North Arlington High School held its set of student elections! These included the annual elections of the Student Council as well as the Junior Class officers. 

While all voting had to take place virtually, both elections still included campaigning for their candidates. The Class of ’22 had its participants create their own videos including presentations or speeches, detailing who they were and what positions they were running for — which would later be shared with the rest of the class. In addition to a video, the Student Council had their candidates make posters, presentations, and speeches in order to more widely share information. All of these digital assignments were shared and spread out to members of the student body and faculty over the weeks leading up to the “Election Day” of each group.

Shortly afterward, the results came in! In the Junior Class Election, Carolina Mejia took up the role of Class President, in addition to Brian Kataro as Vice President & Historian, Gabe deLeon as Secretary, Gabriella Kaminski as Treasurer, Angelina Torres as Media Specialist, and Amy Roufaeil as Event Coordinator. When questioned as to what she would do as President, Carolina responded by saying, “I plan on jumping right into things and starting fundraising! I think even in quarantine we could be doing a lot — we definitely missed a lot of time last year so we really need to get to business. I hope regardless of the circumstances, we can still throw some events together whether they be virtual or socially distanced! I’d also like to make some changes to student government as a whole and promote its importance more within the school —maybe work with younger classes to show that they can make a change too!” Carolina was cheerful and optimistic as to what the future holds despite the circumstances.

Then, of course, there are the results of the school-wide Student-Council election, in which Nicholas Rotondo won his re-election as President — as did Vice President Aidan Hughes and Historian Anna Lasek. New additions to the board included Treasurer Katia Santos, Secretary Hailey Rolon, and Event Coordinator Anamaria Mendes. Nick Rotondo also had a comment as to his aspirations for this school year, in which he expressed, “My goals are to just continue to make NAHS more than just a place to learn by serving as an outlet for everyone to share their voices and take advantage of the resources we have to offer in order to best provide assistance to everyone’s future endeavors.  Also, I just want to say that we just need to keep remaining the strong Vikings we are and we will soon face the light at the end of this tunnel that has been COVID-19.” Nick is looking for a collaborative community effort in order to overcome these difficult times.

The Junior Class and Student Council advisors were also impressed and proud of the candidates and their efforts in campaigning digitally, as junior class advisor Mrs. Albuquerque commented, “The class elections went smoothly. Nothing equates to the candidates delivering their speeches in-person to their peers; however, all of the candidates did an excellent job putting together virtual presentations/recordings!” Student Council advisor Mrs. Barber stated, “The concept of going digital for this year’s election was always a consideration with our current circumstances. When the Student Council first began brainstorming in August, we were hopeful that by the fall, restrictions would ease up. Obviously, for the safety of everyone involved, we agreed to launch the first-ever fully virtual election campaign, and we’re so proud of our students and how easily they adapted to these circumstances.”

Congratulations to the candidates who ran and won the elections!