Elections for house captains in the recently introduced house system took place on Sept. 30. 16 captains, four per house, distributed unevenly across grades, were announced the next day Oct. 1. 

However, behind the scenes, there were ongoing debates among Student Council representatives and administrators about how diverse the captains should be in terms of grades and genders, a decision that wasn’t made until after students had voted. 

Even before introducing houses to the student body, the President’s Council pitched the idea of having two captains per house to Dean of Student Life and Culture Alexis Bustamante and Upper School Assistant Director Adam Gelb. “Once we ran it by [Gelb] and [Bustamante], they wanted more inclusivity [amongst grades], transforming [the number of captains] into five,” senior Spirit Ambassador Scarlett Bundy said. The change to five captains happened two weeks before the election. The five captains would include two seniors and one representative from each of the other grades. 

On Sept. 22, the Student Council team saw the lack of grade diversity among candidates who applied. “There wasn’t any house that had a student applying from each grade. We still tried to add to the numbers and check to see if anyone else wanted to apply,” Bustamante said. 

Even though the announced number of candidates was five, the Student Council and administration met to change the number after the voting surveys went out. They would use the election to gauge what the house captain team would look like without filtering candidates to meet diversity requirements.

After the elections on Monday, the team met to discuss the results of the voting and what changes could be made to include the most diversity among grades. There were a variety of ideas, and the proposed number of captains ranged from three to five. “The [Presidents Council’s] consensus was three [candidates] by popular vote,” Bundy said. 

However, in Bustamante’s eyes, she felt the Student Council still had not reached a unanimous decision, so it was necessary to change the Council’s voted-on amount. “In this case with the Council, […] we didn’t have time to make that decision with the [student representatives],” Bustamante said. 

Due to time pressures, the final number was decided exclusively by the administration — President’s Council members found out at the same time as the rest of the student body. “I am still a little confused with how [Student Life] decided with the votes [from the student body],” Student Body President Cody Kletter said. 

Ultimately, there were more factors included in the selection than just the popular vote. Choosing captains was not a consistent process. “We took into consideration the voting, the different [gender] dynamics, and the mix [of grades] to see what was most fair and equitable,” Bustamante said. “There is no specific rubric or guideline. […] It wasn’t solely top votes.”

The Student Council has a lot of takeaways from the complicated election process. “I am hoping this was an inaugural mistake,” Bundy said. 

Kletter believes he’s also learned from the experience. “In [the] future, if we do change the election rules, we need to announce it to the student body,” Kletter said. 

For Bustamante, she feels more marketing for the elections needs to be instituted. “The goal is to get students as leaders […] The takeaway for me is to figure out what we need to encourage underclassmen to feel comfortable to run.”