Musicians, athletes, artists, activists, scholars and philanthropists unite! This is the goal, or at least it was the goal, of the BHSS Student Advisory Committee.
Last school year, the Bloomington South Student Council, led by advisors Christina Adduci and Kara Parker along with Student co-presidents seniors Caroline and Carson Conrad, created the Student Advisory Committee. The SAC, dedicated to creating a more positive, open school environment in which students and clubs can support each other while promoting school spirit, was an admirable endeavor, but what happened to it?
“I honestly can’t really tell you why it stopped. We started at the end of last year and just never moved forward with it this year,” Parker said.
Bloomington South is home to over 40 clubs, ranging from Harry Potter Club to Solar Racing to Habitat for Humanity and just about everything in between. This doesn’t even begin to include our vast number of athletics, 20 of which are school funded. With all of these extra-curriculars for students to be involved in, the committee was supposed to be a group in which representatives from clubs would be able to share ideas, information and even events with each other in the hopes of creating a more unified student body.
South used to host occasional pep rallies for the students, though these petered out around four years ago along with the feeling of cohesion between clubs and students alike. One objective of Student Advisory Committee was to return to this pre-existing environment.
“We really wanted to have a beginning of the school year carnival for students and faculty to attend, but we just weren’t really able to make our ideas happen,” Caroline Conrad said. “It would’ve been such a great opportunity to get clubs involved with each other and expand people’s high school experiences.”
In a school as large as Bloomington South, it is very easy to get lost in the jumble of everything and miss out on great opportunities. South has hosted many clubs and events in hopes of encouraging students to branch out, but few have stuck, essentially limiting students’ opportunities to learn about what the school has to offer due to targeting freshmen and new students (who, by the way, are still trying to get a handle on high school in the first place). PAC, a group of sophomores, juniors, and seniors offering guidance to students in their freshman year, has enormous potential, but the group has slowly seemed to disappear over the years. Purple Carpet Day is also useful in educating students on many clubs that they could join, but, again, this is directed toward freshmen.
“We want to foster an environment that is more inclusive for all clubs and all people,” Parker said.“Unfortunately, the group didn’t work out the way we intended, but we hope to bring [Student Advisory Committee] back.”
