New STUCO presidents looking to voice the students' issues

Last week, the student body elections were held in the High School, and current 11th graders Yu Sung Eo and Kritika Deb were voted as next year's student council (STUCO) presidents. Having been Woodstock students for several years, both the new presidents have shown ambition in voicing the students' concerns over the next year.

Yu Sung, who is from South Korea, joined Woodstock as a 7th grader. He was an ESL student back then and could barely speak any English - he has worked hard over the past five years to not only become competent in the language but also take up several leadership positions. He has had recent STUCO experience as the co-president of the Assembly Planning committee this semester.

Kritika, from New York (USA), joined Woodstock in just the fourth grade. "Ever since in Elementary School, I saw how the High-Schoolers were allowed to campaign and run for leadership positions," said Kritika, "In 8th grade, we were allowed to vote for the STUCO president, and I started to grow interested. I have been here a long time and care a lot for Woodstock - I would like to help the school the best I can."

Both of them admit that one of the main concerns amongst the student body is a lack of structured communication between the students themselves and between the students and the staff. "We want more interaction amongst all the students so that they get to know each other better," Yu Sung says, "And our challenge is to make staff more accessible to students so that students don't feel that they can't easily approach them."

From the next academic year, Woodstock will introduce a new two-school model, where ECP-Grade 6 will be the Junior School and Grades 7-12 the Senior School. The future presidents agree that accommodating this model could be a challenge and issues such as bullying would have to be addressed early. Kritika added that: "Bullying is less of an issue now than it used to be before, and we would like to make sure that this trend continues, hopefully through more peer mediation programmes to help the students know each other better."

Another major concern was the STUCO body itself, which Yu Sung felt wasn't efficient enough because of its large number. He hopes to empower and strengthen STUCO by reducing its members so that only committee presidents and class governors are in the deciding council - the other representatives would meet separately at their own level.