In May, SCHS students used their talents and abilities to create promising campaigns for earning a position in leadership for the upcoming school year. While creating campaigns, students find value in running to lead their class in events for the next year.

Freshman Rimsha Faheem reflected on her desire for a position in leadership and the importance of elections for the school.

“When you’re running for a position, it’s to help the school and to help plan events, so it is important for us (candidates) to talk about what we know, what we can do, how we can help out in the classroom and why we would be a good fit,” Faheem said.

While campaigning, students have the option to run by themselves, or with a group of candidates. Junior Asher Dubin feels that running with other candidates helped him collaborate on campaigning ideas.

“I think it helps to run with a team because it shows that you have a group of people that are going to be working together,” Dubin said.

While planning a campaign, many students use different styles of promotion with various flyers, videos and props. For candidate junior Kelly Winter, social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, were her primary campaigning methods.

“The people who supported me would put them (Instagram flyers) out, and all of their friends would see it, and then maybe their friends would repost it, and it had a larger reach,” Winter said.

Despite the campaigning advantages Winter observed from social media, as Dubin looked back at his campaign, he noticed that the flyers and videos he posted on social media did not have as significant of a reach as he expected.

“If someone follows me on social media, there’s a good chance that they’re my friend and they’re already going to vote for me,” Dubin said. “So the videos aren’t as effective if it’s only going to my followers.”

Another popular campaigning idea was to create a video with many students posing in front of a decorated frame. Using the frame as a part of her campaign last year, it soon became senior Kyla Tadina’s favorite form of outreach.

“It (the frame video) pushes you to actually talk to people in real life, and it draws a lot of attention because you don’t normally see people walking around with a picture frame,” Tadina said. “I also think it’s fun because you get to see a lot of representation and see how many people support you. It’s just nice being able to have that sort of fun opportunity.”

Along with social connections, having creative skills, such as designing and making posters, is an important part of leadership and is seen throughout numerous campaigns.

“A lot of campaigning is meeting people that you don’t know, and they’re probably more likely to vote for the person that has a nice flyer or a clean video just because that shows that they’re really prepared to be in office,” Dubin said.

Along with Dubin, other previous candidates, such as Tadina, use design skills to create unique ways to attract more students.

“What really draws the eye is things that look appealing and things that look nice,” Tadina said. “That’s the first thing, catching people’s attention, and then once you have their attention, you go on to persuade them as to why you should vote for them.”

As students reflected on their campaigning during election week, many of them wished they had talked to peers directly during breaks, such as lunch.

“I wish I would have made some more videos and gone out during lunch more and talked to people directly and kind of advocated for myself,” Winter said.

One thing Dubin would have changed in his campaign is adding explanations of his goals in his social media videos.

“In those videos, I would have liked to talk about my plans for next year, so people know why they should vote for me and what I’ll bring to the table,” Dubin said.

With campaigning giving students an opportunity to show their class what they can do for the school, Winter expressed that from one’s campaign, students can get to know their personality and work ethic.

“They (students) understand that you’re dedicated to the position you’re pursuing, and a lot of that comes through creative campaigning, where you spend a lot of time and energy looking to
make your campaign the best it can be,” Winter said.

By using their social and design skills, candidates create promising campaigns to run for the betterment of SCHS, not just for themselves. Faheem believes that while running, one should solely campaign to support their class and make a difference on campus.

“Campaigning and running in general is to do something better for the school and help improve the school and make a memorable year for everyone,” Faheem said.