On Friday January 28, the long-awaited results of the ASB board elections were announced and C.K.M. welcomed their new board, including Secretary Mackenzie Crall, Treasurer Nicole Fong, and Vice President Izzy Veran. Certainly a board of capable and confident ladies, and headed by none other than Adelina Hernandez, the new ASB President.
If Adelina could tell her freshman self that she would become the ASB president in her junior year, she would be speechless.
“Some part of me had always wanted to run for president, but part of me was too intimidated to think it would become a reality,” said Hernandez. Now that it has in fact transformed into reality, she realizes that her newly established confidence in her leadership skills came from being captain of the JV girls water polo team and having in-class presentations.
Being ASB president is not Adelina’s first time in a leadership role. “I was a part of my middle school’s student council, however, it held much less responsibility than ASB does,” she said. “My sophomore year at C.K.M. I was captain of the JV team. For the past two years I have worked as a coach for the American River Water Polo Club where I ran the noodle ball portion (kids 8 years and under) by myself.”
Her qualifications for the role of ASB president did not stop with coaching gigs. Over the summer, she attended the Sacramento Leadership Conference as a part of the Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Project (CLYLP). One of the workshops she participated in included a mock campaign for a hypothetical school, in which she was one of four candidates that presented to a panel of judges that ranked the mock campaign as a whole.
At the conference’s conclusion, Adelina was runner up for the Ambassador of the Sacramento Region for the CLYLP class of 2018. “[It was] an opportunity that I would recommend to all Latino/a sophomores and juniors interested in political careers or academia,” she said.
During her campaign for president, Adelina says she didn’t face as many challenges as one would expect. “I ran against Jayden Greenfield, who is one of my good friends, and there were no hard feelings or any drama during the campaign period,” said Hernandez. “Jayden ran a good campaign and I started to get nervous that I didn’t have enough posters up compared to Jayden.”
Towards the end of election campaigns, Adelina said she gradually felt less and less nervous, and soon her focus was turned away from elections and towards finals. When asked what her reaction to hearing her name on the intercom Friday morning was, Adelina exclaimed, “I was really happy and excited!”
Though it has been a few weeks since she was elected, Adelina says she is already thinking ahead for the future of C.K.M.’s class of 2020. Her first priority is reviving the financial state of the junior class by introducing more fundraising events, which she elaborates would allow more financial freedom and stress relief when we need to schedule two of high school’s most momentous events, Junior Prom and Senior Ball.
She brought up that last year, she became interested in introducing productive change to the school after the controversy surrounding a racist science project brought attention to the lack of diversity in the HISP program, a problem evident in the ASB classroom as well. “At the end of this year I want to advertise ASB as an option to anyone when choosing classes,” said Adelina. “Right now the class is HISP-dominated, leaving us without proper representation of the school.”
While taking on the responsibilities of ASB president can be no easy task, Adelina said she is already having fun despite being only a few days in. “I have a great board with Nicole as Treasurer, Mac as Secretary, and Izzy as VP. It’s a little nerve-racking having to do the announcements in the morning, especially after I dropped the phone on my first day, but the old board helped calm our nerves.” Regardless of first-day nerves, C.K.M. is certainly fortunate to have Adelina as the ASB president for the end this year and coming school year.