2021 Annual Report
The State of BUA
Student Council’s Annual Report
May 2021
President, Phevos Paschalidis
Vice President, Kieran Barrett
Treasurer, Benista Owusu-Amo
Secretary, Sudarshan Ramanan
A Note from the Student Council President
Dear BUA,
Despite the challenges of an all-remote BUA student council, the 15 elected members, as well as the many general members who joined us each week for general and subcommittee meetings, worked hard in creating a better BUA. Below, you can read brief summaries of the work the four student council subcommittees (Policy, Resources, Public Relations, and Events) conducted throughout this past year.
In the beginning of this year, we, the four officers of Student Council, set a broad and overarching goal to increase the stature of the student council in the eyes of both you all, the student body, and of the administration. This year, we have strived to undertake meaningful, long-term projects like that of mental health at BUA while increasing our communication with the administration. We have further continued the legacy of last year’s seniors in the emphasis we placed on student outreach, especially through the use of the bua_stuco Instagram account.
In a unique step forward, this year the student council did not break for the summer. Instead, the four officers worked closely with the new head of school, Mr. Kolovos, on the school’s mission to increase discussion around topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In late July, we sent out a survey to the current seniors, juniors, and sophomores, asking them to share their experiences regarding DEI at BUA. We then spent the following month reading through your anonymous responses, extrapolating themes from your experiences, and later shared our analysis with the administration, faculty, and student body. Our work on DEI is not finished. Mr Kolovos has reiterated his commitment to this long term project, and the Student Council will continue to play its part in amplifying student voices.
The BUA student council remains committed to transparency, and we hope that through this year’s “State of BUA” annual report, you can gain important insight into the initiatives we have undertaken this past year, and the projects we will continue to work on in the future. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions do not hesitate to contact a member of the student council, come to our meetings, or submit an online suggestion through our website here.
Sincerely,
Phevos Paschalidis. BUA Student Council President, 2020-2021
Policy Committee
Chaired by Mell Aguiar
The Policy Committee doubled down on its dedication to the BUA community despite the challenges brought about by the pandemic. Student Council’s overarching goal is always to support the student body, and this year included working on policies for promoting equity, strengthening community ties, and pushing for transparency of the Disciplinary Committee. We also released an abbreviated version of the student council bylaws that serves as a summary of details relevant to the general student body.
In December, Policy partnered with the admissions team to make general information about BUA more accessible by organizing a group of multilingual students to record versions of BUA admission info sessions in Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. We hope to continue this effort with more languages and by translating other resources. The committee also asked the administration to consider offering a research stipend for seniors on financial aid looking to do unpaid lab work during the summer for their thesis project. The rising junior class will have the opportunity to apply for these stipends next year.
To support community ties in a hybrid learning format, the committee finalized a policy to give members the privilege of posting directly to the bua_stuco Instagram account, began thinking about ways to welcome the rising 10th graders to the school this summer as it will be their first time on campus, and gathered data on ways to bolster the peer advisory program. Based on student survey data about the peer advisory program, we proposed taking student schedules into account when considering applications, holding a peer advisor orientation, inviting peer advisors to the transitions program, holding a monthly peer advisor meeting in place of class meeting, and sending out semester-end feedback forms.
Policy Committee also worked with Mr Ford to clarify Disciplinary Committee’s (DC) proceedings and boost the student body’s confidence in the processes. As a result of our efforts a freshman representative will now be elected to the DC each Spring, meaning that the committee will consist of students from all grades. We also pushed for more visibility of the candidate applications before elections.
Additionally, due to the introduction of a new academic schedule, the committee has begun to revisit the early release policy (passed last year) to see if it will still be advantageous to students and work with the new schedule outlined by the administration. Regardless of that outcome, Policy will pursue an open-campus lunch proposal for underclassmen.
Resources Committee
Chaired by Lizzie Seward
This year, the Resources Committee has been busy adjusting and adapting for a hybrid world. We started the year with a successful, contactless Book Swap; 37 students filled out the form to either donate or request books, and 23 students received donated books to use for the year. When the school year began, we created a ‘resources table’ in the gym with rotating decorations and word puzzles to engage the student body. We have continued to decorate the gym throughout the school year for the different seasons with corresponding activities. For example, in the winter we left materials for students to make paper snowflakes, and in the spring to make tissue paper flowers. We also used this space for announcements on the white board.
