Prom, Homecoming and rallies are some of the largest high school events. Those contributing to the work for these events are none other than class council. Class council members are chosen based on their application and interview, and throughout the year, work to represent their respective graduating classes as best as possible during school events.
The freshmen’s color is purple and their advisor is Kirsten Song and Alexander Lohman, the sophomores’ color is green and their advisor is Joseph Osterberg and Andrea Williams, the juniors’ color is red and their advisor is Paul Gordon and Ludivina Magaña and the seniors’ color is orange and their advisor is Cecilia Lopez and Howard Lui.
According to West Covina High School, “Class representatives are selected from each graduating class to galvanize class spirit while encouraging healthy, inter-class competition. Guided by a focus on establishing connections with peers and promoting school traditions, class council members strive to enhance the student experience for each graduating class and garner greater involvement in school activities.”
Similar to the school’s description of class council, junior Alex Chen originally joined to become more involved.
“At first, it was because my friends were all joining. Not all of them ran as officers, but we wanted to have some sort of extracurricular we were all involved in together,” Chen said.
Each grade’s class council works on homecoming floats, homecoming skits, rally backdrops and the prom for their graduating class once they become juniors. Although each of these projects presents its own difficulties such as managing time and working with others, Chen believes the homecoming ones are the most challenging.
“All rallies are two weeks, if not shorter, and the HOCO one is three weeks, and although we don’t have to do a backdrop, we have to work on a whole skit, and we have to work for props for our float,” Chen said.
Chen also explained that the competition aspect of the homecoming season added additional pressure.
“It definitely gets more stressful at the end, because that’s when the pressure starts to kick in. Because at the end, your float design and your skits are ultimately a competition between all four class councils,” Chen said.
The juniors’ skit ended up coming in first place. For the float, however, the seniors emerged victorious.
Also, while it takes effort to create backdrops for rallies, build the homecoming floats and practice for the skits, senior Melinda Lim notes an overlooked challenge.
“I think it’s definitely communicating with advisors and the members and making sure everyone’s on the same page. Because I know a lot of the times where CC’s a lot of small friend groups together, so it’s trying to figure out a way to bond everyone together instead of making everyone go into separate groups, because CC is a team thing, so we need to make sure that everyone’s working together,” Lim said.
Although the homecoming season was difficult, Lim can see the positive side.
“Very stressful but I think it’s really fun, especially after you figure out the design and you start putting pieces together, like after you make the little individual things and especially then setup day, it all comes together and you’re just, like, ‘Wow, we really made this happen,’” Lim said.
The floats and skits are based on the homecoming theme, which was “A Tale as Old as Time.” The freshmen’s skit was based on “Aladdin,” the sophomores’ was based on “Peter Pan,” the juniors’ was based on “Snow White” and the seniors’ was based on “Tangled.” The Associated Student Body (ASB) picks the homecoming theme but each class council picks their own specific theme within the broader one.
The president and vice president of each class council is also a part of ASB. Therefore, sophomore Olivia Odulio, who is the vice president of the sophomores’ class council, explained how she had to stay late to help clean up after Homecoming.
“The president and the vice president have to go to ASB so I’m also in ASB and I’m also doing setup and clean up for HOCO. Like on the day of HOCO, I was at school until 2,” Odulio said.
Similarly, Odulio explained how she occasionally stays up late due to balancing class council work with schoolwork.
“It’s really bad, but I stay up late, but I try to delegate my time. Like, I’ll split up my work over the week and I’ll try to do as much work as I can on the weekends,” Odulio said.
While class council works mainly on artistic things such as backdrops, spirit posters and floats, they also have the task of boosting morale at rallies.
“Class council impacts the school because I feel like the whole class kind of feeds off the class council’s vibe. So if our class council is hype and stuff then our class is gonna be hype, and I feel like our class council is super hype, and that’s why the sophomores are always super hype,” Odulio said.
Although class council plays a large role in school spirit and decor, it also impacts the members themselves.
“It’s impacted me to become more like a leader and just like making me more involved in school,” freshman Gabriella Medina said.
Medina was also part of the freshman class council’s skit, starring as Aladdin. Despite this being Medina’s first time doing a skit for class council, she did not struggle.
“It wasn’t really that hard, just like a little nervous, because all the people, but it worked out in the end, so it wasn’t that bad,” Medina said.
Alongside working on schoolwork, class council members take hours out of their time to make sure they represent their respective classes to the best of their ability. They also rally their peers in their grade to display their enthusiasm. Through their teamwork, leadership, creativity and hard work, class council members work to ensure their classes have a spirited high school experience.
