times, and that the Student Body is aware of the money allocated for PB [participatory Budgeting] and the items selected by the votes.” He plans to publish these decisions in the Student Voice or by email. 

Unopposed candidate rising senior Harry Lowitz is will be  Director of Committee Affairs. “When I showed up to Student Government, committees were not my favorite part, and they still aren’t.” Lowitz said in his platform, “But they can be, and I am determined to make the reforms that will assert it as mine and everyone’s favorite part of Student Government.” 

Lowitz recognizes the immense size  of the Committee System, and sees the scale as mostly a blessing. Although he believes it gives the chance for dozens of Upper Schoolers to become involved in Student Government with many distinct impacts, “the size also makes committees very difficult to make interesting and universally successful.”

Lowitz’s first goal is to lead a yearlong committee review task force to assess existing committees. “A big part of DCA focuses on reviewing the committee heads, but we need to take a step back and think about what we are asking them to do,” Lowitz said in his platform. “My top priority next year will be to start a task force to evaluate what committees need to exist by looking at our list of committees holistically.” 

Some ideas he has regarding existing committees  include either removing and replacing Model Home and Students United or providing them new responsibilities, setting Students Against Destructive Decisions to deal with real Parker instances, and reaffirming the purpose of Phaedrus. 

Lowitz also plans to rebuild the committee experience for members and faculty sponsors to ensure dedicated stakeholders for each committee who support the committee heads. “The greatest challenge that committee heads face, in my experience and in my opinion, is the disinvestment and lack of interest from committee members and faculty sponsors.” Lowitz said in his platform, “Especially since COVID, I sense that there is a lack of faith in our committees, and most people don’t want to get involved unless it is something they can put on their college applications. My solution to this issue is to put as much energy as possible next year toward reforming the committee experience for members and faculty sponsors.”

Finally, Lowitz would like to establish committee heads to succeed by offering them autonomy and more dynamic goals and benchmarks. “I am troubled by the way that committees are evaluated and the way they set their goals,” writes Lowitz. “As DCA, I plan to encourage wider and more committee-specific definitions of standards for committees, and I will reflect that in my grading.”

Rounding out the elected Cabinet officials are Senate Heads rising juniors Sloane Demetriou, Annabel McIntosh, Ben Graines, and Zarin Mehta. “We are a group of hard working, talented, and creative students who all have different passions.” SABZ for Senate said in their platform. “This is what makes us qualified to be your future Senate heads. We recognize that everyone is different, and that’s what makes Senate such a special place.” 

The group’s first goal is to make Senate more about the Student Body. They plan to allow students to submit and vote for possible Senate topics which will be possible via Google Forms. Students will also have input as to what food will be chosen, and they are working hard to raise the food budget. They would also like to increase excitement about Senate through themed events which would also be decided with the help of student input. 

The group would like to reemphasize the importance of the Senate Representatives. To accomplish this, they plan to assign new tasks to the representatives rather than just taking attendance. Furthermore, they would like to utilize the representatives to make Student Government related announcements during Graderoom. 

They also plan to keep Senate effective in making change by implementing bi-monthly meetings with the Dean, making sure that faculty is updated on changes the Student Body wants to make, and by meeting with administrators on a monthly basis. After difficulties with Homecoming game scheduling times last year, the group plans to improve upon the timing. “For next year, we think that scheduling meetings once a month would be beneficial in not only getting more fans to all sports events, but also strengthening the relationship between the Athletic department and the Senate heads,” the SABZ platform said. 

Additionally, they want to improve upon Parker’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. “We [feel] that we could try and work with the DEIB task force leaders in encouraging more students to work with DEIB as well as hold more Senate meetings structured around DEIB,” SABZ said in their platform.