Legislative Meetings Give Voice to Students
SUSANNA AIGA
DENISE TIEU
Staff Writers
AHS’ body of government reflects the United States branches of government. In both, legislature creates laws and amends laws, if necessary, in order to serve the general public.
Every year, legislative meetings are held from the beginning of the school year to the end. This year’s meetings, facilitated by advisers Dorothy Burkhart and David Jauregui, will be carried out during fourth period in the cafeteria beginning Sept. 24.
Student representatives are chosen by their respective classes, and their job is to accurately represent the interests of students by attending the meetings and relaying any messages from Associative Student Body (ASB) to their class.
With the assistance of student representatives, the voice of the student body will be projected to ASB through legislative meetings.
“We want to ensure that everyone has a voice, and legislative meetings are the easiest way [to do that],” ASB adviser Jocelyn Castro said.
Legislature intends to receive the opinion of all students and to communicate it to ASB.
With the recommencement of legislature, the communication between students and ASB will improve and democracy will be endorsed in the school setting as well.
“[Legislature has been] implemented so ASB can have better communication between students and [the student] government. [They] are important because there isn’t much trust in student government, and [with the meetings it will] re-establish camaraderie,” Legislature Vice President Daniel Castaneda said.
Beginning this year, the meetings will take place during fourth period instead of third period. For convenience, legislative meetings, homeroom and Bulletin have all been changed to fourth period.
“Student representatives will attend if [legislative meetings take place] during school,” Speaker of Legislature Helen Huang said.
The usage of student representatives is a way for ASB to reach out to individual classes and students. This type of open forum stresses the point of generating student and teacher participation.
When more students contribute to legislature, it will allow for a larger variety of opinions and an increase of accurate representation of the student body.
“I volunteered [to become a student representative] because I wanted to inform both myself and students about upcoming events and activities” student representative Eddie Chang said.