All-School Vice President

Adi Badlani, Class of 2021

What new ideas would you bring to the table? What is your main goal?

The central focus of my campaign is growing DEI work at U-High. We’ve made great progress this year combating central problems in our community, but the work is nowhere close to being done. If elected, I would work to expand the virtual forums already going on into DEI circles. Each circle would be composed of students from all backgrounds so students can be exposed to multiple perspectives. I’d also like to work on helping freshmen and new-to-Lab students get adjusted to U-High by creating a Student Council outreach network similar to the mentorship program established last year. 

How will you act as a liaison between students and faculty?

Now more than ever, we’ve seen students have trouble communicating their ideas or circumstances with their teachers and other faculty. I’d like to start an online anonymous feedback system for classes if remote learning does continue by expanding Student Council’s Curriculum Feedback bill to account for each person’s circumstances. As a DOSTS and an Executive Board member, I’ve worked extensively on this bill and would like to see it be expanded. After talking to other students, I realize that now is the perfect time to start this because of everyone’s unique circumstances.

What kind of school culture do you hope to see? How will you work to create it?

I think Lab has been defined by its competitive culture in classes and extracurriculars, but I’d like to see that culture shift to a more collaborative one. We need more open times and spaces to just talk to each other. If we do this, we’ll begin to realize that in order to achieve the best version of ourselves, we should seek out the best versions of others. We’ve made great progress with this by initiating gratitude assemblies and having the whole school unite for common causes in the past year, and I hope to continue these if elected. 

How will you work to make U-High a stress-free environment?

One thing that I would look forward to working on is collaborating with Learning and Counseling to prioritize social, emotional and mental health counseling through Student Council initiatives. One way that I’d approach this is by issuing anonymous online surveys to find out the main stressors for Lab students and working with L&C to help make arrangements, or even events, for students to destress from these specific areas of their life. This past year, I appreciated the increase of grade events that focused on just relaxing, and I hope that these can become larger, schoolwide events. 

How do you plan to enhance the student body’s engagement in school activities?

I think that our student body is naturally attracted to both collaboration and competition. Because of this, a cool incentive to approaching schoolwide activities would be having advisory competitions leading up to larger events. These competitions would increase closeness among advisories while exciting students ahead of schoolwide events. I would also like to work with the Spirit Council to get more students involved in supporting each other, and I’d like to reach out to U-High’s teams and clubs to see what the rest of the student body can do to support them.

Naomi Corlette, Class of 2021

What new ideas would you bring to the table? What is your main goal?

My goal will be to amplify our voices and support individuals in our community. As All-School vice president, I’ll work towards a community where everyone feels included and welcomed. Online learning has proven more than ever how important our community is. As we finish virtual school and come back together, I’ll host activities and listen to students to maintain connections. I will work with the administration, and student lead groups to create a community where everyone is accepted and loved. This includes actively combatting racism, providing more resources for LGBTQ+ students, and helping people who are struggling academically or socially. 

How will you act as a liaison between students and faculty?

I will act as a liaison between students and faculty by increasing the accessibility for students to provide their suggestions. Currently, the Student Council has a suggestion box on its website, but I would like to post this more frequently on Schoology and Lab Facebook pages. Additionally, after significant events such as the racist incidents this year or school moving online, I would create forms with more specific questions to learn how to best approach the situation. I would also work with the wellness committee to communicate with faculty about how they can help with the health of our community.

What kind of school culture do you hope to see? How will you work to create it?

I want to create an inclusive, welcoming, safe and supportive culture at Lab. I’ll advocate for student needs as the administration creates a plan for dealing with future racist incidents similar to those that occurred this year. I will work on a system of diversity education so that people can understand and grow from their mistakes and emphasize that we cannot tolerate hate due to someone’s identity. Additionally, as the leaders of our community, I find it important to communicate with teachers about how they can work against racism and other forms of discrimination.

How will you work to make U-High a stress-free environment?

While I acknowledge that stress is normal, I believe that the excessive amounts of stress and anxiety that U-high students face is an issue. To help struggling students, I want to increase communications with the counselors, advisors, wellness committee, and learning coordinators and provide skills to manage stress, including workshops, suggestions for dealing with stress, and safe spaces. I also believe that a supportive community is key for stress management, which is why I will work to find ways to bring students together through fun events, especially with the new opportunities we are finding to connect with technology. 

How do you plan to enhance the student body’s engagement in school activities?

I would like to hold more opportunities for us to connect online and in person. I find that simple school activities like games and spirit week provide a great occasion to bond with others, and traditions such as these will be one of my priorities. Additionally, since so many of us rely strongly on social media, I will increase the scope of Student Council social media accounts beyond just advertising events. This will include highlighting things going on in the schools, hosting interactive polls, providing feedback forms, and sharing what is happening in our community. 

Hunter Tyndall, Class of 2021

What new ideas would you bring to the table? What is your main goal?

My main goal while holding the position of all school vice president would be to increase comradire at the school throughout all grades. Even though we are a smaller school and the grades are already close to each other, I feel that there is a disconnect between some of the grades and fixing that would be beneficial to the whole highschool. One way this could be achieved is with more activities between the grades, like lock ins, and competitions between grades. Another goal of mine would be giving students more of a choice of what assemblies we hold each year. 

How will you act as a liaison between students and faculty?

I think a key part of building a relationship between students and faculty and keeping both sides informed on what is going on, is simply reaching out to students. From my own experience I can conclude that students don’t reach out to their representatives in student government as much as they should. Whether this be because they don’t want to or even if they feel like their voice isn’t valued. To curb this I would reach out to students and ask them what their ideas and opinions are on issues and other things we have going on in our community.

What kind of school culture do you hope to see? How will you work to create it?

As a school I want our culture to be one of camaraderie. I want us as a school regardless of grade to all be close to one another and use our relatively small class sizes to assist in that. I would also like to see one where students feel like they have a say in everything, whether that be what assemblies are happening, what grade or school wide activities we hold, or even what we are having for lunch. Giving students a voice is the first step to forming that schoolwide camaraderie.

How will you work to make U-High a stress-free environment?

Being a realist, there is no way to make Lab a truly stress-free environment. We as a student body are far too competitive and driven in order to be truly stress-free, that being said there are ways we as a community can limit stress for students. One way we can do this is encourage students to find a member of the community they can talk to to explain what they are feeling and if warranted get the assistance they need to help solve those problems.  Another way we can do this is help instill good work habits. 

How do you plan to enhance the student body’s engagement in school activities?

A way we can increase student engagement in school activities would be to give the student body a say in what activities are happening. A great way to do this would be to use the technology we have to poll the student body on what they would want to see happen at their school. An example would be the big assembly we have in Upper Kovler every year. The activities we do there have been the same since my freshman year, so getting new ideas from the student body would be a great way to increase interest.