By Andrew Schein
Plans for an assembly that was to address drug issues and protection of members of the community collapsed under concerns that organizers needed to perfect the logistics and framework of the assembly, Head Prefect Sammy McGowan â07 and Senior Prefect Nuriel Moghavem â07 said. The assembly will occur, Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra said, but he did not know when.
The gathering was set for Friday, Nov. 17, moved to Monday, Nov. 20 because bus schedules could not be changed to accommodate an assembly on Friday, and postponed again, this time indefinitely. Student government members worried that the assembly would rob some students of their only time to eat, as X-periods were cancelled that day.
Furthermore, all but one of the non-student-government speakers dropped out over the weekend, Moghavem said. There was also a feeling that the uproar over the events that sparked the assembly had died down.
âWeâll still address the issues,â McGowan said.
Students planned the assembly independently of teacher or administration influence after Salamandraâs Nov. 7 meeting with seniors explaining the disciplinary action taken against some of their classmates, said Kurt Kanazawa â07, one of the planners of the assembly.
âWhen Student Council asked everyone if they wanted to stay afterwards, everyone left except for 10 people,â Kanazawa said. âI couldnât believe that the entire class didnât want to talk about what we could do. People didnât want to do anything.â
Kanazawa and the other students who stayed planned an all-school assembly set for Friday, Nov. 17 to motivate students to protect the school community and to adopt an attitude against bringing drugs to campus, planners said. Teachers would not play a role in the assembly.
âWe wanted it to be organic, a time for students to come together,â McGowan said. âSo Hailey [Orr â07, fellow Head Prefect] and I would open it up, and see where it went from there.â
Plans included speeches by McGowan, Orr and non-student-government seniors who had first-hand knowledge of the events leading up to the disciplinary action that sparked the idea for the assembly. The subject of the assembly became a topic of disagreement between the planners.
âOne camp wanted the assembly to be just about drugs, and the other camp wanted it to be about the bigger causes,â Kanazawa said.
âThe project ended up falling out of the hands of the original six and more into the hands of the seniors representatives on student government,â Moghavem said.
