On Wednesday, April 25, three members of the KO community were elected to the Student Government Association Executive Committee.
After the students who were running delivered speeches to the Upper School student body, English teacher Meg Kasprak sent out a ballot that would decide who was elected to the three positions.
The position of SGA speaker was competitive with three people running. The three people who ran were juniors Andrew Holland, Dan Carrol, and Josh Leshem. The other positions, Treasurer and Secretary, only had one person running for each.
Later in the afternoon of the same day speeches were delivered, the vote was opened up to the school.
The student body elected Andrew to the position of SGA Speaker, junior Jack Gao to the position of Treasurer and sophomore Spencer Schaller to the position of Secretary.
All of the students elected had prior experience in the student government at Kingswood Oxford. “I have been a form senator for all three years of high school,” Andrew said.
Jack has been in SGA for the last two years. “I am the form president this year, and I was the sophomore form senator last year,” Jack said.
Spencer shared a similar experience, “In freshman year I was a senator because no one else was running so I felt I could fill the position,” he said. “I am the current form four president, and I ran because I felt I could be a better president than I was a senator.”
The candidates all expressed different reasons for running. “I ran because I love public speaking, and I feel like I could do a good job running the assembly,” Andrew said.
Jack explained in his speech how his skill with math encouraged him to run and that it didn’t hurt how there was no one running against him. “I ran because nobody else was running,” he said.
Spencer ran for a similar reason as Andrew. “I have been in Student Government for a few years,” he said. “Going through the process, I have realized it is not always organized. I wanted to become secretary because everything seemed kind of unorganized, and I felt I could better it.”
Now that the three new members are elected to the SGA Executive Committee, they set some goals for themselves.
“I hope to make assemblies more fun and interesting,” Andrew said. “I want students to look forward to assembly. Additionally, I hope to solve any minor problems students may have with assembly.”
Jack expressed a goal that was short and to the point. “I want to take care of the money,” he said.
Spencer also set a number of goals for himself. “Personally, I plan to attend every meeting and keep detailed and structured notes,” he said. “I also want to make an effort to get those notes to everyone after every meeting, a process that hasn’t been done in the past, that I hope to get approved.”
The members of the SGA Executive Committee said they were very thankful for their nomination. “Thank you to everyone who voted for me,” Andrew said.
The new members of SGA are excited for next year. “Next year’s SGA seems to be pretty strong with a good Speaker, Treasurer, and Secretary,” Spencer said. “I hope we can do an even better job than SGA has in the past.”