On January 18th, the winners of McClatchy’s ASB election were announced. After weeks of campaigning and anticipation, President Adelina Hernandez, Vice President Izzy Veran, Secretary Mackenzie Crall, and Treasurer Nicole Fong, all juniors, began to plan their upcoming year of leadership on campus.
Although each new board member will bring a unique perspective to ASB, their statements reveal a common vision for our school’s student leadership: to expand representation and create schoolwide confidence.
In the wake of recent unrest in the ASB class, Nicole Fong wishes to “settle the dust caused by all the chaos that happened in our first quarter.” She explains that the root of this chaos is the lack of guidance ASB students have had this year.
“It’s important that the students in ASB not only feel supported by other students but by the teachers as well,” said Fong. As a third generation McClatchy student, Nicole wants to share her school pride with all students and believes that this process should begin with confidence within the group of students leading ASB.
Secretary Mackenzie Crall hopes that school unity can be found through “representation of the whole school within the student government.” She believes that her victory of the race for secretary was the first step in this process.
“I felt like I could do a good job as secretary and thought that I would bring a good perspective to the board seeing that I am in VAPA and general education, and our previous board was only HISP,” said Crall. She hopes to breach the divide between HISP students and the rest of McClatchy, pulling together the campus as a whole.
Vice President Izzy Veran elaborated on this idea. She said that if ASB could persuade more schoolwide involvement, the atmosphere of the school may shift.
“I’ve seen since my freshman year that there has been less and less spirit and involvement and I’d like to bring back some of that pride in our school,” said Veran. This process will require increased communication between the representatives of ASB and the entire student body. As Izzy explained, ASB “struggles to get information out to the population.” More publicization of events as well as better awareness of ASB’s role at McClatchy will foster confidence in student leaders, hopefully paving the way for a more harmonious community.
President Adelina Hernandez believes that currently “if you’re not in HISP, it basically seems like ASB isn’t there.” Her goal is to make the face of ASB more prominent and available to all students, stripping away the “negative connotations” that are currently associated with it. This apparent exclusivity is detrimental to the program’s success, and has contributed to recent reductions in funding. “Right now we’re struggling to catch up with funds for junior prom,” said Hernandez. She believes that “once we get [it] out there that ASB is meant for everyone and affects everyone, I think that will help us solve a lot more problems.”
Adelina, Izzy, Mackenzie, and Nicole hope to build school unity by involving the entire school community. They hope that their leadership will provide the wider representation McClatchy needs in order facilitate confidence and pride among students.
