Upon walking into Michael Tarjan’s office, one is faced with a line of bold posters strewn with a rainbow of bullet points and drawings that reflect current class board members’ plans for changes to student government’s policies. The colorful ideas illustrate student involvement in alterations to the class board election policies.

According to Tarjan, assistant principal for student activities, a pilot program within the Freshman Class Board began in the 2010-2011 school year. He said that the changes were made with the goal of making class board more accessible and with hope of increasing student involvement. Following the successful pilot program, current class boards helped brainstorm alterations to existing class board policies regarding the number of participants and roles of the members on the boards.

“We’re hoping that the Sophomore Class [Board] will now have at least 20 to 30 kids as well, instead of only eight,” Tarjan said.

All class boards were previously open to the student vote. Candidates had the ability to run for one of eight positions for selection by their respective classmates. A president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and four representatives were chosen based on the majority vote.

Tarjan said that the pilot program with the freshman class eliminated the class vote. Participation was instead open to any student who completed a preliminary process that included filling out a packet, attending multiple meetings, writing an essay explaining why he or she wanted to become a leader of his or her class and getting a petition signed by members of the grade. After these students completed the requirements, the class board elected their peers as leadership officers, which Tarjan said were similar to the president, vice president, treasurer and secretary roles on previous class boards.

“This year we took a look at the pilot…” said Tarjan. “Our thought was, we’re limiting it to only eight kids, so how can we try to open this up?”

David Walsh, a Junior Class Board representative, believes that the alterations are necessary. He said he is looking forward to the increased participation that will occur because of these changes.

“We’ll get more ideas,” said Walsh. “We’ll get more creativity. And more help running each event.”

Tarjan said that the original motivation behind the pilot program was more specific to freshman needs. Due to the class board election’s proximity to the start of the year, Tarjan said it was difficult for freshmen to make informed decisions with their ballots. He said that many students were excluded and pushed away from something they wanted to be involved in, but the pilot election process succeeded in increasing participation.

“Everyone is involved in other activities, shrinking the group of [students] who can actually help out,” said Tarjan. “By expanding [the class board] it gives kids more of an opportunity to work with each other.”

Tarjan believes that despite the new policy’s likelihood to increase the size of the class board and the ability for students to hold positions, participants will still be serious about their roles on class board. He said that the preliminary process alone is proof of dedication, and that it ultimately means that more committed students will be involved.

Junior Sloan Oblonsky ran to be a Junior Class Board representative in the 2012 election, but did not get elected. However, Oblonsky was part of class board and the original pilot program her freshman year.

“If you vote within the board you actually want the people who are going to be good workers…” said Oblonsky.  “[Freshman class board] was made up of kids who actually wanted it.”

According to Oblonsky, students who lost the election this past year no longer had the option of being involved in class board. She said that after running for a position on the board every year in high school, she wanted to be involved.

Walsh said the new class board system is more inclusive and expects the changes to make his classmates more inclined to try something new.

“Everyone that wants to participate is going to get a shot to be a part of it, and that will bring more [students] in,” Walsh said.

Tarjan said that the students’ influence on the policy changes will help to make them more productive. He said that the alterations will open up class board and ultimately increase its effectiveness.

“We went over what the mission of the student association is,” said Tarjan. “The purpose of the student association is to further participation and develop leadership and responsibility within the student body.”