Meet the Candidate: Alexis David

1) What leadership positions or experiences will make you a strong candidate for Exec board?

In grades 5, 7, 9, and 10, I’ve been a Student Council rep, which has provided me with plenty of leadership and planning skills. This also gives me experience and knowledge on how to best plan events and serve the school. This past year, I’ve also been a PAWS mentor. Through this experience, I’ve learned how to assist specifically younger students in their learning in a compassionate and understanding way. This year, I was also a staff reporter for the school newspaper, the Oracle, where I had to take on a lot of responsibility and work independently to make sure I met all my deadlines.  I am also an active participator in the theater community both at Archer, outside of Archer, and long before Archer, which has helped build my confidence as well as hone my public speaking skills. My experiences in theater have also allowed me to build connections with people of all ages. 

2) What three words describe your leadership style, and why?

Cooperation, compassion, and appreciation. 

I believe it is so important to listen to others when you hold a position of leadership. I want to make decisions that would reflect the school’s wants and needs, not my own. I want everyone to feel heard, valued, and reflected in the decisions StuCo makes. This is why I also want to lead with “appreciation”. This year, my fellow 10th-grade reps and I introduced a program of “shoutouts” where we shout out people in our grade we feel are doing an amazing job. I would want to introduce these on a wider scale if I was elected for Exec board to help everyone feel appreciated. I would also want to lead with compassion. I would want every person in the school to feel comfortable coming to me with questions, concerns, or even just to talk, and I would want to treat everyone with kindness and compassion.

3) As a student council leader, what are your main priorities for Student Council? For Archer?

One of my main priorities for student council is to make every student feel heard and valued. This was a big priority of mine this year in as a StuCo rep and was one of the main reasons we introduced shoutouts. We wanted everyone to hear and understand that we appreciated all they were doing. We have shoutouts for various things, ranging from personal accomplishments to good attitudes. We sent out a form to the grade and also shared personal shoutouts we received in this form. I would hope to introduce this on a wider scale, perhaps adding it as an addendum to Ms. Hazell O’Brien’s weekly emails. My other main priority is boosting school spirit.  That was, again, a priority of mine this year as well. My fellow reps and I worked really hard to encourage our grade to participate by making fun presentations, having group costumes, encouraging our grade by word of mouth, and more. This has really boosted our grade’s spirit as everyone seemed significantly more excited about these events and was more willing to participate in them. I would hope to use some of the same tactics to encourage an even larger portion of the school. My main priority for Archer is to provide more opportunities for open dialogue on difficult subjects, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and political opinions. I believe this would strengthen the Archer community and would harvest an environment of support and love. I would hope to do this by introducing open forums or setting aside mentorship time to hear from various affinity groups. I would also want to boost inter-grade unity and find a way to help people from different grades connect.

4) What are your plans for building community and inclusion at Archer?

As I stated before, I believe providing more spaces for open dialogue between students of different grades who come from different backgrounds would be a way for us to strengthen the Archer community as a whole and would create more unity between different grades. I also would like to reintroduce a program we had a while ago called the big buddy program. Students from one grade would partner with students from a younger grade and serve as a mentor for these younger students. I think this would allow younger students to feel more comfortable talking to older students and would help the school connect better as a whole.

5) List all co-curricular activities, school-sponsored or otherwise, that you plan to be involved in next year, including the approximate time you spend on each per week.

• PAWS mentor – 1 or 2 days after school
• Musical – First Semester, a couple of rehearsals per week (depends on the week)
• Play – Second Semester, a couple of rehearsals per week (depends on the week)
• Freelance Reporter for the Oracle – 1 article per month (1 or fewer interviews a week)
• Community Service Project