In the 2026-27 Student Council election on May 1, Aiden Yu was elected all-school president and Saanika Dutta was elected all-school vice president. Aiden responded to questions in an interview with the Midway shortly after election results were announced.
Aiden’s responses have been lightly edited for clarity, length and style.
87% of the student body voted in the election: 86% of 11th graders, 88% of 10th graders and 87% of ninth graders.
What are your goals as you step into your new role as all-school president?
“I want to bring more power to Student Council, and I want to do that by meeting with faculty and steering committee more, and sitting in on meetings so the students know more about what’s going on with the higher-ups, and we’re not kept in the shadows with policies and decisions aren’t made without our input.”
What lessons will you use next year that you’ve learned from your past three years as class president?
“I feel like, in my time on Student Council, I’ve seen a lot of different all-school presidents and the different ways they have led Student Council as a whole, and I think that was really guiding. For example, next year, I would like to give more guidance to the grade Student Councils on event planning because I feel like this year we were more focused on all-school events, and I feel like we can have more one-on-one, like the all-school president and vice president, with grade Student Councils to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to do, so we can have more grade events and more grade bills.”
Are there any changes or improvements you hope to bring to the school or student community during your term?
“One of my ideas is to require a free lab period for every co-curricular week because I feel like students have told me, that they would like to meet with teachers or catch up on work and co-curricular weeks are sometimes filled with unnecessary assemblies, so I would like to work to have at least one free lab. I would also like to amend the phone policy because I do believe we should be able to use our phones during free periods and labs, and I do agree that it helps with community, but sometimes it’s more convenient to have your phone during those free times when you’re not doing anything. For example, like [in] your free period, you’re not even talking to anyone really, so you should be able to use your phone.”
How do you specifically plan to increase Student Council’s power?
“I discussed with Ms. Campos already, but I want to have it so Student Council members can sit in on faculty meetings because I know they meet at least once a month, and I feel like faculty make a lot of policies and decisions, so I feel like having a sit in and hopefully in the future we will be able to pitch our ideas and pitch the student issues to the faculty directly rather than emailing them and doing all this back-and-forth emailing… but I know that might not be possible. My alternate idea is to, at least quarterly, send a document listing issues that students have, and we’re going to talk more with students and I’m going to try and host town hall meetings where we are actually going to discuss ideas and issues with volunteer students from the student body who have things they want to say and feel like feedback forms and other means of communication aren’t good enough.”
You and many other candidates said you wanted to revise policies around cellphone use during school days and eating in the Booth School of Business. What specific steps will you and other Student Council members take to try and make these changes?
“First of all, I know there was just a survey that came out, so I think that is gaining information about what students think. But, I think just talking with Ms. Campos more because she is leading the cellphone thing, and talking with her to see what the next steps are. Hopefully, if we can’t eat at Booth, we can at least have our phones during free periods. Starting small and then working our way up are our next steps. We want to try and talk to Ms. Campos, because, this year, we couldn’t make any changes because the cellphone policy was so new, but I think next year, Student Council and students will have more power and input into the bill in the future.”
Two of your and Saanika Dutta’s main bills are the homework-free long weekend bill and the approval for new electives bill. What is the progress on these bills?
“We already met with steering committee. They are basically a group of faculty that is elected to run and make the bigger decisions, so they are really important with policies like this, and they’re willing to let us have up to five homework free long weekends — long weekends being like MLK weekend or three days or more — and they are willing to have up to five. We just have to meet with department heads to discuss specifics as to how many weekends department heads are willing to give, and that meeting is really soon. It’s the same with the elective bill, but we are making more progress with the homework free long weekend bill. The elective bill is more like they’re willing to do it, but we still have to talk more with the department heads.”
Are you expecting any pushback from department heads, specifically on the homework-free long weekend bill?
“Yeah, for sure. I’m pretty sure the math department is going to have a bit of an issue with it because they know they already have a very concrete curriculum throughout the year, but you never know unless you try, so we are going to talk to them and try and argue for at least one long weekend. If [steering committee] is willing to go up to five, that’s already a good sign, so we’re gonna see what happens. But, yeah, we are definitely expecting pushback. It’s such a crazy bill, but we think it might work. You got to at least try.”
How do you plan on leading Student Council? Do you have a specific leadership style?
“I’m definitely planning on being more personal with Student Council members. For example, meeting more regularly with grade presidents and individual CUs, just making sure they’re on top of their things. I might start implementing like an actual calendar with more deadlines so there’s more structure to the process, rather than letting people start really well on an event then just forget about it later and have it be messy advertising. So, I’m going to try to be more close with the grade student councils. I think that’s the biggest change because I know in the past, Student Council has been pretty separated between executive board and grade Student Councils and grade Student Councils are kind of left on their own to figure out what they have to do.”
How are you going to try and increase transparency and communication with the student body about what’s going on in Student Council?
“We have the Monday midday post every Monday, so I’m thinking of using that more because this year I’ve definitely been trying to post more updates about bills between me and Saanika. I would also like to have grade Student Councils speak more about their planning, and this would tie into with having a calendar deadline system because we can post that on the Monday Midday post and people can actually see the process of planning, like, ‘Are we getting chaperones?’ ‘Are we making posters?’ ‘Are we making the video?’ Having that listed out on the Monday midday post for everyone to see would keep the grade Student Councils more accountable as to their work. I think that would definitely increase efficiency and transparency with the student body because they can actually see exactly what the grade Student Councils are doing each week. Also, we have quarterly updates for the whole school that we send out to everyone, but I think I might start making them into videos so they are more interactive. You might see on your Instagram or something, a Reel popping up detailing updates for Student Council and what we have been doing.”
