It is the evening of August 29, 2017. Most of Peachtree Ridge High School has retired for the night. Teachers and students have long since gone home. The long hallways are empty and echoing. Dark classrooms silently recuperate in preparation for the bustle of students in the morning. The school is quiet, tranquil even.
However in the cafeteria, the lights are on. In stark contrast to the rest of the school, this place is active and restless. It is 6:00 p.m., and a small team of students donning matching black officer shirts stand in a semicircle before rows of empty tables. They are going over their presentation one last time before the first Student Council meeting of the year begins in one hour.
In the past few years, Student Council has experienced a tremendous amount of growth. As one of the largest student-led organizations in the school, the council leads homecoming, prom, Relay for Life, and sports committees.
Additionally, new events have been added throughout the years, some of which include Trunk-or-Treat, an autumnal celebration directed towards kids in the community, and Festival of Nations, an event that celebrates the different cultures prevalent in a school as large as Peachtree Ridge. The main goal of Student Council is to foster unity, involvement, and democratic procedures within the school in order to uphold Peachtree Ridge’s standard of excellence. These are the values the officers are striving to embody.
At 7:00 p.m., as members start trickling into the cafeteria, we engage them in games, icebreakers, and an informational presentation. I scan the crowd and see many familiar and smiling faces, but I also see numerous new ones. I can’t help grinning, too, thinking about what bigger and better things we are going to accomplish together this year.
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