Blog Posts

Student Government is up and running!

12/1/2020

This weeks blog entry comes from one of our 9th Grade Representatives: Kalina Brookfield

This fall, the student council has been working hard to help BHS through the new 2020-2021 school year. We’ve been making progress on a Sports Credit bill that will make it easier for students to receive proper credit for their athletics, started committee work in our newly established committees, and worked on creating surveys to get valuable feedback from the student body.

We’ll be doing our best to get new blog posts out more consistently for the rest of this year, so make sure to stay tuned for future updates!

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Run for Election 2020-2021 School Year

9/17/2020

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We need new members for Legislature, Student Council and Judiciary! Make sure to check out the website for information on what these 3 bodies do at BHS & how you can get involved. Contact [email protected] with any questions.

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Finishing up 2020 and Starting a New Year

9/17/2020

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Legislature was busy in the Winter and Spring of 2020! Before the COVID outbreak, Legislature passed 2 bills and during COVID, we kept meeting and passed another bill. As well, Student Council and Legislature was the first group to survey en masse students to find out what problems they were experiencing during the remote learning in the spring of 2020. Those results were shared with administrators and led to direct action from teachers and administrators to change policies that were in place.

Here are the 3 bills that pass last year:

Field Trip Absence Bill
"If a teacher takes their students on a class-sponsored field trip, those students will not receive absences for that class. A class-sponsored field trip is defined as any field trip that is endorsed by a teacher and is academically related to the course they teach that student. Additionally, if students go on a school-sponsored foreign exchange trip for a world language class, they will not receive absences in that world language class. This rule applies to all academic classes and electives, but not clubs. "

Right to Full Time to Complete Assignments Bill
"Students will not be given late penalties for a nightly homework assignment that is submitted by the start time of the next class meeting. For example, if a student has homework assigned on Wednesday, but the class doesn’t meet again until Friday, the assignment cannot be due before the start of class on Friday. This does not apply to long term assignments."

Emergency Procedure Bill
This bill was created to address how BHS Government will run if we every experience another unplanned school cancellation.

Read the letter that BHS Gov sent to administrators during remote learning in the Spring of 2020.

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Legislature 2/6

2/27/2020

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On Jan. 9th, Legislature debated and voted on a proposed headphone bill, sponsored by seniors Omer Fink and Jack Heuberger, which would allow students to use headphones while seated at the indoor picnic tables. This bill was extremely divisive, with people on both sides speaking passionately. The final vote for this bill broke down to 16 Yes, 10 Against, and 2 Abstentions, thereby leading the bill to fail, as bills need a simple majority of the entire body- 18 votes, to pass this year. This vote was not split among students and faculty, with members in both groups voting both for and against the bill. The sponsors of the bill are hoping to revise the bill and repropose it to the Legislature. They can be contacted at [email protected] and [email protected]; feedback and student testimonies would be greatly appreciated.
Legislature is currently discussing the Full Time for Assignments bill, sponsored by sophomore Claire Gallion, which would mean that the earliest a homework assignment could be due is by the next class meeting. Some members of the body are concerned about how this bill would impact students and teachers with the limited meeting times in the current schedule, as there was a case earlier this year where A block did not meet for an entire week. This bill will likely be voted on in an upcoming Legislature meeting.
Additionally, many bills are being drafted and discussed, such as an International Field Trip Attendance Bill, which would excuse absences in the class that sponsors the field trip. For example, students would not receive absences in French for the French Exchange trip. A bill revising how Health and Fitness credits from activities outside the high school are obtained has also been drafted.
The Judiciary has also been hard at work this school year. Early this fall, a student approached the Judiciary to consider taking up the issue of collective punishment. Examples of collective punishment include shutting down a bathroom, picnic tables, or library spaces due to the bad behavior of a few students. After weeks of meetings and discussions, the Judiciary will be writing a letter to the administration with their opinions on this matter and potential alternative disciplinary measures that could be taken in lieu of collective punishment.
If you are interested in finding out more about what BHS Government is up to on a weekly basis, who your representatives are, or if you have suggested topics for debate, please visit our website. You can find us on the main BHS website under student

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11/14 Update on Legislature

12/4/2019

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Hi Everyone, here’s what we discussed in last week’s Legislature meeting and in a supplementary meeting with Faculty Council:

Mr. Sedlak introduced a constitutional amendment to discuss voting reform and how bills are presented to the body.
- In this proposal, the bill submission process is streamlined, and we discussed the effects of raising the required number of votes to pass a bill to 2/3rds of quorum.
We also discussed the issue of T block assemblies sometimes roll[ing over into X block.
We drafted a letter to the administration about the new absence policy that will be in the next Sagamore publication

This past week, some members of Student Council also met with Faculty Council. There, we received teachers’ feedback on recent bill proposals, including our updated headphone bill and a grade transparency bill.

Overall, the majority of the faculty present at the meeting strongly opposed policy allowing additional headphone use -- they believed it would discourage social interaction among students. Although they were willing to allow headphones at picnic tables, they spoke out against the idea of having earbuds during passing times.

Additionally, the faculty present were against a grade transparency and IPR bill. Many did not want to include letter grades in such IPRs -- some teachers argued that it would only contribute to the competitive BHS environment, while others stated that students should be able to calculate their grades on their own. Despite this, many faculty members seemed to agree with the idea of putting missing assignments on progress reports.

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Student Government is up and running!

Run for Election 2020-2021 School Year

Finishing up 2020 and Starting a New Year

Legislature 2/6

11/14 Update on Legislature

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