The class at MHS is a leadership class is working towards turning their class into an official Associated Student Body class so their students can have the power to make decisions on behalf of the student body. This process is slow and time-consuming, but on May 13, the class’s constitution will be taken to the Constitutional Convention which will determine the fate of the class.

Leadership Advisor Sati Shah said that the class does everything a typical ASB class does however they do not have the power to do what they want which is lead the school by making sure the students are happy.

“Right now, what we have at the school is an unorganized ASB and what that means is that the final control over what happens with the decisions that the leadership class makes really fall onto the MHS principal,” Shah said. “In an organized ASB, there’s a much more formal process where the student council with the backing of the whole student body have much more decision making power.”

The class has existed for 3 years and the idea/desire to create a Constitution started from the middle of last year and the class has been working really hard on making it a reality.

“As of now, we plan all of the events at Millennium high school and we spend a fair amount of time talking about school culture and ways to influence school culture and create a positive environment,” Shah said.

The Constitutional convention is a meeting of all of MHS’s leadership class members, Mr. Shah, some of the MHS faculty, principal Ting Hsu, some parents, district administrators, and school board members. They will all get together after they have reviewed the constitution and prepare questions about the constitution, while student council’s job is to defend why they wrote the constitution the way they did. At the end of the convention, there will be a vote among all of the people whether or not to ratify the constitution. Finally, if the document is ratified the class officially becomes ASB.

The constitution is broken up into three parts: the preamble, main body, and the bylaws.

The preamble is a relatively short statement about the purpose of the Millennium high school Associated Student Body that talks about the ideals they believe in and the things they think are important to a successful school. Then there’s the main body of the constitution which is an outline of the way the student council and student body will conduct itself as an organization. Finally, the Bylaws are the rules for how the student council will do its business and how the whole student association will participate in the decision-making that the student body does.

Principal of MHS Ting Hsu said this can change the environment of the school and how people think about Millennium as a whole.

“I think when students come to Millennium High School, an alternative high school, we are one of the only alternative high schools that feels truly like a school,” Hsu said, “When you walk in, kids are in their classes and not wandering around and are just instructed differently.”

This is not just a change in the power of one class but it also has an impact on MHS as well. Leadership class president senior Maddie Appel said this can level the playing field between MHS and PHS in that they now have a voice.

“I think it’s boosting the morale of our class. Just because we only have 80 kids and our class only has 15 people, we can still have as much say in what goes on around us as a school of 800 kids,” Appel said.

Hsu also said that the community will be introduced to the school’s ability to exist under a student driven ASB.

“It shows that we have a cohesive group of kids that’s willing to work for the school and make it a better place. This is what the class represents,” Hsu said

Shah said this is a huge win for the student body and it gives them the representation they deserve.

“I think within the PHS school community it shows that millennium is really serious about student-centered education, empowering students to think about what’s best for them and make decisions based on that,” Shah said.

At the same time, the leadership class plans on accomplishing this task without a huge amount of teacher involvement.

“The whole millennium community is really excited about the work that the leadership class is doing and that we are all very proud of them that they decided to take this step and tis really been a student driven thing,” Shah said.