Article X, Section A, 1 – ii: “No eighth grader may run for an elected position.”

During the March 8 plenary, an 88% majority of the assembly voted to add the clause as an amendment the Student Government Constitution. As a result, this spring’s elections will be the first in at least 4o years without middle school students on the ballot as candidates for committee heads or Cabinet positions.

Created by Senate heads Lindsay Carlin, Alex Ori, Matthew Turk, and Lauren Hughes, all juniors, the proposal serves as a solution to an issue that, according to Student Government Advisor Jeanne Barr, had been a subject of debate for years: how to prevent returning freshmen from having an advantage over those new to Parker. Cabinet also intended for the proposal to ensure that those elected into leadership positions had the experience and knowledge of student government necessary to succeed in them.

“It’s an equity piece,” Barr said. “As the school has grown, as we’ve admitted more new ninth graders, it’s become starkly obvious that new students don’t have opportunities to gain those early leadership roles as returning ninth graders do.”

Having entered Parker for ninth grade, junior Jared Saef acknowledges the importance of the amendment. “There are many disadvantages that are just natural coming into a K-12 school,” Saef said. “For student government, which is a system that we can modify and change, we should do everything in our power to level out the playing field as much as possible.”

Beyond the ability to run, Barr noted that the legislation will help equalize the edge given to eighth graders with siblings in the Upper School. “I’ve observed that the eighth graders who tend to be picked to run for committees have a high school sibling who says, ‘pick my brother, pick my sister,’” Barr said. “Just because you’re somebody’s sibling doesn’t make you qualified or make you the best candidate — it’s the definition of unearned privilege.”  

Currently, less than 10% of students were elected to committees as eighth graders. In the past three years, there were 20, and 13 of them had a sibling in the Upper School.

In his sophomore year, junior Jared Saef served on the Model Home committee which used this tactic to gain eighth grade support and win the office. “One upperclassman I was running with said, ‘we need to get this eighth grader on our committee because he’s popular and has a brother that will be a senior,’” Saef said. “I said, ‘we don’t even know him, we don’t know his abilities.’ She said, ‘oh that doesn’t matter, we just need the name.’”

Sophomore Parliamentarian Julia Auerbach believes that the amendment will lead to the election of better qualified committee heads.  “The reality is, how are eighth graders supposed to lead student government if they’ve never really experienced it before?” Auerbach said. “The amendment is about making Student Government a platform where nepotism is not the leading principle, and instead, you get the position based on merit.”

Still, not all freshmen have found their inexperience to hinder their leadership ability.

“I have an outlier position because I do a lot of work in Phaedrus, and I’m really thankful for that,” freshman Phaedrus head Star Rothkopf — whose responsibilities include sending emails to the student body, organizing layout, and managing its Instagram account — said. “With Phaedrus, it’s just art and you don’t have to have been in the high school. It’s different for different committees, and it’s definitely rough that the solution was to get rid of all eighth graders going into committees. Still, I can sympathize with being robbed of the opportunities just because they’re new.”

On the same morning the proposal was introduced to the assembly, senior Directors of Cross Grade Communization Zure Mabrey-Wakefield and Charlie Moog showed it to the eighth graders. According to Barr, they were purposely excluded from its discussion and the vote.

“Had they been there to vote on it, they would have been voting against their own empowerment,” Barr said. “They also don’t have all of the information — they’re not thinking right now about all of new kids.”

To eighth grader Jack Kahan, the amendment is fair. “From what I’ve heard, we usually just tag along with the older kids and don’t really help run the committees,” Kahan said. “It’s for the best that we won’t be allowed to run for them this year, and that also gives us an extra year to observe the processes behind committees before jumping into them ourselves.”

During the plenary questions period regarding the proposal, one student asked whether it would suppress the freshman voice and opportunities for involvement. In response, Senate Head Matthew Turk explained that there are alternative ways to participate in Student Government, including leading Small Groups, attending weekly Senate meetings, or obtaining representative positions in specific committees such as the Student Interview and Recommendation Board or Social Justice, which intentionally open the application in the fall to accommodate new students.  

To Barr, these delayed appointments laid the foundation for the assembly’s strong support of the amendment. “One of the reasons it passed with such a significant margin is that those are out there and predate this proposal,” Barr said. “People think that we’re not just cutting eighth graders out — they’ve got all these fall positions they can shoot for. We’ll have to run through an election cycle and see how it goes to see if it feels like a good fix or if it should go further.”

Mabrey-Wakefield is optimistic for the future of eighth graders in Student Government. “In working with the eighth grade, I’ve seen that they’re asking a lot of really good questions, and they’re really excited,” Mabrey-Wakefield said. “I’m excited for them to be officially part of the assembly. There’s nothing like it until you actually experience it.”