As this school year comes to a close, the new Community Council leaders plan to make next year more fun and spirited. With four new grade presidents and eight grade representatives, Council is fully staffed with students who want to make an impact on the Hackley community, and have many ideas to improve the student experience. They’ve already had their first Council meeting, and they seem to agree on one thing: increasing school spirit will bring the community closer together.

Next year’s junior president, Alex Meyer, has thought of many great ideas, including bake sales, a spring carnival, a color run, and getting a toaster for the cafeteria. She also thinks it is really important to raise spirit for school events. She says of her recent lacrosse game, “We [Girls’ Varsity Lacrosse] had the Yorktown game and everyone showed up, so it was just so much more intense and more exciting. It gets you pumped up and I think that’s important to do next year.”

Alex has been working with junior grade representative Seth Tilliss to develop their ideas together such as a spring carnival, but Seth also wants to plan events like laser tag, an outdoor Coffeehouse, a haunted house, and an ultimate frisbee tournament. “Next year should be fun. I have a lot of good ideas and good events in store,” said Seth.

Following in his brother’s footsteps, current ninth grade president, Pat Walker, will also be the sophomore president, and similarly to the other Council members, he thinks there needs to be a bigger emphasis on school spirit. “This year we had great events like spirit week, gym night and movie night, but we didn’t really get a huge turnout. Council did their best, but getting as many people as possible to come would be better,” Pat says of his goal to improve next year.

There are also a few newcomers to Council including senior representative JC Peruzzi. Even though he hasn’t had a lot of experience in the past, JC is committed to making it great year. He decided to run for representative because he wants to “make an impact next year, and be able to make it as fun as it possibly could be for everyone.”

While the new Council members agree Hackley needs to raise its school spirit by planning more events, they may not all come to a consensus on how to raise money for it. School events require a lot of hard work to come up with the necessary means to host it, and previous years have proven this to be a challenge for Hackley. Despite the challenge, Alex is optimistic about next year saying, “I think that we can overcome those challenges by having more fundraisers.” Some ideas to raise money have already been suggested, such as having a bake sale.

The Hackley community seems to be very excited about the newly elected members of Council. With the Council’s consensus for more spirit, next year is shaping up to be a great year. Sophomore Ashley Halloran said, “I’m really excited about next year. I think the elections went really great. It was really competitive and really well done.”