Every year, the Associated Student Body (ASB) holds assemblies and events for the entire school to attend, but due to the continuation of distance learning, this has not been possible.
Since the most affected student involvement other than clubs has been assemblies like the annual homecoming assembly, ASB’s solution to encouraging school spirit has been Couchella, an at-home talent show. Jim Kelly, the ASB activities director, explained that the class officers came up with the idea of Couchella. According to Kelly, ASB is generally accepting of students’ ideas, and Couchella was no different.
“As long as their proposed activities fit the ASB Mission, we generally allow them,” Kelly said.
As Couchella nears, occurring on Dec. 4 and the latest time to apply being Nov. 30, Junior Class President Jono Sison and Vice President Lexi Romanowsky are both working behind-the-scenes to make Couchella a reality. Sison’s role in Couchella has been to communicate with clubs and reach out to people who may want to demonstrate their talents or publicize their club.
“My position has been emailing various clubs on campus, reaching out to as many people as possible to publicize themselves and their talents,” Sison said.
Similarly, Romanowsky’s role has also been communicating with people, but her primary role is management. She makes sure that preparations are on schedule and is working with the media commission of ASB.
“I’ve been paying close attention to making sure we’re on track with submissions, asking the media commission to help us edit, and communicating with the cornerstone performance groups of our school,” Romanowsky said.
While each class officer has their role in setting up for Couchella, they help each other split the work.
“We all have our part, and it’s nice to have my class officer counterparts to help out with this process,” Romanowsky said.
In terms of goals for the event, both Sison and Romanowsky were passionate about its effect on the student body. According to Romanowsky, one of the main goals of Couchella is to promote unity within students.
“We wanted to have an event that increased student unity, and one of the ways that we have been able to succeed in that in the past has been having assemblies,” Romanowsky said.
Both also recognized that another essential goal of Couchella is to showcase the talents within the student population. According to Romanowsky, Couchella is a replacement for assemblies like the clubs fair and heritage fair held annually in the past. Sison agreed with this, saying that assemblies are critical for showing school unity and appreciation.
“We always reach out to as many people as possible on campus who want to share whatever talent they have, and [Couchella] gives them a platform to showcase that talent,” Sison said.
Sison emphasized the importance of giving the students a way to show off their talents, and he believes Couchella is a great way for students to do so during distance learning.
