By Shayna Freisleben and Ariane Lange

The Prefect Council will take active involvement in the Planning Committee this year, assisting students with proposed ideas and acting as a liaison between the students and faculty. 

Head of School Dr. Jeanne Huybrechts suggested the Council get involved in the Planning Committee to increase the prefects’ direct participation in student life.

“I’ve asked our Prefect Council to demonstrate its leadership by managing some of this process by being advisers to their constituents, guiding them and shepherding them through the process,” Huybrechts said.

The Planning Committee, composed of school administrators and faculty members, meets weekly and evaluates student events to be held at school.

Huybrechts said that in the past previously an individual student would pitch a project over the course of several meetings.

This would be inefficient and prompt students to miss classes for the meeting, she said.

“The Prefect Council will hear the proposals, then consider them in the context of their guidelines and then help the individuals making the proposals pitch them to the Planning Committee,” Huybrechts said.

The Prefect Council restructured its schedule of open meetings in an effort to facilitate higher attendance by the student body. Approximately two meetings each month will be held during Monday activities period in addition to some on Fridays during third period. The first two Friday meetings had a small turnout.

“For the kids who are interested, I think this will really help,” Head Prefect Tasia Smith ’08 said.

She said that some students approached her and said that they would have liked to go to open meetings, but that they didn’t have third period free on Friday.

“I think that in general, there’s not a lot of awareness of student government at the Upper School,” Smith said.

She hopes that the open meetings and their new time slot will change that. Activities meetings will be open next Monday and Oct. 29 and third period open meetings will be held next Friday.

In order to make the meetings more efficient, prefects may ask that students submit their comments before the meeting, Smith said.