“A cool opportunity to get more involved in the culture and experience here,” Berkeley High School Hive 5 freshman Soledad Rodriguez said on the reason she wanted to be a part of freshman leadership. Compared to leadership for other grades, which consist of elected class presidents, freshmen have the opportunity to enter into a lottery that selects representatives from each hive.“I hope to make ninth grade feel more of a community and not seven separate hives,” Ella Cody, Hive 4 student leader, said. Cody brings up the idea that most of the time, the freshmen are very isolated in their hives resulting in not being able to have a community of all ninth graders. “I think with (BHS) that there’s a very strong sense of community,” Jordan Kehat, BHS sophomore class president, said. “But it’s very much separated by groups, by small schools, by just different friend groups, and we’re hoping to build a little more (unity),” Kehat said. Kehat and sophomore class vice president Lucia Ortiz Lage have plans to make BHS a better place for all students, starting with the talent show on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. As sophomore class presidents, it was their responsibility to plan, organize and execute the talent show. “To be organized and actually manage people is more difficult than you think it is. It sounds very straightforward, but there’s a lot of thought that goes into it,” Kehat said.
Ortiz Lage and Kehat expressed how much they have already learned only in the last few months of being in the position, from leadership skills to adjusting to the responsibility of their positions.
Ortiz Lage and Kehat expressed how much they have already learned only in the last few months of being in the position, whether that is focussed on how to be a good leader, or dealing with the responsibility of the position. All of the class presidents work with a small group of their peers (deputies) in the same grade to make sure to get a large amount of perspectives and opinions.
Ortiz Lage described a difficulty with working with peers whom they also happen to be friends with. “We have to lead some of our friends, and it can be a hard aspect, but we have to learn to put friendship aside for a second,” Ortiz Lage. Ortiz Lage and Kehat both believe that collaboration is a huge part of their roles as class presidents, because another part of their role is to listen to their deputies, to help them make the best decisions for students at BHS. “It’s really great having this opportunity to actually make a change in the community, whether it is bringing more resources to campus and more support for our grade,” said junior class vice president Angel Wu. According to Wu and junior class president Jane Kelly, they are hoping to organize many events for this coming year that are focused on the junior class.“I feel like we really want to focus on specifically juniors, because Homecoming is planned by the junior class leadership, but it’s not specifically a junior event. So I feel like it’s important to refocus on what we’re doing to support (the juniors),” Kelly explained. With upcoming college prep and applications on the mind of many, and famously heavy workloads, Wu and Kelly want to support the junior class however they can.
Corina Blanton and Leah Green, senior class president and vice president, are excited to make this year special for all students at BHS; however, Blanton raised an interesting point: class presidents are not there to please everyone, and they can’t. “You’re like, ‘I want to do everything. I want to do it all right, and I want to do it all in a good manner so everyone is happy.’ But that’s not realistic,” Green said. So far, this year they have organized several events, including Senior Sunrise, which was “really chaotic,” according to Blanton. Through the event though, they have both learned a lot about organization and communication so that for future events they are more prepared to handle any issues that could arise.