With the recent elections for freshman representatives to the policy for Halloween costumes, some may ask the question, what does student government really do. Here is an in-depth look on what the purpose student government is, to what it does for our school community.

For most schools, student government is thought as a bunch of people sitting around the table setting up for events like dances, but our school does a lot more. Here at DePaul Prep, the purpose of student government at our school is to embrace student culture. On top of that, our student government is designed to empower student voice, collaborate on school-wide initiatives/issues, and sponsor student activities.

Adding to the topic of school-wide initiatives, people on student government have a huge impact on certain policies. From the schedule, to dress code, to even the late policy, students are the voice of our school. Emmett Jeske, the current president of student government said that students also “had a voice on the cafeteria design at our new campus, and the type of chairs that we sit on.” As you can tell, our school gives a lot of trust in our student government.

But before all of this can ever happen, there is a process that an idea has to go through to then become true. As described from Ms. Parker, she said that, ”First, the student(s) would have to bring the idea to one the the class representatives. Then the class representatives would bring that issue to the meeting, and from there, we would set up a meeting with the administration and the student government representatives.”

Now that we left our Fr. Gordon campus, how has student government changed? Before our campus moved, student government was designed more like a club, with anyone being able to join, and there was no public voting week. Instead, anyone who joined was able to stay on student government throughout the entire year, but everyone amongst themselves would help chose roles for each other. If you did the most work/put in the most effort, then you would most likely be picked for president. Now that we are a bigger school than ever, we now have a standard voting process to democratically elect candidates.

As you can tell, there is a lot more than you may think about our student government. Even though a lot has changed over the years, Ms. Parker said that “being the image of the school” shines very bright when it comes to being on the committee.