The Ramp-up: Campaigns and Speeches
On Friday, April 19, students had the last chance to make a possibly important decision for their school: Who would be the next student body president?
For two weeks before that decision, candidates started to make an appearance through flyers in the school to let students know that they were running.
One day before the election, six juniors–Fahad Hussain, Karamoko Kaba, Marilyn O’Day, Abigail O’Connor, Solomon Sterling and Rosangely Alvarez (in place of Anabel Suriel)–engaged in three 45 second speeches in front of potential voters before showing campaign videos.
Candidates for the role reflected on their experiences with the speeches they gave and timing was an issue they can all agree was a struggle for them.
Hussain felt that the preparation for the speeches was different for him in the actual moment.
He had prepared his speeches by writing a paragraph for each question even though they only had less than a minute.
“When the time actually came for the ninth graders, cause I didn’t really know them really well, I felt really nervous and a rush through me so I was really stuttering a lot and I was kinda mumbling and jumbling my words a bit,” he said.
Kaba also wanted to share his thoughts regarding the amount of time they had to get their message across.
“That pressure kinda made me fumble up on my thoughts and what I wanted to say, but I was well prepared for this and I’m pretty confident on my chances,” he said after presenting to juniors and sophomores.
O’Day said something similar to Hussain.
“I feel like it went pretty well and I’m grateful we had the opportunity to write down our answers to the questions beforehand, so that made me feel a little more prepared,” she said. “I think the timing did get to everybody especially, but overall I think we did a great job.”
O’Connor said said timing affected what she originally wanted to say.
“I had written down my stuff as well, I just, because we had little time I forgot those little things I was planning to say for each question but I overall shared what I wanted to say,” she said.
Sterling said he did not know speeches were happening beforehand.
“So I figured out that this was happening like a period before it happened, like I didn’t go over advisory slides that this was going to happen, so I was really nervous I wasn’t going to do well but I think I did overall well,” he said. “I think I communicated better as to what I wanted as president to the ninth graders but overall I did good.”
Suriel speaks on her absence during the speeches.
“I had to get my wisdom teeth removed…and that night before, my face swelled up so…I wasn’t comfortable going up in front of everybody,” She said. “So to make things worse everything swelled up and I could speak.”
”A lot of people thought that I had fright of speaking in front of people, at least that what some people told me, but that wasn’t the case,” she said.
Suriel talks about prepping Alvarez for the speeches.
”So beforehand I made a doc of all the questions that they gave us candidates for the Q and A and I basically gave a response for each…I tried to give her answers to the questions to the best of my ability,” she said.
These candidates’ classmates also had thoughts on how the speeches went.
“They gave a lot of great speeches on why they wanted to run for president. I think Marilyn was one that stood out to me,” said sophomore Sebastian Wijaya. “She said she wants us to join more clubs and join PSAL sports.”
Junior Nathaniel Pearson was drawn to other people running.
“I actually liked all of the speeches, I thought they were really great and thoughtful and it kinda really messed up my decisions to see who I choose as president. I really liked Moko’s, it was really really good and also I kinda liked Anabel’s too,” he said.
The Big Announcement: Marilyn O’Day
During eighth period on Friday, April 19, the student body president for the 2024-2025 school year was announced: Marilyn O’Day won.
“I feel good you know, I’m still kinda in shock, I ran against some really, really great candidates and it’s just really rewarding to know that the school that I care about so much supports me and believes in my ability to get the job done, so I’m really grateful,” she said.
O’Day has three main goals she wants to achieve for next year.
“I run my campaign on community service, college help and merch. So those are probably going to be my main focus and then I’m going to focus on fundraising and events,” said O’Day.
She said she wants each grade to have a community-service-focused Google Classroom where students can learn about volunteer opportunities.
O’Day also wants to utilize BCCHS’s alumni network to help her peers with the college process.
She reflected on the start of her presidency with other elected students such as event planners and student advocates.
”I’m really excited to be working with all the people who also got elected, I think it’s going to be great,” she said. “I think the energy of the people who are in student gov is just contagious and I think it’s going to spread around the school and it’s going to be great.”
