Picture a school ran by teenagers in which decisions were made on behalf of the student body. Initially, one may envision this situation to be a chaotic disaster. However, students earn a similar opportunity to influence school decisions if they became a member of Pattonville’s Board of Student Administrative Action Committee.
Allowing the students to interact with prominent district figureheads, BSAAC additionally holds various fundraisers, meetings and service projects throughout the year that raise awareness for prevalent issues. Members just finished raising money for Adopt-A-Family after collecting donations for nearly one month.
“Students of BSAAC collected money from family, friends, or whoever would like to donate,” said staff sponsor Christine Edwards. “We will use [donations] to purchase gifts, food items, and other things to make the holidays more enjoyable for these families.”
The group only raised around $50 total, but this total directly allows members to support less-fortunate families and make a difference over the holidays. Edwards believes that participating in Adopt-A-Family helped BSAAC members develop leadership roles and a clearer understanding of issues relevant to the community.
Aside from service, BSAAC meetings can generate suggestions that prove to be worthy. The group has discussed many topics that could make the high school a more comfortable learning environment such as contact time solutions and parking pass privileges.
“I like being able to openly talk about problems in the school with people who I know can get things done,” said senior BSAAC member Denish Jaswal. “With board members and Dr. Fulton, we have a lot of people that are there to tell us about issues we may not have known about. The BSAAC meetings help me understand [the issues] a lot better.”
All students had the opportunity to apply for BSAAC at the beginning of the year. Consisting of nearly 30 students, the club currently has representatives from all four grade levels and involved groups such as STUCO and Pirate Code.
“In order for policies to address everyone’s need, we need everyone’s input,” said staff sponsor Christine Edwards. “I feel that student input is important because they can discuss topics they may see as a problem in the community or school to [help] make Pattonville better.”
Coming together only five times throughout the 2013-14 school year, members pay two dollars to attend each meeting. These minor dues help the club collect money for several purposes, such as creating a raffle basket for the wheel-chair basketball tournament in November.
“We have good intentions and innovative ideas,” mentioned BSAAC student president Will Chaney. “With the ability to voice the democratic opinion of the student population, we can open a range of ideas that help others.”
As a club many students are unfamiliar with, BSAAC proves to be a foundation for students to open-mindedly feed suggestions off each other, impact education structure, and participate in the community actively.
“It’s a great outlet to talk about topics that relate to the school,” said Chaney. “We talk about the major issues that the high school community faces, administrators give their perspective and we react.”
