As the new school year begins, so does the anticipation of what the year has in store for students at HP. With a new ASB advisor, many would assume that this means a fresh start for ASB, leaving the past in the past and focusing on the future. But it has been about two months since the school year began and already many rumors are circulating about certain situations having to do with ASB.
For instance, issues regarding ASB elections and school activities, but of course, rumors are called rumors for a reason. But is there some truth to what is being said at school? It is no secret that there is not much student involvement seen on campus, resulting in a lack of school spirit. But what is the reason for the disconnection between the student body and ASB?
In hopes to dig deeper into the cause for the division seen at school, I decided to get answers from students themselves. It wouldn’t be fair if I only asked the student body, so I also asked ASB students and teachers in order to get a better understanding. Teachers are some of the most trusted adults at school and of course many students come to them to talk about what is happening around campus, so you can say that they are always being kept in the loop.
One of the teachers who was interviewed was Erika Molina, a math teacher from the Magnet program. She was asked, “Do you think that the lack of activities at school has to do with ASB not taking students’ ideas into consideration?”
Ms. Molina responded, “Last year, students said that their voices weren’t being heard. A lot of the spirit weeks were repetitive or boring to them, so they didn’t have input on how they could change things.”
Opinions from students matter significantly when it comes to issues like these. Many students have complained about the lack of school spirit, however, a big part of that is due to the disinvolvement of the student body. Is there a lack of trust amongst the student body and ASB, do activities such as spirit week themes not appeal to students, or is the cause completely different? I asked many students around campus whether they participated in school activities hosted by ASB such as: pep rallies, spirit week, dances, and the results were striking. Out of the 108 students I asked, only 22 said they did participate.
“A lot of the activities don’t meet the expectations of the students. On certain occasions they don’t trust leadership because they don’t consider the students’ opinions,” said a senior, Lizette Negrette.
Despite it being a new school year, it seems as though issues from the past are continuing to spill over into the present.
It shouldn’t be ignored that without the hard work of ASB students there would be no activities on campus all together. To get an insight on future directions, I decided to interview ASB Vice President.
“Students’ ideas are taken into consideration, it is just harder to do certain activities because there are school policies that ASB has to obey. For example, we planned on having a fundraiser involving food, but during school hours we can’t sell food. There’s an LAUSD student handbook where the school is very strict on us following,” said Madeline Alvarez.
Being able to host activities can be difficult since there are many rules in place in order to ensure that everything is running smoothly. Collaborating and working as a team can help resolve this issue. If the student body and ASB would come together to brainstorm activities, ideas that both appeal to students and abide by the rules of LAUSD can be generated. This could mean coming one step closer to repairing the alliance between the two and increasing the school spirit seen on campus.
Written By: Leslie Cisneros