Sep 28

Sep 28 Student Advisory Council September 21 Meeting

Cover Image by Violet Rhoades

The Student Advisory Council met on September 21 during advisement with Mr. Bauer for the first time this year. The following is a summary of the agenda items discussed between Mr. Bauer and the students involved in the Student Advisory Council.

HOCO Parade

There is a parent/teacher organization currently working on getting new activities on the list for HOCO week. The most notable addition to the activities is a HOCO week parade that is scheduled for Friday at 4:30 and will last about an hour. It will take place on school grounds and travel around SSI, TMS, and Hamilton High School. The parade will lead into a “red zone” (the grounds where the school social was held). Attendees will be able to buy food from food trucks stationed there and hang out before the start of the football game. While all the details are almost finalized, the parade is still being discussed with the city to obtain proper police presence, road closure, and finish other miscellaneous tasks.

Another big discussion that occurred among the council was the quality of the HOCO dance itself and addressing issues from last year. Among the most prevalent issues was the “bad music,” so a form will be sent out that students can fill out to request songs. Any requested songs must be school appropriate, and while not all songs will be able to be played, they will try their best to meet all requests. Other notable additions to the dance include a photobooth and a variety of board games/yard games. The dance will be held on Saturday, October 10.

Other notable HOCO updates include the assembly, which will be run by Charger Nation, and the Powderpuff game, which will be the Wednesday night of HOCO week. Beyond that, the council considered various ideas to improve HOCO celebrations, including creating a theme or having kings and queens for each grade to increase student participation at the dance.

NHS Updates

Many upperclassmen have been discussing the future of NHS since the retirement of Mrs. Gorski (the NHS advisor) last year, and the council briefly discussed it on Monday. Mr. Bauer confirmed that NHS will continue this year and that there will be an advisor, but a replacement has yet to be found.

Suicide Prevention

The final issue the council reviewed was the topic of suicide prevention and seeing what additional actions could be taken. Council members brought up what could be done to make it easier for kids to approach student advisors for help, as well as having more support for students who deal with losing friends. Hamilton was one of the schools in Wisconsin that got selected to get a grant from United Way to come up with proactive ways to work toward suicide prevention, and there is likely another group that will be formed called Hope Squad that will be trained to help their peers. This will be different than the training that peer leaders do. Therapy dogs will also be returning this year from time to time with the possibility of a permanent therapy dog in the future that would be with Deputy Estes.