The Student Council

The Student Council

Is the food at your school bad? Or is it run by vicious grown-ups that don't understand your need to actually have some free time when you get home? Well, we at Parkskolan felt that way so we decided to restart a student council.

The school is a place of work for both students and teachers. But do we as students have the same possibilities to decide about things like work-hours and assignments as "real" employees? No we don't, we get run-over by our bosses all the time.

In Sweden the students actually have endless opportunities to be a part of the deciding process. In matters concerning our grades, and when we are going to have tests, we can make a difference, because it's written in our school-law. But do the students do so? No, because they don't know about there rights. And that's where the student council comes in to the picture. We are the link between the small and unknowing student and the big bad teachers. Students can come to us if they need help with matters concerning the school. At Parkskolan there are 9 students in the student council. Lina is the secretary and Jeanette is the vice president, you don't have to worry about the other people, they are not so important.
The picture shows our "BIG BOSS" Maria Wird, she's our president.

Away we go…
In working with the council we have had the fortune to be invited by "The Student Organisation", to a course in how we can be a bigger and better council, and of course how we would get more power in our school. Our first trip took us to Sundsvall, where we met student councils from all over the north of Sweden. "The Student Organisation" told us how the student movement in Sweden began in 1940. Then students wanted to get rid of stupid rules like a curfew for all students at 9 p.m.. They also wanted to be able to have sexual education and religious studies instead of Christian studies. All of these things happened through the power of the students. And there is still in our school today many things that we would like to change.

We had so much fun at our meeting in Sundsvall and learnt so much that we all decided to meet again. The next meeting was in Örnsköldsvik, our home town. It was at that meeting we started to understand what power a council can have. They told us that we can appeal our grades. That means that if we feel that we haven't got the grade that we think that we deserve we can get a second opinion. Students also have the right to be involved in the process of deciding the work schedule for the upcoming year. All and all we were about thirty students from different schools around the north of Sweden and four educators from "The Student Organidsation".

One example of what we do is…our day in the snow…
The tension is unbearable, the morning coldness is searching it's way into the tired competitor's souls. The waiting is dreadful. At last the speaker takes up the microphone, and with a voice, heard by everyone, he calls out the longing words: "The competition can begin!" The sledges are flying down the steep slope, now and then some of the competitors fall over into the snow. One after another the competitors were thrown out of the contest, until the desirable prize cup only stays between the two greatest teams. The cheering was getting louder when the final begun, but the excitement was lost very quickly when the same team won the third year in a row. This competition was arranged by us in the student council and it's called "Snowcup". It took half a day to implement. But the preparation before took much longer.

We do a lot of other things to…!
We also organised so that the students and teachers could send roses and cards to each other at Saint Valentines Day. The student council helped the students to get a computer room, by putting some pressure on our teachers and principle. We did that by name lists on all the people that, like us, wanted to be able to use the computers. We have done a lot of other things too. As you see being in the student council, means having to be very humble.

The finishing touch…
But are these the things we really want to do? No, we want to be the link between the students and the teachers so that if a problem arises, we can be the ones to sort the situation out. We feel that arranging "Snowcup" and roses at Saint Valentines Day is a bit under our standard. We want to do other things, things that matters! We in the student council have agreed that there has to be a change. This is a school for young people, we are the ones that really know our needs, not the school management. We hope that we can be a help for all the students in our school, we hope to matter.