Student Council’s Executive Board elections were held on Friday, Feb. 23.

Junior Jing-Jing Shen was elected President, along with Sydney Leikin as Executive Vice President, sophomore Lena Leland as Vice President, sophomore Joelle Rosenthal as Secretary and freshman Amy Chen as Treasurer.

Student Council adviser Craig Alexander explained that class officer elections will take place in late April, and class representative elections will most likely take place in May.

Alexander added that this year’s season has been exciting.

“A lot of people seem to be interested in Student Council, a lot of people seem to be interested in making a difference at the high school and it seems to be a very diverse group,” he said. “It’ll be a very competitive year, which is good.”

Junior Jing-Jing Shen, who has been President of the Class of 2019 for the past two years, hopes to extend her work to the entire school as Executive President.

Shen would like to see new community service opportunities for students and offer more activities at school dances.

“Right now we have a lot of great ideas, but we haven’t put them all into place,” she said.

Shen added that her experience as Class President has prepared her for the position of Executive Board President.

“I believe that I have a drive and a passion for this – I really loved and was honored by the chance to represent my fellow students, my friends, my classmates [as Class President] …and I think that when I bring [my previous experience] to the table as Executive Board President, it shows a lot of potential, and I have a lot of great ideas as to how we can move forward as a school.”

The Executive Board officers focus on projects for the school as a whole.

“The classes focus on community service and raising money for their prom,” Alexander said. “The Exec. Board usually works on bigger community service projects, and…[providing] more snacks at a dance or better decorations…”

Alexander explained that to run for Student Council, students must attend informational meetings and collect signatures. Students running for class officers must get fifty signatures from members of their class, and students running for Executive Board must get seventy-five signatures across 9th, 10th and 11th graders.

To run for Executive Board, students may also run for class officer positions.

“Executive Board members can run for Exec. Board, lose, and then filter into class officer positions, but class officer positions can then run for representatives, so there’s an ability to reach outside of your class,” Alexander said.

Freshman Sanjana Murthy ran for Executive Board Secretary and will now be running for freshman class president.

“I was on Student Council this past year, and I truly enjoyed it. I want to continue to make our school a better place,” she wrote in an email.

Shen recommends joining Student Council because it gives students the opportunity to express themselves.

“Student Council is really a means for someone who’s passionate about making a difference to actually make that difference. It really brings out the leader in every individual,” she said “[BHS] is about celebrating diversity and building unity within our community. It’s about reaching out to help the people around us, and the people whose stories have impacted us, so my goal in Student Council for this year is to really expand our impact.”

“Anybody…who is at Beachwood knows what it’s like to be in a diverse, in a loving, in a unified community,” Shen said. “We have gone through various highs and lows in the past year, and I think [we have seen] the resilience of our student body, of our school, teachers, faculty and students, and of the community.”

“If you have anything you want to share, we are willing to consider, and we have open minds, so I just want everybody to know that they do have an impact, and we are listening,” she added.