By Abby Kass
The end of the semester brings the end of the era and the start of a new one: the new term of student government! With positions of president, vice president, chief of committees, chief of staff, and chief of communications having just been recently elected, what are some of our Kehillah’s new leaders’ plans for the new term?
Junior Spencer Kolodny, the new student body president, has worked in student government as treasurer, a grade representative, and a student advocacy committee member. Because of his experience, he knows what different parts of the student government want and need.
“I think my experience aids me in the way that I understand everyone’s position in sort of a way,” Kolodny said. “I served as a member of the exec board when I was the treasurer. [And] I’ve had experience with almost all branches of student government. So, I feel like that helps when I have different people talking to me, asking me about different things.”
Kolodny has already begun initiatives in his new position such as putting an air hockey table and chargers in the lounges. A large initiative that he is hoping to accomplish in the new term is improving organization and communication within student government.
“My plans for the new term is [that] we’re going to have more organization within the structure of the executive board, with the grade reps and with the committees,” Kolodny said. “We’re planning on having monthly meetings with the grade reps and with the committee chairs in order to make sure we’re on the same page; just so that we better understand what’s going on, and we can make sure that not only we know, but we can help with what’s going on and get things accomplished.”
In his prior years of serving on student government, Kolodny has realized that the student body doesn’t always take the nicest care of certain items that the student government purchases; therefore, he is hoping to put into action a plan to combat this.
“One of the policies we will be implementing is, with low-cost items, if students intentionally break them or misuse them in a way that is inappropriate, they will have to refund the product,” Kolodny said. “But, it’s not like a punishment, it will hopefully get more of a fostering community where we don’t get stuff breaking quite as often.”
Kolodny feels as though his role as student body president has many implications in terms of his responsibilities, and some of them include representing the student body and oversight of other branches of student government.
So I feel like it’s my responsibility, first, to be a representative for student government,” Kolodny said. “I’m almost like the model, people hear me, I speak for student government. [Also] My job is to not only manage and make sure they [committees and grade reps] are keeping up with me, but making sure that the individual committees, individual grade reps, that they’re doing well, that they’re meeting, that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. Just checking up on them and making sure student government is running as efficiently as possible.”
Sophomore Oren Podietz, a previous member of the Experience Committee and the new chief of committees, is excited to carry on his love for committees to a leadership position.
“I enjoyed being on a committee,” Podietz said. “I was on the experience committee last year, and I had a great time. So, from that, I think that trying to make sure everyone enjoys being on committees is important [for my role].”
Podietz believes that his main duty as chief of committees is to ensure that all committees are doing what they need to do.
“I think managing committees, making sure that they’re running smoothly is important,” Podietz said. “They’re one of the most important aspects of student government, and making sure that they’re using the budget correctly, planning activities for the school, and listening properly to the chairs is important because when that all happens, it really makes student government better.”
Sophomore Jack Kriegel, student government’s new vice president, is excited to step into his new leadership position and take on new tasks to improve the school.
“I know that one of my main responsibilities is, next year, to be the grade rep for the freshmen up until January when they get their grade rep,” Kriegel said. “I want to try and take on some sort of project for this half of the year. I’m thinking maybe helping to refurnish the lounge, working with the experience or advocacy committees to do something like that.”
An initiative that Kriegel thinks should be carried out in the new term is improved communication between student government and the student body.
“I feel like sometimes student government, it might seem like they’re not doing that much, and I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but it might just be hard for people to see what they’re doing,” Kriegel said. “I think that trying to do some more outreach programs, and maybe doing some programs that people can actually see that we’re trying to do something, I think that’s something that we can try to address over the next year.”
Before being elected into his new position, Kriegel served as a grade representative during the past term and believes that the experience he got from it will help him in the next term.
“I think that there’s going to be a lot of coordinating to do as vice president,” Kriegel said. “You have to oversee the activities of student government and work with the president to make sure that everything is running smoothly. So, I think that the experience I got from being a great representative will definitely help me when I’m doing those jobs.”
Sophomore Abi Wiseman, the new chief of staff, has had previous experience as a grade representative, and, in her new position, will take on the responsibilities of communicating with staff members about student government ideas and general oversight of all parts of student government.
Last but not least, sophomore Nili Kriegel, the newly elected chief of communications and previous tenth-grade representative, will be responsible for running the student government Instagram account by posting the daily bulletin and weekly address, and generally communicating with the student body about events and activities that are happening around school.