New school years bring changes, that’s inevitable, and one of those changes is new student leadership. A couple of weeks ago students voted for a new student government that will start in the coming fall. Future Student Body President, William Shakespeare, has already started to plan what he wants to do in the coming year.

“I’ve been the freshmen that no one knows and now I’m the student body president and so I really want to reach out to the people that don’t know anyone.” Shakespeare said. “I know that every student body president says that, but I feel like I actually do have a different viewpoint and it will be easier for me to be inclusive.”

This newly elected student government is different than ones in the past. The majority is male, it’s more diverse, and only four of the elected officials have been in previous student governments.

When asked about her thoughts on the inexperienced student government, Cassidy Baker, the student government adviser, said, “I think it’s a good mix. It will be a big turnover, there will be a learning curve at the beginning, but this also gives us the opportunity to not have to do what other years have done because they can come in with fresh ideas and don’t come in thinking about what was done last year.”

Traditionally student government has been students from previous years and dominantly girls, but the people chose differently this year. Although the majority is maintained only slightly by the male gender, it’s a significant difference from last year where a large majority of student government was female.

Freshman Nehal Bakshi said, “The guys run and then they get elected and I think that the girls are intimidated to run against the guys. That’s how I felt when I was considering running.”

Along with a change in the gender of the majority of student government, there has also been a change in the diversity of the elected student government. Minorities are more equally represented in the governing body of the school. Sophomore Lais Oliveira, who was recently elected as junior secretary, said, “I think that’s really cool that more people were encouraged to run this year who have different ethnicities and backgrounds because usually every year it’s always the same people.”

We’ll have to wait till next year to see what will come from this newly elected student government, but we can be sure that it will be different from the ones before