Our Platform
Tan-Torres: Trusted and True
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Events
Despite being unable to attend in-person events, our priority is to improve the experience of Stuyvesant students by hosting virtual events to stay connected at home. Our innovative events allow us to reach new heights and continue to host important events and traditions within our Stuyvesant community. We will work closely with the Student Union, our fellow Caucuses, the administration, and the Cabinet to ensure that Stuyvesant’s great sense of community continues on through the 2020-2021 school year.
SING! Greatest Hits Night
SING! is one of the biggest events of the year for the Stuyvesant community. In light of the pandemic, we want to provide a virtual screening of the best moments of SING! in the past decade. The Student Union has professional recordings of past SINGs and we will use editing software to compile notable moments across different years and grades. The Student Union has already hosted successful virtual screenings in the past, showing movies like The Hate U Give and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and this virtual SING! Greatest Hits Night can draw in alumni, faculty, and students from all grades. This project would be collaborative, as is the nature of SING!, and we would consult SING! coordinators and directors to ask for their opinions and permissions.
Stuyvesant Virtual Relay Competition
In the past, we’ve hosted events with some of the highest student-turnouts such as the Sophomore Caucus Escape Room, Gingerbread House Building Contest, and the SophFrosh Semi Formal Dance. This year, we plan to host a virtual relay competition, complete with a hackathon, puzzle, virtual escape room, riddle level, and more. This event will bring together teams and partnerships between different people and backgrounds, encouraging new friendships and connections within the Class of 2022, despite not being able to see each other in-person.
Virtual College Tours
As rising juniors, we are preparing to move on to the next stage of our lives: college. We must choose a college to attend and are encouraged to visit college campuses. However, because of COVID-19, many universities are not offering in-person tours of colleges. In spite of this, we will work to ensure that students have the opportunity to see which school best fits. By offering virtual college tours, we help alleviate both financial and travelling barriers caused by the pandemic. We will network with and contact universities to discover live, virtual tour times on Zoom for Juniors and provide a page of the various college tours.
Virtual Study Hall Sessions
As we work from our homes, it can be especially challenging to find motivation and a proper space to complete assignments and extra work. At Stuyvesant, students had access to public work environments such as the library, atria, and additional locations surrounding Stuyvesant like the Whole Foods dining floor. Being around other hard working students was a motivation factor in itself. We are aiming to plan and create a schedule for virtual study hall sessions where students can join a Zoom with other students and silently work whilst in the “presence” of others creating a safe, productive space for work. There would be a host at each of the Zooms who would ensure that all students remain muted and would facilitate the entrance of students in the waiting room.
Virtual Self-Care Seminars
We believe that mental health is a large priority, especially when you combine the stress of being a student at Stuyvesant with being at home. It can often be difficult to find an outlet for stress, when previously students were able to destress at extracurriculars after school. To alleviate this stress, we will contact professionals in fields such as yoga, meditation, exercise, and more, to offer free virtual self-care seminars in which students can participate in a judgement-free, stress-free environment. With healthier mindsets, students will be able to better focus on schoolwork and ultimately succeed at Stuyvesant.
External Affairs
The External Affairs projects will be in partnership with organizations and businesses outside of Stuyvesant. By networking and collaborating with both local and national corporations, we will be able to create new partnerships for the betterment of Stuyvesant students.
Partnerships with Local Sports Facilities and Fields
On August 24th, 2020, Governor Cuomo announced that lower-risk school sports in all regions may begin to practice beginning September 21st, as long as indoor capacity is limited and the team does not travel. Our school is surrounded by public and privatized green spaces and we live in a city with an extensive parks department, so we should try our best to gain access to these spaces — Asphalt Green, Battery Park City, Pier 40, Pier 25, and Hudson River Park Facilities, to name a few — to ensure that DOE, PSAL, and CDC guidelines are met. We plan on working with the Student Union and other Caucuses to network with these groups to make sure this project is well-supported.
Stuy CitiBike Restoration
As a third of Stuyvesant students opted for the blended learning model, a pressing issue is finding a secure mode of transportation to school. We believe that safety is one of the biggest priorities, and one of the easiest ways for students around New York City to travel whilst avoiding crowded public transportation is by bicycle. By negotiating and collaborating with CitiBike, we will be able to offer free and reduced memberships to use Citibikes for Stuyvesant students. This is definitely an achievable goal, as the Student Union has worked to make this happen in the past through the CitiBike X Stuy project that granted students occasional free-passes and a free month of unlimited access.
