Throughout the month of March, ASB members had the opportunity to run for one of four officer positions—President, Vice President, Secretary and Attorney General—to represent ASB in the 2024-2025 school year. With many ASB seniors graduating, underclassmen are moving up the ranks, this is a significant event outlining how the school will run in the following year. Senior and current ASB President Alexis Acosta explains how it all starts with a rigorous campaign process, reflecting back on her own application.
“We were the last school to change into the merit system, where voting is based on different sections and areas of voting. Last year and this year it was divided into four different sections on a 30-30-20-20 system. It’s 30 percent school vote, 30 percent interview—which is a staff panel with staff from around the school—, 20 percent ASB cabinet vote and then 20 percent ASB officer vote,” Acosta said.
Acosta describes how ASB applications last year were quite hectic as campaigning was pushed back and went around much longer than previous years. She states how with all the different events taking place last year, they have learned to organize this year’s application process better.
“The year was pretty much the same, it was just everything was a lot quicker. We pushed [events] up a little more so things happened sooner so that it didn’t get all clustered and compact with the end of the school year,” Acosta said.
According to Acosta, she believes that to be an officer you need certain qualifications that demonstrate being a good leader to the student body. She describes the importance of listening carefully to student requests and comments, especially for making school events and activities more engaging.
“As an officer I definitely think you have to be open-minded. Although you are in a leadership position, if you only do whatever you think is best, it’s probably not going to be best [for everyone]. You have to hear what people say around school about what you can improve on, what they didn’t like and what they did like,” Acosta said.
There are some challenges that every ASB cabinet has to face which can cause students to stray away from applying as an officer. While feedback helps ASB figure out new ideas students would enjoy, it could also make officers feel discouraged if negative feedback is received. However, Acosta explains that this is something future officers have to get accustomed to.
“It’s nothing personal—no one thinks about the people behind the work or who does the streamers when they show up. You have to have good judgment. Sometimes people have constructive criticism that isn’t very constructive. As an ASB member you know how things work. Sometimes ideas might be great, and they might seem fun ,but you just can’t do it—maybe it’s not allowed by the district or logistically it doesn’t work out,” Acosta said.
One of the interesting aspects of this year’s upcoming ASB cabinet is that it’s an all female board. The women a part of this board include juniors Ava Nixon as President, Leina Clark as Vice President, Olympia Jara as Attorney General and Valeria De La Fuente as Secretary. Clark shares her perspective on this subject.
“I feel like all of us being female cabinets and females in general brings us closer together and builds that bond into something greater than it already is. It holds a good representation for the entire school, it emphasizes our title because women are able to do things just as much as men are able to,” Clark said.
One of the challenges this upcoming ASB cabinet had to endure was the drastic change of former ASB advisor Patricia Perez resign right before one of the most stressful events of the year, homecoming. Nixon states how previous ASB Advisor, former Attendance Coordinator and Math teacher Christina Ada temporarily filled in the position and assisted them.
“As far as trying to balance everything, in the time period that we didn’t have an ASB advisor, Ada was really helpful to us which I’m really grateful for. She checked on us making sure that things got done. She helped [our] officers a lot when we were left without an advisor,” Nixon said.
Another learning experience the new cabinet board got to witness was Acosta and this year’s current Vice President Malyna Castillo bringing back the former traditional dance MORP. Last year there were no promotional advertisements on social media which this year’s ASB cabinet wanted to improve.
“Alexis and Malyna really implemented Morp this year because last year we were unfortunate and canceled it because there wasn’t a lot of involvement. They had a big part in bringing the school culture and tradition back to the generation that we have now,” Clark said. “That’s something that I want to maintain, they passed it down to us, [and] I’ll definitely like to bring the torch on to next year.”
Although no one was competing with Nixon for ASB President, she still thoroughly enjoyed the nerve-racking experience during the election and her fellow cabinet members. Acosta describes how she believes Nixon’s experience has had a large factor on her exhibiting the qualities of ASB president.
“[Nixon] is going into her third year since she came in as a sophomore, which is something that’s not super common. She’ll bring a lot of experience to the table, she’s very open to change and welcomes ideas very well,” Acosta said. “I would definitely expect [Nixon] to develop more as a person and her personality in this role. I think that she’s still very young, but she’s smart and she works well with other people.”
