Name: Leticia Mayorga
Grade Level: 9th
Years In Leadership: 1

Officer Position/Committee Name: Class of 2021 Secretary

Other activities you’ve been a part of: Cross Country, Women’s Soccer, Track

Community Service: Firefighter Crab Feed, Masonic lodge Crab Feed, Skate for Change, AHS freshman registration, Lagoon Valley Trail Run

Other important characteristics about me:

I’m a very responsible person. I get things done on time and assure that a quality effort was put it. Not only do I make sure that I get things done right, I also work with others in a cooperative way to encourage them to get things done. I also spend a lot of time self reflecting and can point out what I need to work on, which means that I’m constantly trying to do things at an even better level.

How do you plan to stay connected to students to make sure their voices are heard?

One thing we attempted to do this year was to get class of 2021 to go out and survey one or two non leadership students. It didn’t work out as well as we would have liked, but next year if we can find a way to hold each other more accountable, then maybe a few points throughout the year we can send people out to survey their non leadership peers in order to hear what they want. I think it’d be better to have leadership students to go out and personally ask a few people just a small number of questions because then people would be more likely to do it because it wouldn’t be as annoying as sending them an email with the survey that they’d probably never open.

What, in your opinion, are the three most important issues facing students at Armijo High School and how will you address them?

At Armijo, and every other school, students feel disconnected from students outside of their clique. There’s leadership kids, robotics kids, band kids, etc. Now, while I doubt that I can think up of an idea to create schoolwide harmony and make everyone friends, I can at least try to make people feel more welcomed around leadership kids. When we ask people to attend an event, we should try to promote more non-leadership events than leadership events so that other groups on campus can see that we want people to show them attention as well. Maybe during class meeting some weeks, we can invite people to hang out in our advisor’s room and sit in on the meeting. Perhaps holding joint events with other groups would help the students from those groups feel more accepted in the leadership crowd. Or maybe, we could include involving non leadership students as part of one of our goals just like fundraising a certain amount of money is one of our goals. For example, when big leadership puts on an event my class could have a goal of getting maybe five non leadership students to go by inviting them personally. These are all just ideas to help mend the problem, but as an officer I would like to discuss more ways to address the problem with other officers, the class advisor, Mr. B, and anyone else who’d be of help.

Another problem at Armijo is participation at events. This problem could be solved if we solved the first problem mentioned above. Having students feeling connected to one another would encourage more people to attend events. Another way to solve this problem would be better advertising. Posters around campus can help advertise a little bit but I think using social media or other forms of communication would be more effective in advertising events.

Another prevalent problem at Armijo is school safety. This year and it’s events have caused concerns amongst students about how safe they are at school. We’ve had discussions about this in leadership so we are a bit aware about what the school admin is doing to combat this, but I’m not so sure if the general student population is aware. Student are also unsure what the protocol is for dangerous situations (ex. How to report a potential school shooter). Something as simple as having someone in charge of sending out emails regarding school safety would help students be more informed. This person could be an administrator but if they didn’t want to do it, having a student send out these informational emails could be helpful as well. In reality, the root of the problem is communication. If admin had a better way to communicate with students (ex. Actually sending out a call to all of the students) then maybe school safety wouldn’t be as big of a problem as students feel it is.

What are your top priorities for the position you will hold?

A common theme that I have noticed that happens in leadership, my class in particular, is that instead of wanting to take control and take initiative, people will let class advisors and other figures of authority take over. This deprives the class from actually learning leadership skills that are gained through first hand experience. To help combat this, I’d like to change to class structure for my grade. Instead of having it all be one big group all the time, I think it’d benefit my classmates to split up into smaller groups and have each group be responsible for a certain fundraiser and coming up for ideas during hoco and other related things. This way, it’d be easier to pinpoint people that need to do more for the class and it’d be easier to help them accomplish what they need to do. This establishment of order would be good in holding people accountable. It will also promote a more professional environment because it would replace the common noisy class discussions which would in turn make people take the class more seriously. Students would need to be far more engaged in these small groups and wouldn’t get away with just staying quiet and letting everyone else come up with ideas.

Another priority would be fundraising. We have raised some funds this year, but they have all been through joint fundraisers that we’ve had with the class of 2019. This point also relates to the idea of independence in some aspects. My class has not held a single fundraiser on its own because people helping plan fundraisers do not follow through because they are not being held accountable. We will not raise enough money for our future events, which will come back to bite us when we’re juniors planning prom. I will hold my classmates accountable by helping them outline their event (what do they need, when should it happen, how will they get the word out beyond leadership) and giving them clear deadlines that need to be met. These are not things being done this year, which is why im concerned about my class’s financial status since we haven’t really held a fundraiser.

Another priority I would have would be doing things apart from event planning. I want my class to actually make a difference at Armijo and not just have the most significant thing we do be plan prom in a couple of years. To be a good leader, people should know how to create a positive impact in their environment. As class officer, I’ve already brought this up to my class and class advisor, but there has been (almost) no follow-through (We have begun to reach out to our special ed students at armijo after a classmate granted a teacher’s wish and now we will begin going to lunch with the SpEd students every month or so, which is the one way we have actually followed through). I’m sure people are far more interested in doing things that matter rather than event planning. For now, it’d be fine to start off small and do simple things like eat lunch with someone that doesn’t have someone to eat with, bring lunch for someone who never brings one, email a teacher to remind them that they’re great, but, eventually I’d like it to escalate to something bigger scale. Something that can better Armijo or an even bigger community. I’d like this to be a class focus because it’d make us think of other, what we can change for the better, and how to be a real leader.