Negotiations with Local Publishers, Galleries, and Newspapers For Student Publishing
We know that Stuyvesant students, while typically driven towards STEM careers, are also passionate about literature and creative work. There are a great number of national contests such as the Scholastic Art & Writing Competition. However, as students living in one of the greatest art hubs of the world, we often overlook local contests, where our talents can be presented and honored. That is why we are interested in reaching out to local, smaller-scale publishers, virtual galleries, and local newspapers and working with them to get work by Stuyvesant students displayed in their collections.
Virtual Alumni Career Lectures
This year, the Student Union’s Lecture Series were well-attended and successful, with professionals who visited Stuyvesant and presented information and details about their careers, industries, and businesses. In light of the pandemic, these lectures will most likely be moved to take place online. We propose a continuation of this series, but with greater inclusivity of guest speakers who are Stuyvesant Alumni. These Alumni are valuable because they can offer insight about the exact steps to enter a given career after graduating from Stuyvesant.
This year, the Student Union’s Lecture Series were well-attended and successful, with professionals who visited Stuyvesant and presented information and details about their careers, industries, and businesses. In light of the pandemic, these lectures will most likely be moved to take place online. We propose a continuation of this series, but with greater inclusivity of guest speakers who are Stuyvesant Alumni. These Alumni are valuable because they can offer insight about the exact steps to enter a given career after graduating from Stuyvesant.
Internal Affairs
The Internal Affairs projects and collaborations are based around improving the inner workings and environment within Stuyvesant. These projects are divided into two sections: collaborations with the students -- Student Union, clubs, and student body -- and collaborations with our school’s administration. By working with those within our school, we will be able to improve students’ daily lives.
Collaborations with SU, Clubs, and Student Body
Facilitating Online Student Events And Keeping Traditions Alive
The Student Union, the Indicator, and Caucuses host a plethora of events throughout the school year, almost all of which revolve around in-person interaction. This will be severely limited this school year, so we want to work with the Student Union Events Department to ensure that events like Stuyloween, Spirit Week, and Valentine's Day can still take place in some capacity online. This will involve direct communication with the IT department—to see if we can create a website that mirrors messaging like that used for BooGrams and Valentine’s Day flowers— and also the administration—to see if we can use the school building to organize or create a pick-up site for candy and flowers. For Spirit Week and Stuyloween, we envision that we can do something similar to what we did for the quarantine selfies or the Student Union Tik Tok challenge; students submit photos of their spirit outfits or Halloween costumes from home and the student body votes on the best ones.
Increasing Collaboration with Students
All elected officials of the Caucuses must select and interview Cabinet members in order to build a team that can help increase efficiency of events, communication, sponsorships, and more. By seeking non-Caucus volunteers to assist in caucus, grade-wide, and community projects, we will increase inclusivity of students, as well as transparency of operations within the Caucus. Expanding projects to non-Caucus volunteers is especially effective because students will be able to choose and work on projects that they care about, at the times that they are able to do so. This also allows for non-Caucus volunteers to have a glimpse into the inner workings of the student government.
Partnerships and Collaboration With Clubs and Pubs
As representatives of the student body, it is important that we create and maintain meaningful interactions with the clubs and publications of the Stuyvesant community. That is why we are seeking to reach out to clubs who want to work with the Student Union on projects involving the Stuyvesant community. We are planning to work collaboratively with student organizations such as ASPIRA and the Black Students League (BSL) to push for equity in club chartering and want to add a question to the chartering process that ensures that club leaders commit to maintaining equity within their club. We are also looking forward to working with Juniors who have ideas for projects and proposals — our website will always have a suggestion submissions tab.
Open Caucus Meetings
With the goal of promoting transparency and inclusivity, we will allow students of all grades to attend our Caucus meetings every other week at their request. At these meetings, students will be able to learn how we manage our finances with cost-revenue analysis, how we contact and communicate with organizations and businesses, and how we brainstorm and conduct event-planning, etc. They will also learn internal operations of the student government, organization, and stay updated with Caucus projects. Currently, student body members are allowed to attend Student Union Cabinet meetings upon request and we want to offer the same freedoms to members of our own grade. Students will also be allowed to ask questions.
Collaborations with Administration
Communicating with Admin Closely About Junior Prom
In Junior year, Stuyvesant students are given the opportunity to attend Junior Prom, an event hosted on a boat at the end of the Spring semester. At this moment in time, hosting an in-person, close contact event is improbable and unsafe. However, depending on the state of COVID-19 before the end of the year, June may be a safe time to host Junior Prom. We propose that this event could be held in a larger, more open space. We plan to have an ongoing discussion with the administration about the feasibility of a June event and will prioritize following CDC and DOE event guidelines.
