During the week of September 7th, the Barstow Upper School elected its student body representatives for the 2021-2022 school year. The two bodies which held elections were the Honor Council and Student Council. Between both of the elections, over 15 students ran for the 5 positions. The possible positions available were as follows: Student Council President, Student Council Vice President, Student Council Secretary, Honor Council President and Honor Council Vice President.
The election was held in the form of true democracy, where popular vote determined the winners. In order to convince students to vote for them, all candidates for all positions were required to give brief speeches at the weekly Upper School meeting. To settle the election, representatives were listed on a Google Form which was then subsequently shared with the entire upper school. Students voted on the form, which was then reviewed by the Upper School Administration. Tallying of the votes and confirmation of the winners took place the following two days.
After all students stamped their approval for their preferred combinations of candidates, results were announced. For Student Council, the results came back with the winners being: Maddie Bauman ‘22, Luke Whitfill ‘22, and Amrit Sian ‘22 (fellow B-Line contributor) winning President, VP, and Secretary, respectively. For Honor Council, the winners turned out to be: Ayushi Kothari ‘22 and Gus Ketchell ‘23, winning President and VP respectively.
StuCo President Elect Maddie Bauman ‘22 described her eagerness to start working and her outlook on the year, “Yeah. I mean honestly I am super excited to be StuCo president this year… especially after the last year and a half of school has been so weird. I really did miss seeing everybody in person and having a chance to connect with everybody face to face. I will get to know everybody in high school I possibly can and make everyone’s year a little better!”
Honor Council winners President Ayushi Kothari ‘22 and VP Gus Ketchell ‘23 shared their thoughts as well. Ayushi Kothari ‘22 said this in regards to her recent win, and what she plans to do, “Yeah, I’m super excited to be Honor Council President, and while this leadership position doesn’t have as many event planning tasks to do, it requires a lot of responsibility in protecting our student body and making sure they are treated right. One of the main points that I made in my speech was maintaining faculty and student relationships, which is really important in our school. The communication between our teachers and students is special at Barstow, and mistakes like cheating, can be detrimental to that relationship. As the president, I want to make sure that students grow from those mistakes, and that the Honor Council members are working together to help them with that process. I hope to help make this year more fun for everyone!”
Gus Ketchell ‘23, had this to say about why he ran for HC and what his goals for the year are: “I’m thrilled to be a part of the Honor Council at Barstow. Last year I was a Sophomore class representative for the Honor Council and having that prior experience really influenced my desire to continue to be a part of the system this year as Vice President. I guess my goals for this year are to try and return back to a normal school environment. I know last year was difficult in a lot of ways, especially when it came to assignments and tests, so this year I’d like to try and ensure that assessments are fair for everybody.”
After an interesting last year and a half where almost nothing was normal for Barstow’s upper schoolers, the student officers for this year are looking to return things back to the old normal, or as close as possible to it.
