Last week, rising ninth to 12th grade students got a taste of democracy: They participated in an Archer Student Council Executive Board election. The four junior candidates created posters and wrote speeches in preparation for election day. At 3:15 p.m. that afternoon, the student body received an email that the student body president would be Sara Salehi, accompanied by Selah Johnson, Caroline Collis and Dakota Tooley as the Executive Board.
Each rising senior brings a unique skillset to Student Council because of their diverse interests and personalities. Some are athletes, some act, and others prefer to remain in the audience. The Oracle sat down with three out of four Exec Board members to discuss the year ahead.
How are you all feeling going into next year?
Sara Salehi [SS]: Honestly, I’m just so honored to have been giving this platform to represent Archer. It’s really inspiring to know that so many people look up to me and trust me to head the student body this coming year, and I’m really excited.
Caroline Collis [CC]: I’m excited too. We’ve sort of grown up watching Exec do their thing and cultivate a comfortable environment, and I want to continue that legacy. It’s really important to me that we continue to nurture the amazing culture at Archer.
Selah Johnson [SJ]: When I was in ninth grade and came to Archer, I was immediately very excited to get involved but was frustrated because, as a new ninth grader, it felt like there was so much that I wanted to do, and I wasn’t sure where I wanted to dedicate my time towards. But when I decided to run for student council — and then doing it all throughout 10th and 11th grade — I learned that the StuCo community is very supportive and so much fun, and so I’m very, very excited to be able to be an Exec member this coming school year and take on a little bit more responsibility.
Can you tell me about your group dynamic?
[SS]: We all bring a lot of different things into the board. Every year of high school, we haven’t had the same three people that have stayed on StuCo consistently. We’ve all mixed around, if that makes sense. I think our dynamic is just that we’re great friends. These are people that I know I can trust. I always know what they’re thinking before they say it, and I think that really helps us with our communication and overall planning for activities.
[SJ]: Yeah, it feels like a dream team. Even though there hasn’t been one year where all four of us have been on student council together, this school year, we worked together and planned things for both our grade and the overall upper school. I think that we have found it incredibly easy, like Sara said, to work with each other. And I would just say everyone is very both flexible and driven, so we’re, kind of, able to bring our own individual ideas to the group, but then also work off of each other and collaborate.
[CC]: Honestly, it’s just so rewarding knowing that what I’m doing is helping both my team and overall community. When we work together, I just love to see how we light up at each other’s ideas, and, in general, it’s incredible how well we collaborate.
Going into next year, what are your goals for both student council and the overall community?
[CC]: Something on my mind has been readjustment after the fires. I know the fires put the year in different directions, which made sustaining the traditions and keeping up with what we had before is naturally harder. I think we did a really good job this year getting back to where we were, and I think next year would just be even more than readjusting but finding true peace.
[SJ]: I feel like I can tell that some people in the upper school are desiring closeness with younger students. So what we’ve heard a lot in our grade has been the desire for more connection with younger grades — like middle school specifically — and so I think that it can be a challenge because of scheduling and not having those FLX blocks to be around each other. However, I do think that there are some places where we can work in being around the younger students, specifically 11th and 12th graders, being able to work with sixth and seventh or even eighth graders, and so I think that we’ll be able to find some really cool ways to figure out inter grade connection next year.
[SS]: I have to agree. I think that as we move through Archer, and when we get older in general, I think we forget the magic that is Archer that we once experienced when we were younger. And I think being able to connect with the middle schoolers, and these wide-eyed sixth graders is so important, will help us reestablish that Archer really is awesome.