Elective and AP Directory for Different Majors
Junior year is the time when discussions about college become a lot more serious, and ultimately, by the end of the year, most of us will have a picture of what we want to pursue in college. Whether that be as specific as foreign cyber security or as general as the humanities, we want to provide resources that will put you, the student body, in a position to experience Stuyvesant’s career oriented classes before having to face them for the first time in college. We will make a directory of the electives and classes that Stuyvesant offers that align with each typical four-year college major so you know exactly which AP courses and electives to take in the Spring semester of Junior year or throughout Senior year. Of course, not everyone needs to have an image of their future college major, but this directory will guide students’ paths into specific college majors.
Advocacy for Spring Semester Program Changes
In the upcoming Fall semester, course scheduling has taken on a new form; the Blended Learning Model places limitations on the feasibility of program changes, leaving us with minimal say in our schedules, regardless of how important the courses are to us. A large goal of our campaign is to work with the administration and the Student Union to restore our ability to adjust our schedules and request AP courses/electives, especially in a time when we are not certain about when we will return to school. As Junior Caucus candidates, we are particularly alarmed that the Class of 2022 will lose out on electives and AP courses that we have been waiting for since we were underclassmen. In the Spring semester, we envision a plan where all upperclassmen are confident in the ability to fight for schedule changes and course offerings.
Teacher College-Rec Guidelines
Requesting teacher college recommendations does not have a very mainstream process in terms of how it is conducted; various teachers set different deadlines and request dates which causes confusion for juniors who are seeking their often required college recommendations. We want to work with the administrators, college office, and faculty to clarify dates and procedures for this process and will create a guide for how to ask a teacher for a recommendation. This guide will include example correspondences, who to ask, what you need to provide them, and the proper etiquette for asking and thanking your teacher.
Website Expansion
SAT Sites and PSAT Status
We have heard your concerns about the PSAT being offered at Stuyvesant and will discuss with the administration and the Student Union about how we can ensure that every student has access to the test as soon as we can all safely take it. The same goes for the SAT; many juniors have signed up to take the SAT in the fall and there have been a string of SAT and ACT site cancellations. We want everyone to be able to take the SAT at least once or twice before senior year, but we must follow the policies and plans of the college board for now. However, we want to create an update page on our website about testing dates and sites that will simplify the process for our grade.
Scholarship Opportunities Page
An idea that we hope to bring to our website this year is a Scholarship Opportunities Database and resource page that lists available scholarships and their requirements, but also provides resources to strengthen your applications for them. With college applications coming up, it is important that Stuyvesant students can access financial resources and apply to any college of their choosing without fear of financial cost. There are hundreds of scholarships in the United States that many of us qualify for, and it would be a shame to miss out on them because of a lack of awareness.
College Application Timeline
To avoid missed deadlines and to make sure that the college application process is as stress-free as it needs to be, we think it is important that Stuyvesant juniors have access to a comprehensive timeline for the college application process. This timeline would include recommended dates for certain steps like making college lists and also concrete Stuyvesant deadlines like SSR counselor scheduling. The college office at Stuyvesant is responsive and ultimately responsible for passing on this information, but it is good to have an overview of the process as early as we can. This will also prevent the flooding of the Dear Incoming group from questions about college applications.
Competition and Awards Opportunities Page
The common application, which the majority of high school seniors use to apply to college, has a section for awards and honors. We are confident that everyone at Stuyvesant has the talent and aptitude to get awards, but many are deterred because they are not familiar enough with available competitions and awards. We want to add a page to our website filled with competition and award opportunities that are summarized and sorted by different academic subjects and fields.
Expanding Our Opportunities Bulletin
There were many last minute internship and job cancellations in light of the global pandemic and we know that many of you are disappointed at the outcome of many of these decisions. As we did last year, we want to create an opportunities bulletin inspired by Mr. Blumm but one that offers junior-specific virtual volunteering, competition, and internship opportunities. This is an important platform idea because Junior year is the last year before college application season for students to engage in extracurriculars and internships to best demonstrate their interests and capabilities.
Expanding Study Guide Platform
Last year, we pioneered and coded a study guide platform, similar to ARISTA’s, but one that was composed of the Class of 2021’s peer-reviewed study guides. This resource was used by 200+ Stuyvesant students in the Spring semester alone, and was useful for quick and easy access. If reelected, we plan to continue to update the Study Guide Platform and expand it so that our grade can have access to it throughout the academic year. We will also include more AP-specific resources and guides.
Submissions Form For Virtual Learning
We will create a question submission form for virtual learning on our website so that we can assist you at any point in the year when you do not understand a policy or are confused about a Stuyvesant-related topic. We plan to have close communication with the Student Union and the administration next year and will be committed to answering any and all questions. Respondents can remain anonymous at their discretion and the form will be accompanied with an FAQ page so that the grade can view our answers and benefit from the questions asked.