Sophomore year is the last year of high school before students begin the college process. For many students, sophomore year is when they begin to build a resume of accomplishments to show colleges. One of these achievements might beSophomore Class President. During their sophomore year, Parker students have the opportunity to run to become one of the two Sophomore Class Presidents. The main role of the Sophomore Class President is to be a liaison between the Grade Heads and the sophomore class. The presidents choose how to use Graderoom and must work with Mr. Bruno to come up with a plan or system for the sophomore class to earn their lunch tables back. Sophomore Class President is one of the many leadership opportunities at Parker. Because it’s a leadership role that only takes place during the second semester and doesn’t take up much outside of school time, it is a desirable position for many students, making the Sophomore Class President Election a sophomore showdown.
Students who wanted to run for Sophomore Class President had the option to run alone or with a partner. In order to qualify for being admitted into the election, students had to “get signatures of people in our grade to approve their support for our campaign. Once we got the signatures, we turned them in to Ms. Ifft [in order to be admitted into the election],” Mia Scala, Sophomore Class President candidate, said. Mia Scala is running with classmate Harper Adler for Class President. Mia Scala and Harper Adler chose to run together because “in seventh grade, we were class presidents together, and we wanted to keep the trend going. Mia and I are close friends, which makes it easy to communicate ideas and support each other throughout the process,” Adler said. After getting the signatures, the candidates gave speeches and the class voted. The top three candidates moved on to a Town Hall followed by a final vote. The three candidates moving on to the Town Hall and final vote are Mia Scala & Harper Adler, Uriel Castaneda & Samantha Kovler, and CJ Coward & Noah Silverman. The election Town Hall and final vote will take place during Graderoom on February 3.
Students choose who they vote for based on why the candidates are running, the candidates’ platforms, and what makes them different from other candidates. Adler and Scala, also known as Harmony, are running because they “wanted to make people excited about coming to Graderoom, as well as being more organized and inclusive towards everyone. I think it is really important as a grade to be connected towards everyone,” Adler said. They chose the name Harmony because they “want to harmonize our grade because we believe that it is so important for our grade to be a strong and supportive community,” Scala said. “Mia and I have noticed patterns of people not talking to others outside of their own social group, and we think it is important to all be connected as we only have two and a half years left together,” Adler said .
Castaneda and Kovler are running because they have “always loved helping my community at Parker, it’s one of the many reasons I’m involved. If I know I have the ability to help others, why not do it? Especially if it surrounds my grade,” Castaneda said. If elected, Scala and Adler plan “to make Graderoom fun yet effective…[while also] acknowledg[ing] how stressful school can be…our plans are to have different events like a full grade soccer or flag football game, a talent show, study hall time, etc. We will also create a form because we want to hear everyone’s ideas on what a fun Graderoom can be,” Adler said.
If elected, Castaneda and Kovler plan to “have study halls to ensure our grade is ready for any upcoming tests, especially finals, a community trash pick-up competition like last year, to help show our grade is in fact capable of cleaning up after themselves. We hope to have junior year speakers at the end of their year give advice on how our grade can move forward for our hardest year yet, and a field day,” Castaneda said.
What makes Scala and Adler different from other candidates is their “past presidential experience. We know what needs to be done, and not only that, we know that together we can effectively accomplish anything,” Mia said. “Instead of just talking about our ideas, we are going to work to execute them to have a successful second semester. Mia and I don’t just care about benefiting ourselves, but we want to benefit and help the whole grade with our ideas,” Adler said. What makes Castaneda and Kovler different from other candidates is that their “goal is to keep our ideas simple, yet possible in a 40 minute time frame, things that don’t require a lot of set up but still engaging for our grade,” Castaneda said.
In the past, Sophomore Class Presidents, once elected, have not upheld the things they ran on. What makes this year’s candidates any different? Harmony plans to break this pattern by “making lasting changes in our grade. Though currently we are not the Sophomore Class Presidents, we have already taken action on our grade’s current issue of tables at the sophomore benches. We have met multiple times with Mr. Bruno to make this change, and have already come up with countless plans for Graderoom to make our grade in harmony,” Scala said. “We want to set clear goals and responsibilities instead of just creating ideas to win and do nothing about it. We will regularly communicate with grade heads to discuss how to make Graderoom even better than it is. We aren’t just running for the title of the position, we are running to help and harmonize the sophomores,” Adler added. Castaneda and Kovler want to “to make sure no voice is unheard, we want to act as a bridge from our grade to our gradeheads by having an active form that stays active throughout the year,” Castaneda said, “in order to make sure no voice goes unheard and that the students desire go reflected.”
