STUDENT COUNCIL PS 77 PS 198

December 4, 2015 Dear PS 77 and PS 198 Staff and Families, Our first Student Council meeting of the 2015-16 school year took place last week. The Student Council is made up of one student from each classroom (kindergarten through 5th grade) from PS 77 and PS 198. The focus of the Council is to continue building school-wide community and to develop leadership competencies in exemplary children. For kindergarten and first grade, classroom teachers decide which student would best represent their class this year. For 2nd through 5th grade students, a secret ballot vote is taken and the results are confirmed with the teachers. The following guidelines were considered when choosing a class representative: in addition to always following the 3 Be’s (Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe), a representative should be a good communicator, a good listener, a problem solver, and have excellent attendance. At each Student Council meeting we begin our Agenda with a greeting. For our first meeting the Principals of PS 77 and PS 198 were invited to welcome and congratulate the 2015-2016 representatives. Ms. Cabrero, principal of PS 198, and Ms. Miller, principal of PS 77, started our first meeting with a warm and enthusiastic greeting. Next on the agenda was the ice-breaker activity called “Find Someone Who.” Students were given a sheet with 8 different things they were asked to find in others, for example: “Find someone who… has a hidden talent.” They were instructed to try to get a different name for each item and that older students should help out younger students. The representatives appeared to enjoy mingling and opening up with one another. We then gathered as a group and shared examples of students for each item on the sheet. The activity allowed us to get to know a little bit about our fellow representatives. For our November activity, students were asked to write themselves a letter that they will receive in June. In the letter, each student wrote three goals s/he has for the upcoming school year. These could be goals for in or out of school, for new things to try or things to improve. We also discussed the plans for this year’s School Spirit Days. Students will gather ideas from classmates that we will discuss at our next meeting. We did select a School Spirit Day for December – Friday, December 18th will be Pajama Day. As is Student Council tradition, we closed the meeting with the school handshake, which Ms. Wagner and Elana taught the new representatives. Student Council members are reminded as they leave to share with their teachers and classes what we did at our meeting, so we send them back to class with an agenda to assist them. We are off to a great start and are looking forward to the year ahead. Sincerely, Elana Hoffman Allison Wagner Guidance Counselor, PS 77 Guidance Counselor, PS 198