Dear CRLS Students,

Congratulations on finishing the first semester! For some of you, this past semester marked your first of high school, but for others it will be the last fall term you have at CRLS.

There are a number of problems I would like to address at CRLS in the next few months. For example, the lack of opportunities we have for truly celebrating the diversity of our school and the accessibility of school events to groups of students.

To begin to tackle these issues, Student Government is hosting a “Culture Night.” This event will take place at school on the night of Tuesday, March 13th, and will have two components.

The first is a talent show, where students from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds will present their different talents: singing, dancing, reciting poetry, giving a speech, performing with a musical instrument, and more. Auditions will be held to see what people will be performing and how long the entire talent show will be.

The second part of the evening will continue in the Media Caf, where food from many different countries will be served. Currently, Student Government is reaching out to local eateries to see if they will sponsor our event and provide traditional ethnic dishes. There will also be food prepared by students.

We created this event with the goal in mind of showcasing the array of cultures and ethnic backgrounds CRLS is home to in a way that is inviting, fun, and exciting for students and families. The event is free, and we hope to see many of you there!

In terms of policy, a subcommittee of Student Government is working to push forward a homework policy that started with Mr. Benson, a math teacher at CRLS, and previous student governments. We have reworded a few of the items on the original proposal, and our main goals are these: to prevent teachers from assigning work outside of their allocated class time, to make sure that assignments are not assigned during a vacation but are given a buffer time before and after the vacation period, and to ensure that tests cannot be assigned the day students come back from a vacation. Basically what this means is that teachers would not be allowed to assign work via Google Classroom, Aspen, or Gmail and not tell students in class that the assignment has been  given. Additionally, if assignments are to be submitted digitally at 11:59 PM, there must be an option for students to hand in work the next day in class.

Hopefully by the time you are reading this, we will have distributed a survey to the entire student body to assess inequities regarding homework and project assignments.

After our survey, we are planning to host an open forum at school for anyone who wants to come and see the data we collected or share personal anecdotes with us. In our final step, we will present our proposal to the school administration along with our data and work towards implementing this proposition.

Finally, Student Government has been discussing ways to engage and communicate with the student body. I want to know the best and most effective ways we can reach out to you, so please send us feedback.

You can email me at [email protected], or you can message our Facebook page, CRLS Student Government Association.

Sincerely,
Sophie Harrington
Student Body President

This piece also appears in our January print edition.