The role of student government at KO is usually pretty straightforward; however, this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the responsibilities of student leaders in the Student Government Association (SGA) have changed drastically.
One of the changes in the responsibilities of student leaders is how they can plan events that bring the school together as a community while remaining safe. SGA Advisor Mela Frye said that the student government is working laboriously to try to brainstorm social events that are safe but still fun, since traditional activities like dances cannot occur this year. “We’re going to be looking at different templates and come up with imaginative ways for our students to have interesting social events,” Ms. Frye said, “and to think about keeping the kids who are learning online engaged socially [and] providing that kind of outlets for them as well.”
Another difference in duties that the student government faced this year is finding ways to encourage students to follow the COVID-19 rules around campus. Dean of Students Krista Sahrbeck asked senior speaker Eden Nenshati to create videos that illustrate what students can and cannot do on campus this year. “If students are able to understand videos about [rules],” Eden said, “then it’s probably easier for them to be able to have that ingrained in their minds.”
Together, Eden and senior head prefect Sloan Duvall generated a video that not only demonstrated the rules on campus like respecting teachers and students and picking up after oneself, but they additionally proposed two challenges to the student body.
One of the challenges presented was for each advisee group to create a TikTok that displayed proper protocol practices on campus and the best video would receive a prize. Sloan recognized Form Three advisor William Martino for coming up with the idea for the TikTok contest. “We basically just wanted to find a way for everyone to spread awareness while making it fun,” Sloan said.
The second contest that was presented to the students in the video was a tally challenge. Every time a student violated a COVID-19 rule, then a faculty member would mark a tally. If the school as a whole had less than 10 violations by the end of the week, then Eden and Sloan would get pied in the face. Less than 15 violations then there would be a schoolwide outdoor celebration with food and music. “There are punishments being handed out,” Sloan said, “so we wanted to kind of balance that out with like some fun rewards.”
Unfortunately, during the first week of the tally challenge, there were over 20 violations recorded so the prizes were not received. “I hope that it becomes less of a task to do, but more of a routine,” Eden said. “People [need to] understand that it’s not you doing like a little bit extra, it’s about you doing the right thing.” On Friday, Oct. 16 at the end of the second week of the challenge, the number of violations met the goal that morning but throughout the day five more violations accumulated and sadly, the prizes were once again put on hold.
Student government is trying its best to find ways to keep our community involved socially but also striving to encourage students to follow the crucial COVID-19 protocols. “We all want the same thing,” Ms. Frye said. “We want our community to be safe and we want school to be the most impactful, it can be.”
