Students often wonder, who actually puts together homecoming? Who is in charge of the pep assembly that we see every year on the Friday of the homecoming game? Who takes these field trips throughout the year to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the courthouse to see trials in real life?

All of these questions have the same answer; student council.

South Lyon East’s Student Council is responsible for lots of the things throughout the year that students take part in and see during the school day.

SLE’s student council is made up of an executive council or exec for short. This council is made up an executive president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, and student representatives that represent each grade here at East.

Roy Workman, the executive president, defines this branch, “Exec council is basically the behind the scenes of the 

student council. It’s basically what runs everything and plans everything for Thursday’s meeting to tell the whole council.”

The exec council works with the class councils in order to do what students see every day around the school. For example, every time students see a poster around the school for an activity or fundraiser that is sponsored by student council, that’s the job of the class councils but they were told to do that from the exec council during Thursday’s meeting.

Executive vice president, Matthew Emery, believes that this task is often super awkward for the exec council, “[Student Council is hardest because of] being a leader. You have to tell others what to do and how to do it and sometimes they’re like your friends and you want them to respect you, which can sometimes mean for an awkward situation.”

Taking a leadership role in the school can sometimes mean for lots of time at the school in Ms. Sepulvida’s, the executive advisor of student council, room. Avery Millspaugh, the sophomore class student representative, regards the surplus of work that goes into the leadership role on student council, “ [For exec council] you have to go to more meetings and get more involved in student council. The regular council doesn’t have to be there as much even though it is still important.”

Although many students believe the contrary, SLE’s student council is a year round club, meaning that they work all year round on projects and committees throughout the school year and not just homecoming.

Emery, explains,“[People think] that the only thing that we do is homecoming. We do a lot of other things like committees and we used to be in charge of Pink Out and all kinds of other stuff; it’s definitely not just one thing.”

“A lot of the things that we have to do take a lot of time and there’s a lot of things in which we have to do,” says Jared Keeney, the executive treasurer, about the stresses of homecoming season for exec council.

The exec council is responsible for everything that goes on for homecoming. This includes spirit week, lunchroom games, ticket sales, homecoming court, the pep assembly, the tailgate, and of course, the dance.

Kearra Dejack, the senior class student representative, actually welcomes the pressures of homecoming, “ I have fun with it too. I love the homecoming rush. I like to feel like I’m doing something for the school that’s like important, that everyone is looking forward to it and that I’m doing something for everybody here.”

All of the council members agree that student council has taught them something, and more often than not, it’s something that can help them in their academic and future lives.

“I would say, [there are] things that it’s taught me; like organization, be a leader, speak well in front of people (like a big group) and especially take notes quickly,” remarks Amelia Bock, the executive secretary, about the things that she has learned from joining executive council this year. 

 Student council campaigns occur during May and are aired on the daily tv announcements. Students often go around saying, “I’ll vote for you for executive president!” when in reality, students are actually just voting for their class councils, not executive council.

The executive council is also voted on (near the same time) in May, but only students already on council vote.

Amelia Bock explains why she wanted to join Exec Council, “I joined my senior year because I just wanted to have kind of like a bigger role and you have more of like a decision-making process that can throw out ideas then.”

One thing that all the officers can agree upon is that if students are interested, they shouldn’t shy away from joining student council!

Workman justifies,“ [Students most likely believe] probably that you have to be an officer in order to be on student council. You can always still join [student council] but you won’t have to give speeches and do stuff in front of everyone but you can still be a part of the council.”