Semester Reports

Events Committee (Chair: Therese Askarbek ‘24)

Thank you to everyone who helped plan, set up, and clean up at Fall Festival, the Dance, and Lock In! This year was the first year we had a spooky theme for the dance (instead of fall themed) and played assassins at lock in!  Shout out to Michael Song for planning his first teacher-student soccer match this past Monday.

PR Committee (Chair: Ibukun Owolabi ‘24)

This year, I’ve had the pleasure of leading the PR Committee. We’ve taken a more interactive approach this year, with themed boards to encourage student and teacher engagement. I’m super happy with the dedication members of PR have shown and look forward to the rest of the year with them!

• Shout out to our birthday officer – Celine, who makes sure no birthdays are forgotten!

• Yiannis is the Teacher of the Month officer, who selects and creates the board. Check out this month’s mystery teacher outside Mr. Dent’s room!

• Alex F ensures all sports updates are on the first floor white board. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know the time and effort (and wacky designs) that go into making the board. If not, check it out!

Policy Committee (Chair: Joie Liu ‘23) 

Policy has been working on finding ways to improve student spaces and normalizing BU and BUA schedules to make it easier for classes to be chosen. We are also working on expanding sophomore lunch spaces. In the future, we will look at the student handbook and analyze new updates. 

Resources Committee (Chair: Ally Tian ‘25) 

Resources is currently working on trying to gain access to students academic resources such as quizlet plus access (or a substitute), as well as discussing ways to improve health resources (such as talking to teachers about grading systems and workload, and discussing potential for getting a licensed psychologist and/or nurse for students). We also keep our beloved bathroom boxes filled! You can thank our inventory officers – Sophia, Lillian, Yiannis, and Leo – for that!

Events

Chair: Madison Ho

Spring meeting time: Fridays, 11:15a

Over the last two months the events committee has been working hard to plan fully in-person events for the student body again! Event planning included Fall Festival, spirit week, the Under the Stars Dance, and the faculty v. student dodgeball game (organized by Leo Wang to support #TeamSeas, $63 raised) Thank you to the many members of the student body that helped set up and break down the dance and fall festival! The student body feedback for the Under the Stars dance was appreciated and your notes/comments will be incorporated into planning for spring dances. 

In the spring we hope to host student-faculty basketball and soccer games, an ice-skating outing, and student grade lunches along with our usual spring events including semi-formal and a trivia night. Semi-Formal (Fri Feb 11th) will be Masquerade themed! We can’t wait for all the events to come!

Policy

Chair: Anais Kim

Spring meeting time: Tuesdays, 11:15am

Policy began the year by collecting feedback from students about how their teachers handled asking them for their pronouns at the beginning of the year. In general, students were grateful that their teachers were asking, although some felt that execution could be more inclusive in the future. Policy reached out to Dr. White with specific feedback and she shared that she would revisit the topic with teachers before the start of the next school year.

Mid-semester, policy began the conversation about the need for gender-neutral bathrooms and possible solutions. Mr. Kolovos has since provided an update during an ASM that they are working with BU on a solution as fast as possible. We will continue to follow up until a solution is finalized. 

Other policy discussions/initiatives included who can access materials on the student council google drive (on an as-needed basis), use of the intercom system to make announcements (3x per week), access to locker rooms (students can borrow keys to open locker rooms as needed), and the idea of hosting grade-wide lunches.  

We have most recently been working with Nick Reason and Ajay Ramen on a student experience survey specific to this school year. We plan to send this out in mid-January and will analyze the anonymous results to share with the school following. All are welcome to join policy to provide feedback and ideas related to this project. 

PR

Chair: Ibukun Owolabi

Spring meeting time: Thursday 11:50a

After going remote for a full year, PR got back into the swing of things with 100% use of the bulletin boards around the school. Our focus this semester was on planning and creating bulletin boards for the heritage/identity months including Latinx and Hispanic heritage month, and Indigenous peoples month.  In October we reached out to students, faculty, and staff who identified as Hispanic/LatinX to share about their identity and culture. Thank you to those of you who shared your perspective. In November, we asked advisory groups to make hand turkeys and write what they’re thankful for; thank you for helping make the gratitude board be so awesome! In the future, we hope to incorporate advisories and students into more of our bulletin board projects. 

Other projects include updating the teacher of the month board, redesigning the student clubs and activities board, sharing updates of events and sporting events on the student council instagram, and creating the “favorite memories of 2021” paper chain in the lobby. 

In January, we hope to continue with the new initiative of posting weekly student council meeting updates to the @bua_stuco instagram, and will design a New Year’s Resolution board (with help from advisories) to put up mid-January. Looking forward to hearing more creative ideas in the spring, come by the meetings any time!

Resources

Chair: Lizzie Seward

Spring Meeting time: Wednesday, 11:50am

At the end of the summer and start of the school year we organized and executed our annual book swap program. We had a total of 34 students who requested books; the highest yet! The majority of the requests were from underclassmen for math and science classes. Based on demand, we discussed the possibility of offering free textbooks for all BUA math and science classes with Dr. White and Mr. Dettorre. We are hoping the school might be able to fulfill this request in the future.  

