Every year, the senior class appoints several notable (and hopefully responsible) representatives to organize their final year of high school. These representatives will approach you, the Division Head, to discuss potential privileges for your eldest students to enjoy. You should attend this meeting prepared to endow those students with certain responsibilities, as well as senior-student privileges.
Privileges
Before the meeting, you should consider what privileges your senior class representatives might ask you for—and what you will and won’t approve. To a certain extent, you can be guided by previous classes’ experiences: What was approved, what was rejected, and how well those concessions worked out over the course of the year.
But there will always be some off-the-wall suggestions, and you should anticipate the form of those requests in advance. These might include:
- family lunches or permission to go off-campus for a meal;
- renovation or establishment of a senior class lounge, for which budgets and further approvals must be obtained;
- modifications of the school uniform, including college gear from a student’s future alma mater or bow ties instead of ordinary ties;
- preferential parking spaces;
- class photos and extended yearbook pages;
- banquets and senior dances/prom;
- early dismissal or late arrivals under specific circumstances;
- a special April Fool’s Day prank; and
- Homecoming Week themes, like Toga Day or Twin Day.
Responsibilities
With these privileges, however, comes responsibilities, too. These senior students are role models for your younger grades, who look up to the “big kids” and will often emulate them, either purposefully or unconsciously. Consequently, it’s worth talking to the senior class representatives about your expectations of the class as a whole.
Here are some questions for you to answer regarding senior class privileges before your meeting takes place:
- Will every senior student get the class privileges? If not, what are the bars that must be met before they can enjoy those privileges? (GPA, attendance, etc.)
- What are the matriculation requirements? Where have previous classes scrambled to meet them—service hour requirements, capstone projects, course hours completed, etc.—and how can the class representatives better assist the senior class reach them in a timely way?
- How can the senior class consciously serve as better role models to younger students? Come up with some suggestions before the meeting, like implementing a Big Brother/Big Sister program between seniors and the lower grades or increasing the number of senior tutors available for the younger grades, while encouraging the senior class representatives to develop their own.
With a little forethought, you can turn your obligatory senior class representative meeting into an opportunity to better your student culture and drive home the importance of being excellent role models. These meetings also offer the chance for you to build a partnership with some of your school's strongest advocates: Your senior students and future alumni.
Additional ISM resources:
ISM Monthly Update for Admission Officers Vol. 13 No. 4 Current Families Welcome, Retain New Students
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 37 No. 5 The Student Culture Profile II
I&P Vol. 29 No. 15 Peer-to-Peer Programs: Balancing Student 'Ownership' With Management Responsibilities
