By Bonheur Mbaya ’24
SGA Presidents Chace Carter SPSG ’24 (left) and Hee-Cheol Shin SP ’24 (right)
Photos by Anna Clifford ’07 (left) and Wilson Freeman (right)
The St. Paul’s Schools’ Student Government Association (SGA) presents a way for student leaders to cater to their peers’ needs since teachers cannot account for everything. Whether it be something impressive to put on a college application or a genuine passion to create change, SGA is a prevalent part of schools everywhere, including St. Paul’s. Now that the school is supposedly under the “One St. Paul’s” front, I wanted to examine the two SGAs at the boys’ and girls’ schools and how they affect our community.
With a dozen front row seats at Prayers, the SPSG SGA is nothing short of jam-packed. Excluding the presidents and SGA representatives of each grade, there are 11 all-school SGA positions available: President, Vice president, Fine Arts Representative, Green Team Representative, White Team Representative, Spirit Representative, Athletic Representative, Code of Conduct, Senior Class Representative, and Student Learning Representative (our newest position created by Lilly Dyer ’23 for her SPIRITUS Scholars project). Elections begin in January of junior year. The All-School SGA wastes no time and starts preparing for the coming year in the summer of senior year. After that, their duties are abundant: running morning Prayers, creating Green and White team competitions, promoting the arts, planning school dances, advocating for learning tools, providing community service opportunities, promoting school spirit, serving on disciplinary and honor council and keeping the student body up to date. In meetings, the group participates in the decision-making process with teachers Ms. Hain and Ms. Joyner-El, who took over as Ms. Murray became interim Head of School. The twelve current senior officers are esteemed within our community but remain humble.
However, the SP SGA differs in size and magnitude. With only four positions, the power is more centralized, leaving the smaller group of leaders to make bigger decisions alone. Their positions include: President, Vice president, Senior class representative, and Fine Arts representative. The final position is not even held by a current SP senior. There are only all-school elections for the President and Vice President. The boys’ SGA meets every week with their dean of students, Mr. Benzing, and the deans of each grade. Officers have less responsibility since many roles are abdicated to other groups on campus. SGA’s duties include promoting the arts, planning school dances, serving on disciplinary council, leading morning assemblies, and keeping the student body up to date. Although the boys’ school SGA does not oversee the same number of activities as their female counterparts, they show a strong face to the student body, always making sure to encourage the camaraderie of the “Cruisies”.
I interviewed members of the SGA at both the girls’ and boys’ schools to gain insight into how things are run. Firstly, I wanted to address why a junior was on the Boys School’s all-school SGA. At SPSG, only seniors occupy all-school officer positions. While some didn’t even know how the current Fine Arts Representative was picked, student body Vice President Jake Kinney ’24 simply said, “There wasn’t an election. It was teacher based.” Parker Morse ’25, who currently occupies the position, confirmed he first applied, “then the heads of the arts departments discussed possible applicants and eventually came back to [him] with a letter of acceptance!” While the girls’ school elections can occasionally turn into a popularity contest, this appointment of the fine arts representative at the Boys’ school seems to keep the process fair, with the most qualified person being appointed.
Then, I wondered why the boys had such limited positions on their SGA. Kinney explained that Spirit and Service learning are separate, non-SGA councils. When referring to Spirit Representative, he said, “The position’s included in the [SGA] meetings but spirit council is its own separate entity. Like, it’s technically a club.” I cannot fault the boys’ school for not having a Student Learning Representative yet, as the position is new to the girls’ school as well. However, when comparing SP’s school spirit to the roles of SPSG’s Green and White team representatives encouraging school spirit through team games, student body President Hee-Cheol Shin ’24 said, “We don’t do them every assembly”. This suggested the lack of blue and gold team spirit at the boys’ school.
Seeing certain aspects of school life, like blue and gold team spirit, as unimportant could contribute to not seeing the necessity of SGA roles. When asked about the differing numbers of people in control, Shin believes more officers at SP would just “make everything a lot more complicated when it comes to meetings and making decisions.” Kinney agrees, saying that it would be harder to “get stuff done because you have to cater to everybody’s needs.” However, their senior class representative Will Liang ’24 disagrees, believing SGA roles should “lean more towards specific groups”. This intra-leadership division left me wondering if such divisive executive action is even desired by the student body.
Alternatively, the girls’ school “executive” is decentralized, and each officer holds specific duties. This cohesivity allows each person to help out regardless of their office held, unlike the separate councils at SP. All-school president Chace Carter ’24 comments that members “can pick up another role…if they don’t have something to do for the week.” When asked if the large SGA helpfully represents the needs of the student body, Fine Arts Representative Natalie Kim ’24 responds, “student voice is relevant in constraints of already set expectations,” After all, the student government is composed of fellow classmates and cannot take unreasonable requests, despite its size and attempt to reach the problems of the masses.
As the schools gather together more frequently following the installation of One St. Paul’s in 2019, I thought it would be informative to hear about the joint activities. To my surprise, they have only collaborated on two events so far this year: the One St. Paul’s Day celebration and the Spirit Dance/Spirit Week. It was a general consensus between SGA members at SP and SPSG that the latter was a waste of time, with both parties ending up unhappy. The Spirit Dance was originally themed “Let the Games Begin!” and although the theme was originally supported by both SGAs, upon relaying the message to the boy’s student body, people were dispirited. Many boys liked the theme of heroes and villains instead, and came to the dance dressed for that theme, completely disregarding the efforts spent by SGA crafting the dance.
Divided over the dance theme, the Boys’ and Girls’ school subsequently quit matching themes for Spirit Week as a whole. In Shin’s opinion, the planning “turned out fine.” However, Carter recoiled, stating that instead of a larger group of leaders, “the little amount of people [the boys’ SGA] have” could have contributed to this disconnect. My belief is that maybe if SP had stronger numbers, the student body would listen to them more since there’s greater deliberation for ideas. Kim notes, “they insist that the ideas of just the three of them should be considered equally with the eleven of us.” Both schools seemed as if they had fundamental differences they could not settle. Despite attempting to have a fluid community, both the SP and SPSG SGAs are apprehensive to work together again.
It’s interesting to see how the two SGAs’ disagreements contribute to vastly different student cultures despite being on one campus. Although their leaders, positions, and responsibilities are vastly different, both are groups to congratulate. It takes a tremendous amount of work to be trusted and able to help the student body in a way that is so personal.
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