Of the many clubs Bryan offers, student council is one of the most demanding due to its variety of projects. Currently, the club is looking for new members. There are no requirements to join, just talk to club sponsor Rachel Allen.
“I need kids that aren’t fully involved [around school],” Allen said. “Someone who wants to work… come in and give their input, so we can try to fill the school with spirit more.”
Student involvement is also a concern of Principal Anthony Clark-Kaczmarek’s. In a recent interview, he explained the details of a possible solution to get input from students not currently represented due to lack of involvement.
“I’ve tasked the 13 leadership team members (from the cellphone task force) to all bring a group of seven students,” CK said. “One of those is the athletic director [James Cunningham]. He’s going to pick athletes. One of those is the activities director [Ryan Murtaugh]. He’s going to pick kids that are in clubs and organizations.”
CK believes this solution will give a variety of opinions for future implementations and practices.
“They will talk to me, and I’ll present the practice to them,” CK said. “We’ll talk a little bit about how they feel about phones… and then we’ll talk about how they might be able to process through this.”
Some students and teachers believe students don’t get involved in a lot of activities because of social anxiety when meeting new people. “[To get involved,] you got to start somewhere,” Senior class president Cristian Rojas said. “If you let fear or doubt hold you back, it’s just going to bring nothing but constant guilt.”
Some teachers say one of the best ways to get students involved is through their peers and word of mouth.
“The best representation is the peers themselves because our words only go so far,” said English teacher and Educators Rising sponsor Antonio Gullie. “The biggest issue isn’t really getting them there; it’s keeping them there. We were able to get students into Educators Rising, but they’re going to have to make connections with their peers or else they won’t stay.”
Gullie believes there is a strong relationship between keeping students motivated and keeping students involved. Allen says that will come with work.
The students “keep themselves motivated,” Allen said. “They feel really good when they bring an idea to the table, and it takes off. So, I wait for people [to say] we should do this, or we should try this… As Mr. [Thomas] Allen likes to say, ‘Get involved, get involved, get involved!’ Just be involved because your ideas are going to be heard.”
