The Student Senate at Berkeley High School is a body of student representatives, composed of students from all grades and learning communities. Students from every grade above 9th have their voices heard through their class presidents and vice-presidents and their wishes executed by deputies who organize and listen to what their grade wants and needs. However, many positions in the senate are unknown to some of the student body.
“We want to support the school. We want to support clubs and student activities and all of these things. So my overall encouragement is just to take advantage of it. Reach out, email student reps, and we can support you,” Ali Forbush, BHS senior and one of the BHS Development Group Representatives (BHSDG), said. The BHSDG uses it to support faculty, staff and students financially with field trips, supplies, and other things that are essential to learning.
Within the Berkeley School Excellence Program/School Site Council (BSEP/SSC) representatives have a similar task to those on the BHSDG. However, they are completely separate from each other. BSEP/SSC Representatives discuss what to do with a large sum of money that funds many of the big projects on campus such as tutoring in the CCC. The money that goes to funding these projects on campus is a local tax that gets renewed every few years. Jules Droz, BHS senior and BSEP/SSC representative, shared how the council takes into consideration lots of proposals for funding with a wide range of ways to help the school as well as ways that the committee has decided to fund in the past. “A lot of these proposals are things that BSEP has funded in the past. But every year, they have to submit new information and statistics on how this project has aided Berkeley High students and has met certain goals,” Droz said.
A substantial portion of the Student Senate is the class leadership teams. Each class leadership team has up to nine deputies in addition to the president and vice president. It is the role of the class presidents to facilitate discussion on how to organize and execute their vision while learning and understanding from each other. Sadie Kayatsky, a BHS sophomore and sophomore class deputy, said that, “It's important to work as a team, know your peers, and have that community. I think that’s really important for Berkeley High even if you're not in leadership.” She also shared that because of the experience she had this year in a community of students with diverse backgrounds and opinions, she, alongside Lila Fortner, will be running for junior class president and vice president.
An extremely important part of being a member of the Student Senate is to make sure that the voices of students are heard. However, it can sometimes be a challenge since the representatives’ opinion may differ from the opinions of the student body. This is the exact challenge that Armana Aradom, BHS senior and School Board representative, had to handle. Aradom described how despite feeling strongly about a topic that was getting discussed, she wasn’t able to express her perspective because the job she was assigned to do was to represent the BHS student body, not herself. “My personal opinion doesn't always align with the opinion of people in general. And I sometimes have to step back and represent the community, rather than just putting my perspective in the forefront,” Aradom said.
The student senate makes a concerted effort to ensure that all parts of the school from all communities are heard. Amar Kaku, a freshman and U9 representative from Hive 1, shared how she believes that some students at BHS believe that the freshman leadership team isn’t as involved in planning events and doesn’t have many of the responsibilities the other class leadership teams have. However, Kaku argues that what is most important is not the amount of involvement in planning, but rather representation itself. “I think we do contribute because if we weren't there, there would be no representation for the freshman class and I feel like it's really important that all grades get represented,” Kaku said.
The Student Senate combines collaboration, compromise, and leadership into a variety of diverse and goal oriented positions. Each position has a specific job that needs to be done and a specific group to represent. With many roles varying from representative groups that focus on programs and what should be funded to having the student voice represented in big district discussions, the student senate provides a voice for all members of the bhs community. Nevertheless, it is the job of the student body to be aware of these committees so that they can shed light on what needs to be done on campus to make BHS better for everyone.