Prefect Council met with student leaders from Campbell Hall and Buckley School on March 9 to discuss their respective student councils and honor boards.

Head Prefect Yoshimi Kimura ’23 said the meeting happened after Campbell Hall High School Student Council President Lila McNamee reached out to her and Head Prefect Simon Lee ‘23.

“The purpose of the summit was really to understand what other [independent schools] in the area were doing in terms of student government, especially since the way that their council works are always different than [ours],” Kimura said. “It was a really great chance to not only learn about other systems but get to meet some of the other student leaders in the area and make friends and learn from each other as best as we could.”

Sophomore Prefect Victor Suh ’25 said the attendees from the three schools exchanged information on how their student governments worked.

“They gave both gave some general information about how their Honor Board committee works,” Suh said. “As Prefects [at the school], we have an all-encompassing role as representatives of the Honor Board and also representatives of our grade as student council members. We got a rundown of the differences between them having two different committees and how that dynamic shift works at their school. They asked us questions about how having all-encompassing roles works at our school [and] how it feels, the first part of the meeting was largely getting to know the other school’s student bodies and seeing how they function [as well as] how it contrasts to ours.”

Suh said the meeting was insightful because it allowed him to consider the intricacies of Honor Boards and representative councils.

“The focus of what each council really devotes their time to is fundamentally a little bit different,” Suh said. “Specifically, I noticed Harvard Westlake [is] much more academically based, as you might imagine. So stuff like the Honor Code holds much more weight here. Students know it’s something like legitimate [and] something that they should be mindful of. On the flip side, I’ve noticed throughout the year that we haven’t been so great at like promoting school spirit. There haven’t been a lot [of spirit days], and there have been some really great participants, but not to the level that we’re kind of hoping for. Conversely, Campbell Hall is much better in that school spirit department, likely because their classes are so much smaller than ours [and] they are able to have like much more personal affinities with all the students there.”

Kimura said the meeting was a great opportunity for making friends and understanding more about how each school functioned.

“[I got an] understanding [of] how other people view the things that I value like DEI efforts or inclusivity, school spirit and topics like that,” said Kimura. “It was interesting to hear other student leaders’ perspectives on those things and how they work at their schools. As a school, I think it’s always great to build relationships with other independent schools in the area. Since there’s a lot of fake competition between us where we kind of roast each other, I think it’s nice to come together for the purpose of unity.”

McNamee said she feels the event was a success and wants to continue the meetings in the future.

“Our informal name for this council is the Los Angeles Sister School Committee,” McNamee said. “The group had just been living on a group chat, [so] I wanted to bring that to life and make it a more official event. I really wish Notre Dame had been able to come to it, just didn’t work out schedule-wise, and I would like to expand more and have all of Buckley because a lot of Buckley was missing. But I was pleased with how the first round went, and I’d love to see more collaboration in the future.”