I shared a bit with you this week how tired I am and how my mother isn't doing well. It has been a long week. Last night, before the election today, I took Princess and her friend out to celebrate that they did well knowing that with political tactics of the advisor involved, Princess Five didn't have much of a chance winning.
Princess Five was
running for Student Body President. She has wanted this since she saw her two
older sisters be Student Body President and speak at their graduations. Here is a link to Princess Four's post. Here is a link to Princess Three's post. She has planned
her school political life so that she would know how the system worked to be
able to be the most prepared and see how it is run and how she could improve on
it. She was a Sophomore and Junior Senator and has always supported the office well doing everything she could to build the school and support the students, organization and teachers.
She has had some issues as the student advisor was put in since her sister ran and there are some changes the advisor is instituting that are causing some rifts and issues in the election and it has caused major grief in my world.
I am hoping that we can get through this week without any more visits to the school, talking with the advisor, principle or school counselors.
They weren't allowed and an assembly. They weren't allowed to give speeches. The student vote was dropped down to 30 % of the overall score for office. She is not allowing any senators from any of the classes so there won't be representation from any class but seniors on the committee.
They needed three letters of recommendation for current teachers. There were 20 kids running and they all have the same teachers so the Jr. teachers had to write up to 20 letters of recommendation which made them all end up sounding the same rather than allowing them to get one from others.
They aren't
allowing the seniors to vote or the 8th graders that will be coming into the
school so that cuts out lots of votes. I was so proud of Princess Five as she wrote a very professional letter saying that if the student vote wasn't at least 50% the students wouldn't feel as if they had a say and wouldn't vote at all.
She also wrote very clear reasons why they should allow them to have skits and not just print up their speeches in a pamphlet for the kids to read. What kid would read speeches?
She shared how skits show if a person is organized and creative and can put together assemblies etc. She sent it not only to the advisor but the principle. It also had other suggestions like having the election BEFORE cheer and drill tryouts so that if someone didn't make the committee, they could then try out for other spirit groups so they wouldn't waste their senior year.
Her letter contained other issues like who would be in the room for the interviews? How would they be rated? Is there a committee and not just the advisor so there couldn't be favorites? and many other great questions which then allowed for a group of teachers and students to be in on the interview process.
They also said they didn't have time to add a new assemble for speeches and skits (They have had an assembly every day this week and one next Monday as well) so they told them they had to make a 30 second video to campaign with. How they can get their point across in 30 seconds? It has been frustrating but she made an adorable one only to have the sound not work when they were showing them at lunch. Also, their written speeches never showed up anywhere.
Princess called to let me know today she didn't get in. Not that she didn't get voted in as the students were never told that their votes wouldn't matter as they took away that right without letting any of the students, teachers or school counselors know.
Princess came home crying three times during this "election" and I think there are letters to the school board and district in our future. Princess was the ONLY student pulled aside three different time and grilled on "Where she got her paper for her poster? (we used my sister wedding table cloth butcher paper not that any other students got calling in and asked!) Why are your running? Told she couldn't do any sport and be president or vice president but should run for secretary!" yet both the new "president and vice president" are both doing sports and one is even doing the sport Princess was planning on doing.....
There is much more to the story but I got a call today that my mother is in a coma and is dying so I didn't really need all the drama with this!
Sometimes it is nice living in a small town, other times, it is VERY frustrating as politics play into so many things in small towns. However, God has many graces in my world and I smiled when we were making her video, we saw some things for the construction going on at the school and 111 was clearly on one of the containers. I had to take a picture.
Also, at dinner yesterday as I got out of the car, there was a penny right next to my door. I almost didn't park there but decided I didn't want to walk as far to the restaurant door. It made Princess and I smile so I took a picture of it to remind us that even though we are both having a stressful week, God does love us and we need to Trust in Him!
No comments:
Post a Comment