Members of the newly formed Community Council, which will take over the school’s community service program starting next year, met for three hours on Sunday to discuss their goals and mission statement.

Students on the council were chosen by a panel of Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts, Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra, Chaplain J. Young and Director of Student Affairs Jordan Church.

Sophomores Andrew Berman, Caity Croft, Ava Kofman, Erin Moy and juniors Marni Barta, Julie Barzilay, Will Borthwick, Max Eliot, Sara Fleischman, Taylor Hooks, Olivia Kestin, Shelby Layne, Tyler Wallace, Charlie Weintraub and Lauren Wolfen will serve on the council next year.

One of the goals of the Council is to get more students involved and passionate about doing community service, Layne said.

 “We want more of the school to be excited about outreach,” said Layne. “All of us are passionate about community service, and we want that passion to be infectious. When people think of Harvard-Westlake, we want them not only to think of our academic or athletic record, but also of our impact on the community.”

The Council decided to set up Gmail accounts in order to communicate among themselves and is presently considering dividing into subcommittees to make meeting during the school week easier.

Throughout the rest of this school year, council members will decide on how they will handle the community service program next year and what the student requirements will be, Church said.

“They’ll have to decide whether [community] service will be measured in hours or projects,” said Church, “and when the service year begins.”

Because most council members had first period free on Tuesday, that will become their weekly meeting period.

Students who do not have that period free are presently trying to rework their schedule in order to accomodate that, Church said.

Starting next September, Community Council will be made an official class that will meet on a regular basis during the school day. Jan Stewart, the current director of community service, will continue running the community service program until the end of this school year.

“We’ve provided them with the environment and the opportunity,” Church said.  “Now they have to figure out what they will do with it.”