Our biggest project, however, concerns not physical, but intangible resources for the students and their mental wellbeing. Our main goal with this project was to gain insight on the student body’s understanding of mental wellness resources available at BUA for students who have been dealing with stress and anxiety. This year, we surveyed the student body for their input, and shared themes revealed through the responses with Ms. Weiskopf, Dr. White, and Mr. Kolovos. One of the more concerning themes we found and shared was that 42% of students feel they do not have an adult at the school they are comfortable with confiding in. In order to combat this, we have been pushing for ways to increase transparency between the school counselor and the students like drop-in hours. In the future, Resources will send out an annual wellness survey to determine the efficacy of any policies the school has implemented to combat stress. As this project will likely take place over multiple years, we hope to continue our work with the administration and the student body to improve the overall environment at BUA regarding stress and stress management.
Public Relations Committee
Chaired by Shizhong Xu
After transforming from a committee that dealt with miscellaneous tasks to the more refined public relations committee, much of this year was devoted to fulfilling such a description. In the fall, PR gained access to the Student Council instagram which now serves as a news source and direct communication channel between student council and the student body. Additionally, PR committee created the new role of instagram officer. The instagram officer is responsible for coordinating and physically posting regularly to the account.
One of PR’s main goals is to increase transparency between Student Council and the student body. In an effort to learn more, we surveyed the student body and learned many students are still unsure about what Student Council does on the day-to-day. In response, we have started sending monthly email updates to the student body including a reminder that all are welcome to attend general and subcommittee meetings. Additionally, the cumulative minutes document is available on Student Council’s new website at: https://www.buacademy.org/stuco/bua-student-council/general-meeting-minutes/.
Some of our major projects included altering the annual Valentine’s rose selling event and updating bulletin boards around the school building. For the former, we redirected the budget to offer free chocolate (and non-chocolate alternatives) so students would not need to consider cost and would be more likely to send a treat and note to students learning either in person or remotely. On behalf of the student body, PR wanted to show appreciation for the retiring faculty by utilizing the open bulletin boards around the school. The aim is to dedicate one board outside the chem room including posters where students can write a message of gratitude, and the teachers can share some of their own memories. The second board will serve as a place for community announcements where students can tack on anything they would like the student body to know about. This might include an advertisement for an event or announcements from clubs or sports, but will be open to anyone to post.
There are many projects for PR committee to tackle next year including finding a new purpose for the appreciation board (now dedicated to the leaving faculty), revamping the inactive suggestion box, starting a club spotlight series to promote student extracurricular activity, creating a school wide calendar with all events / club meeting times and zoom links, and the continued goal of easy communication between Student Council and the student body.
Events Committee
Chaired by Mia Shapoval
This year, the Events Committee was faced with not only the challenge of redesigning BUA events to fit COVID-19 regulations, but also to create new events in order to keep the now distanced BUA community lively and engaged. Though some events like semi formal and lock-in were unable to be held as normal, the Events Committee worked harder than ever to create fantastic virtual and in-person events that will hopefully be traditions for years to come.
In the fall, the Events Committee redesigned Fall Festival to fit with COVID-19 health regulations. Fall Fest consisted of an outdoor scavenger hunt around BU campus and pumpkin painting. These activities were created for Fall Fest 2020, but should be continued in the future as we received positive reviews on our feedback form.
In November, the Events Committee introduced an online Trivia Night, inspired by the yearly Trivia Night’s hosted previously. This time, we planned the questions ourselves and made adjustments such as making categories more fair for all students, encouraging teachers to participate, and adding a ‘theme of the month’ category. By popular demand, this event was brought back in February, and again in April. Feedback for Trivia Night has been overwhelmingly positive, and I hope it will continue in the future. More recently, the Events Committee held a virtual themed Spring Scavenger Hunt, ‘The Beginning of Quarantine.’ This event was inspired by Mr. Stone’s own virtual scavenger hunt in December.
The Events Committee is actively planning an in-person Field Day and a virtual Zoom Olympics for this spring. Field Day will include opportunities for both in person and remote students to participate but will look different than our usual Field Day. The BUA Zoom Olympics will include planking, wall sits, push-ups, and split squat competitions.
In sum, the Events Committee had to work through many challenges this year, but was able to host creative new events to keep the spirit of BUA alive. It’s likely some of these events will be held again, and I look forward to the return of the regularly scheduled events!
A Note from the Advisor, Ms. Perrone.
This year, Student Council moved to operate in a 100% remote setting, maintaining a once-weekly general meeting and four subcommittee meetings. Notably, we saw the highest general membership participation than any other year since introducing the earned title. Also, this was the first year the officers of the student council had their own project to share out, and the first time we saw ‘show and tell’ and ‘meeting takeovers’ in our subcommittee meetings. Kudos to the officers and committee chairs for being great role models and preparing our next generation of committee heads. The creativity of student council members was shown through the introduction of many new virtual events and proceedings, as well as internal team bonding activities. The hard work of the team inspired 23 candidates to apply for elected positions for the 2021-2022 academic year. Great job to everyone working towards serving the mission of BUA!