We continue working to improve BUA student spaces as a whole. After three years of requesting a hot water heater for student use, we finally have one on the way! Thank you to Mr. Dettorre for his special request to BU Facilities to install it in the 1st floor new student lounge. We have kept close contact with Mr. Dettorre, and there should be one by the 2022-2023 school year. Additionally, we continue to refill the boxes in the bathrooms with various toiletries and essentials. If there is anything you think we should add, feel free to reach out. The boxes are being regularly refilled by our two Inventory Officers, Ally Tang and Michael Song. We have also added air fresheners to all of the bathrooms and student spaces, which will be changed out for the second semester.

Finally, after many discussions with Dr. White and Mr. Kolovos about the Friday afternoon activity block, we have come to an agreement that clubs are allowed to meet during that time and students can sign out to attend those clubs. Unlike in previous years, your club will not need to request permission to meet during this time. If it works for your club, claim it in this sheet. Hope to see you at the resources committee meetings in the spring!

Dear BUA Community,

As you may recall, we sent our first monthly Student Council report in December. In this email you will be able to find the January and February edition of our newsletter. If you are interested in learning more about any particular project, please reach out to the respective committee heads, your class representatives, or the officers of Student Council. As always, you are welcome to join our general meeting every Tuesday at 4:30p or subcommittee meetings. You can find all the times and links at buacademy.org/stuco.

Sincerely, 

Student Council 

January and February Initiatives

Policy Committee

Head: Mell Aguiar (aguiarm@bu.edu) 

Meeting Time: Wednesdays at 5pm

Little Free Library

This past month the Policy committee has been discussing how to build a little free library at BUA, which can be found in the gym this year. The goal of this library is to make books more accessible for students. Feel free to take or give a book!

BUA Textbooks

Buying textbooks year after year gets expensive, and though the book swap StuCo implemented a couple of years ago definitely helps, there is still the burden of not being able to annotate the borrowed books. So, Policy has been talking about how we could approach this problem by either providing free online or physical resources.

Student Council Elections

Believe it or not, Student Council elections are coming up very soon. To make the process smoother and more efficient, the committee has been brainstorming ways to organize the election where all students, both remote and in-person, can participate easily. The committee has decided to use Flipgrid for spring elections. Dates TBD.  

Outdoor Social Space

The committee has also been thinking about the possibility of an outdoor, recreational, social space at BUA. The area between the gym wall and parking lot is empty and could be a feasible place to implement this, but it would take some cleaning up, approval, and logistical planning. 

Please join their weekly meetings if you have any thoughts or suggestions!

Resources

Head: Lizzie Seward (easeward@bu.edu)

Meeting Time: Tuesday at 6pm 

Wellness Survey

For the past couple of months, the Resources committee has been diligently finding ways to improve mental health resources for students at BUA. To do this, they first spoke with our school counselor, Ms. Weiskopf. With her help, the committee created a survey to collect feedback and suggestions from the student body. In the last week of January, a “Wellness Survey” was sent out to the entire student body. The carefully curated questions covered a wide range of topics including causes of stress, mental health resources at BUA, and proposed solutions. A good portion of the student body responded to the survey and the Resources committee is currently looking through the responses. Later this semester, the committee plans to present these overarching themes and suggestions to the BUA administration.

Events

Head: Mia Shapoval (shapoval@bu.edu)

Meeting Time: Friday at 4:30pm

Trivia Night

Back by popular demand, this committee hosted its second Trivia Night competition in early February.  This time, we invited teachers to join! The winners of February Trivia Night were Vika Maslova, Michelle Lisak, Nadia Chitkushev, Kealan Biebesheimer, James West, and Kieran Barrett. Congratulations to them! 

Spring Olympics

The committee has also been working with Mr. Stone to organize a Spring Olympics event. This event will include a variety of activities, both remote and in-person, for students to partake in. While the specific activities have not yet been finalized, more information will be sent out closer to the date of the events. If you have any suggestions, please contact Mia or any other student council representative. 

Spring Break

We are hoping to hold some smaller events and competitions over spring break, such as a crossword puzzle competition, and a march madness tournament! Let us know if you have any ideas or would like to host one!

Survivor Field Day

Based on the hit TV show, Events will be hosting their own (Covid-friendly) version of Survivor. This event will be held later this spring. Teams (or “tribes) of 6-10 people will compete in a series of challenges. Teams will compete to have the fastest times for each challenge, and the winning team will be the team with the total fastest time for all three challenges. The winning team will receive a Grubhub discount, so come to win!

 

Public Relations

Head: Shizhong Xu (sxu6@bu.edu)

Meeting Time: Thursday at 4:45 pm 

Chocolate Distribution 

This year PR offered free chocolates to the student body to send to friends and teachers! This was a demanding task as the committee needed to handle logistics for students both remote and in-person. In the future, student council plans to return to the normal rose selling event provided that the pandemic won’t affect the process in any way.

