One four-word phrase that Principal Snee used in the opening day speech to my sophomore class has been resonating in my mind for this last week.  It is an exclamation that I believe has never been more pertinent than this school year.  No, amazingly, "Make Gr8s feel great" is not the phrase I'm thinking of.  It's "This is Your School!"  Though I'm sure Snee’s primary reason for saying it was to tell us that we need to take pride in George Mason and help keep it a clean and nice atmosphere, I've taken the phrase in a whole different way: We NEED to make this school our school.

We, as students, must take as much as we can get.  WE must be part of school decisions.  We have to give input.  We have to KNOW output.  We have to know and exercise our rights as students.  If we do not have a right that we deserve, we must demand it.  

Now, where do we begin with this “taking back”?   Well, it must be at the core of student rights.  What club is the student body's voice?  Yes, Lasso Online is, but what is the OFFICIAL student voice?  It is the Student Council Association!  Is the SCA providing an adequate voice?  In my eyes and in many students' eyes . . . no.  To make this school ours, we must make the SCA ours.  I have proposed three steps.    

1. Run Our Own Elections

Do you ever wonder why a student needs five faculty member signatures to get on the ballot for Student Council?  Why do teachers need to approve our candidates?  Picture a nation where the leaders not only approve all candidates but also all speeches by the candidates!  Picture this nation as a place where they can take a black marker and cross out certain lines because they are too controversial, a nation where the leaders regulate if two candidates can run as a ticket!  Would this nation be a true democracy?  No, and neither is the SCA.

For a truly sovereign SCA, we must have some kind of candidate freedom.  Sure, no one wishes a candidate to be allowed to bribe for votes, but should not this bribery rule be instilled and enforced by students instead of the faculty?  Why cannot the students regulate all electoral rules?  Yet again, I must reiterate -- this is our government!

For a fully student-run government we need a fully student-run election.  We need students to run, regulate and count votes.  For this, I call for a Student Elections Commission, a branch of the SCA to run fair yet sovereign elections.

2.  Have this year's SCA draft a Declaration of Student Rights

We have rights as students.  We have the right to voice opposition to aspects of our school.  We have the right to demand a reason for punishment.  We have a right to ask why our bag or locker is searched.  The list of rights that we as students deserve, and thus, must demand, goes on and on.  We need these rights to be written down and thus immortalized in a Student Declaration of Rights.  How could the faculty veto a document based on one penned by our school's namesake!  

3.  Make the SCA an SCA

The Student Council is looking less and less like the true voices of the students and more like the HSDAACP.  Yes, the Happy Student Dance, Activities, and Charity Planners is what it is.  Yes, planning of dances, charities and activities is a much-needed aspect of the SCA, but where is the other half?  Where is the half that demands change when necessary?  Where is the side that says, "Mr. Snee, most students don't like the set up of lunch," or the side that says, "Dr. Bilby, we want just a few more minutes of down time between intense 100 minute learning sessions."  We need the SCA to be a Student Council Association.  We need them to be a voice, a representative of the student body.  

If we take back the SCA, we will truly honor Mr. Snee's request.  We will make this school our school.