ASB earns back-to-back wins

Bonita Vista High (BVH) Associated Student Body (ASB) student council has shown a commendable record of leadership, service and activities that serve to improve the school and community throughout the school year. Due to this, they have recently been acknowledged for the 2020 National Gold Council of Excellence by the National Student Council (NatStuCo.) on April 22 of 2020. Those who obtain the award exhibit great leadership and are able to meet the requirements set by the National Student Council organization throughout the school year. 

Based on the official website of the NatStuCo., student councils who earn national recognition, “consistently provide quality leadership activities and service to their schools and communities. The National Gold Council of Excellence award is awarded to those councils that demonstrate the highest levels of leadership as well as meet additional standards as set by NatStuCo.” 

“In addition to basic requirements such as a written constitution, regular meetings [and] a democratic election process, [BVH’s ASB has] demonstrated successful sponsorship and participation in activities such as leadership development and service to the school and community,” BVH’s Assistant Principal of Student Activities Christopher Alvarez said. 

Alvarez highlighted senior and the current ASB President, Carlos Torres, for maintaining his ambition and exemplifying his leadership skills within the BVH community. 

“I’m very proud of ASB President Carlos Torres [for] his competitive spirit. He always envisioned and told me that he would retain the ASB Rindone Award District title, as well as win this award. Two back-to-back awards are an absolute tremendous success,” Alvarez said.  

In these times of uncertainty with the coronavirus pandemic happening, Alvarez feels “proud as always” of BVH ASB’s notable achievement, which has not only presented great honor to the entire BVH community but, most importantly, brought a sense of cheerfulness and relief to the members of the ASB council. According to Torres, he “felt amazing to think that all of our hard work was recognized.” 

“Regardless of hearing that our ASB won the award, I was already so proud of our cabinet this year. After enduring this year with my team, knowing all the hard work, sweat and tears that went into it, I already am their number one fan and supporter,” senior and current ASB Vice President Samantha Amantea for the 2019-2020 school year said. “Hearing the news felt surreal and I mostly thought about how good my cabinet would feel about the work they put in this year.”

Amantea believes that the implementation of fun and outgoing school events and activities throughout the school year helped BVH’s ASB get recognized for the prestigious award. 

“What I think contributed to winning this title was the start of the Welcome to the Kingdom tradition in which all the Bonita Vista Middle 8th graders are introduced with a large welcome from most of our programs we have to offer, [as well as] the extra mile we went to give [help to] the Chinese and Japanese delegates who visited our school,” Amantea said. “[Also,] our start of new activities for ‘Kindness Week.’”

Despite being freshly elected as ASB’s president for the 2020-2021 school year, junior Nicole Hill has already developed plans and goals for the upcoming school year. One of her priorities includes putting an emphasis on the importance of student participation in school activities such as spirit weeks and sports games.

“Next year, I’m making it my priority to encourage more of the student body to participate in spirit weeks and boost the attendance of all sports games. Most of the students underestimate the enjoyment [of] actually showing up to events such as the basketball games. One main goal of mine is to put the ideas of others into action so that they know their voices are heard,” Hill said. “Overall, I just want everything to be as different as possible in hopes of creating a memorable school year for all of BVHS.”

As a graduating senior, Amantea delivers advice to her future ASB members for the upcoming school year. She believes the most important priority for ASB members should be “to have a vision.”

“[Upcoming ASB members should] develop a clear vision of what new events they think should be brought to the school that could benefit and bring together the entire student body and staff. With every decision they make, I advise them to really think about what kind of culture they are implementing and ask themselves what is the atmosphere they seek to bring to their school and what lasting legacies and experiences they want to create. From there they should plan in detail how they can carry out these visions, then organize and utilize the entire cabinet to make it happen,” Amantea said. 

Alvarez remains hopeful for the overall future of ASB and is looking forward to working with next year’s ASB cabinet. 

“[My] goals for the future are to work with the new cabinet and continue to grow. We, [now,] have a new normal. I’m hoping students will get creative and figure out [a] new [way] to continue to have spirit and pride [jn] their school,” Alvarez said. 

As the 2020-2021 ASB President, Hill is determined to better BVH’s ASB council as a whole, as well as earning the National Gold Council of Excellence award consecutively for the third year in a row. 

“Once we improve upon last year’s minor flaws, keep the energy and passion we have for our school and continue to do our thing; we are on the right track to keeping this title,” Hill said.