StuCo Website

As most of you may know, the BUA Instagram (@bua_stuco) has been a successful method of communication from us to the student body. However, we also have a website where students can access important student council related information. The PR committee will be working to make the Student Council website more lively and accessible. You can always check out our site using this link: buacademy.org/stuco. 

 

Officers

Senior Spotlight 

A tradition started last year, the Senior Spotlight is a way for BUA’s graduating class to show our appreciation for their fellow seniors. Students will write about their friends’  accomplishments, achievements, and fun stories, which can be represented through various photographs and written excerpts on our Student Council Instagram page. If you are a senior, please fill out the Senior Spotlight Google Form for the person whom you have volunteered to write for by March 15th. If you don’t remember, please reach out to one of the Officers and they will happily assist you. Let’s keep this tradition going! 

 

Dear BUA Community,

In order to increase our interactions with the BUA community, we will be sending monthly minutes that recap some of the projects and initiatives undertaken by Student Council. To start this, the December edition of our minutes is below. If you are interested in learning more about any particular project, please reach out to the respective committee heads, your class representatives, or the officers of Student Council. As always, you are more than welcome to join our weekly General Meetings. The specific timings of the General Meetings and individual committee meetings will be communicated to the entire student body next semester (2021). 

Sincerely, 

Student Council 

 

December Initiatives 

Policy Committee

(Mell Aguiar- aguiarm@bu.edu) 

Peer Advising System: There has been a growing concern amongst students that the current peer advising system is not adequately addressing their needs. For instance, there often tends to be a communication gap between advisees and student-advisors, which leads to inconsistencies across peer groups. In turn, the main purpose of the Peer Advising system has been diluted to the point where neither the student-advisors nor the advisees feel it is achieving a common goal. 

To gain a deeper understanding of these struggles, the Policy committee released a survey to the entire BUA student body. Based on the results of the survey, the committee has been discussing potential changes with the BUA administration, including Dr. White, Ms. Shannon, and Mr. Kolovos. While no concrete solutions have been implemented yet, this project is actively being pursued. 

Multilingual Admissions Tour: As BUA expands its reach to students of all backgrounds with regards to high school admission, Student Council is currently working with the BUA Admissions team to create multilingual admissions tours for prospective families who may not speak English as a first language. Ms. Hakimi has reached out to the BUA community in order to gather potential students to help out with this project. Over this winter break, students who have already expressed interest are currently working towards recording these information sessions in various languages. While the interest form deadline has passed, please reach out to Ms. Hakimi or the Policy committee if you are interested in participating and helping out. 

Resources

(Lizzie Seward- easeward@bu.edu)

Health and Wellness: The resources committee is examining the Health and Wellness program at BUA. In the hopes of improving the material and student motivation in the class, the Resources committee is working with Ms. Weiskopf to discuss ways to improve course effectiveness and student engagement. Early next semester, the Resources committee will be surveying the student body to further understand the specific challenges and success of the current program. We will continue to work with BUA students and Ms. Weiskopf on this project. 

Mental Health Resources at BUA: The Health and Wellness discussions are part of a greater initiative undertaken by the Resources committee to improve mental health resources at BUA. This committee will be working with the BUA administration on enhancing these resources.

Events

(Mia Shapoval- shapoval@bu.edu)

Trivia Night: Trivia Night occurred in late November and the Events committee worked hard in order to make this event a success. Based on the feedback from students many were pleased with their overall experience. If you have suggestions on how to improve virtual events, such as the Trivia Night, please contact the Events committee. 

Future Suggestions: The Events committee is currently curating a list of potential events due to ongoing pandemic. Unfortunately, some of the events we would have done in a normal year are in limbo, however we are working hard to find enjoyable alternatives. If you have suggestions for potential Spring 2021 events, please contact the Events committee or your class representative. 

Public Relations

(Shizhong Xu- sxu6@bu.edu)

Improving Communication: As most BUA clubs and activities have moved to a remote format have found that this has made it more difficult for Student Council to communicate with the study body. We feel it is vital that students have access to the projects and discussions we are working on and that students have an opportunity to participate should they want to. To address this, we will be sending these monthly summaries to students. These minutes will include various initiatives in each committee and other relevant notes. In addition, the PR committee will continue to post updates on the BUA Student Council Instagram page (@bua_stuco). For students that do not have Instagram, you can access the same content at buacademy.org/stuco/instagram. The live meeting minutes document is also located on the website, should you want up-to-date information sooner than once per month in this newsletter.  Many of these new initiatives were gleaned from the recent survey sent to the student body. Thank you for your suggestions! We welcome you to submit suggestions to our anonymous form at any time. 

 

If you made it down this far, yay! Thank you for taking the time to read this month’s minutes. Or if you’re lazy, thank you for at least opening the email and scrolling to the way bottom to spur your curiosity. Alexander Jin will give you free virtual lessons on Chinese culture next semester to commemorate your great effort. Please stay tuned next semester for more updates and meeting links from Student Council. Happy Holidays!