Garrisons Overtake the Grace School
By Camilla Garrison
In early October, the Grace Middle School Student Council Campaign Season started. Ms. Lamb, Social Studies teacher of grades five through eight (as well as the eighth grade home room teacher) launched her annual event by giving the new fifth graders the presentation explaining how things would go and the sixth, seventh and eighth graders a refresher.
Usually at the Grace School, middle school students run for the roles of Treasurer, Secretary, Vice President and President with partners so there would be about eight seats at the Student Council, but this year the fifth and sixth grades gained so many new students, the teams were running with a maximum of four or even a group of five!
Once students had been grouped and decided which platform they were to run for, the campaigning started. Bribery was likely to occur, (like pens, stickers and bracelets) and a slew of posters were hung. While everyone was out there trying to win over votes, speeches were starting to be written in Social Studies class. Groups running for office also prepared slideshows with the written speech and pictures to act as closed captions during the convention.
Finally, on November 21, everyone got out of normal morning classes and gathered in the cafeteria for the grand Convention. (It was also Ms. Lamb’s birthday! A perfect party for a Social Studies teacher is a student council convention.) Red, white and blue streamers were hung and upon entering, each student received a bead necklace for festivity. Mrs. Forte, another middle school teacher, acted as the MC and called up groups running for Treasurer, Secretary, Vice President and President (in that order) to give their speeches to the crowd of students, teachers and other faculty who had come to hear the big event. The treasurer and secretary speeches ran through, but as the vice president category was nearing, time was running out. You see, the convention was going on in the Cafeteria, the same place everyone in the building has lunch (all three schools!) so Ms. Lamb only had until the first lunch period to finish the speeches, and so the convention had to be postponed because there were quite literally elementary students lining up outside, ready for lunch. Students headed back up to their homeroom classes event though groups running for vice president and president hadn’t given their speeches yet.
While children were upstairs in their classroom, eighth grader, Camilla Garrison came up with a brilliant idea: since recess was to be indoors (because of the rain) and middle and high school lunch was last and the cafeteria would be free then, Ms. Lamb should just finish the speeches then! Well the teacher in room twenty three just then, called Ms. Lamb up on the telephone (she was downstairs sorting things out with the principal) and explain this (rather obvious, but genius at the time) idea to her.
So eventually the vice president and president speeches were completed even though there was a little confusion. The groups who gave their speeches after lunch might even had had an advantage because listeners weren’t already bored from sitting through the rest, but attentive after a nice intermission!
After hearing all the speeches, it was a little while until voting day, the weekend and only Monday and Tuesday of the next week before Thanksgiving break. Voting day finally came on December fourth.
To vote, the Rhode Island Secretary of State Office came with a real-live voting machine and ballots. Students in each grade level were taken to the Voting Place in a conference room in the morning when they would usually have Social Studies. A short introduction was given by the people there, and then the real voting began. Students filled out four, tiny, oval bubbles and fed their ballot into the machine (and got an “I voted” sticker!) “It was good,” and “yeah, it was fun!” says eighth grade student, Jaqueline Paquete in response to the voting event.
The next day, Ms. Lamb gave a few students who were absent the previous day the chance to vote (but without the machine) and gave nothing away except for an “interesting results…”
On Friday the day had finally come, the results were to be announced at one o’clock in the cafeteria, (during lunch) some were too nervous to eat, and everyone grew quiet as the screen and microphone were brought into the lunch room. Heads turned and curious side conversation was had, then students attention was grabbed by a teacher clap and a few students moved forward to get a better view. The word Treasurer appeared on the screen, and after a little “be proud of yourselves no matter the results…you’ve worked so hard…blah blah blah” a picture appeared on the screen. Applause erupted. MINT: fifth graders Mara, Isaac (Garrison), Noemi and Timon had won! Same thing happened again for Secretary and Vice President offices: the Secretary group that won were fifth graders, Max, Anika, Alexandra, Priya and Evelyn. The new vice Presidents are a sixth grade group: Sophia, Sofia, Lianny and Genesis and… what everyone was waiting for, the new 2024-2025 Grace Middle School Student Council Presidents are eighth graders… Camilla Garrison, Dezvin Arreaga and Gabriel Farius! Third year in a row on student council, previously serving as the Secretaries and Treasurers, now they will enjoy their last year of Middle School and the Grace School as the Presidents. “We won!” says new Mr. President Dez
