Welcome back HM!

We are so excited for the 2022-2023 school year and to serve as your Community Council (CC) Co-Chairs! For students new to the Upper Division (UD), the CC is a group of students elected to enhance our collective experience at HM through special events and initiatives. Over the summer, we reflected on both what has worked for the CC in past years and how we can improve. Below are some changes that will help us accomplish our goals: to communicate closely with the community, help students’ diverse interests flourish, and tangibly impact student life.

The CC’s current structure — with more members and no class presidents — has only been in place for two years, so we’ve been through a lot of trial and error. Unfortunately, the CC has garnered a reputation for bureaucratic inefficiencies. Using what we have learned, we are modifying the current system, where members are assigned to year-long committees on one area of student life, to make the CC more productive for grade-wide initiatives.

While our initiative-focused committees address issues that affect all UD students, we noticed that without class presidents, UD-wide initiatives were prioritized over grade-level ones. As such, we will increase oversight and accountability for class event planning and allocate more meeting time to discussing grade-specific ideas. Implementing more grade-wide initiatives will expand the CC’s reach and bridge the gaps within each grade’s community, as well as increasing camaraderie and unity by focusing on major high school milestones. Additionally, grade bonding activities and productive grade meetings will help each grade get to know one another.

In addition to our presence in the UD, we hope to extend the CC’s reach beyond the school to impact our Bronx community through collaboration with HM’s network of nonprofits. We will host student-run fundraisers, like bake sales, and give students the opportunity to vote on how to allocate the funds. We hope this will be a unique opportunity for the student body to weigh in on how the school enacts our values of shared responsibility toward a greater goal of bettering our community. 

Next, we want to make ourselves accessible so that the CC truly represents students’ goals. To help us follow through on your ideas, visit our CC page on the HM Student Life website. There, you will find forms for feedback and a formal initiative proposal allowing students to send in ideas for initiatives they want to see around HM. The new structure of the CC was created primarily to serve students’ ideas, and these changes will best allow us to execute them. We encourage you all to use this form to submit your ideas and are always open to brainstorming with you!

We will also keep the student body in the loop through frequent emails. We will share what the CC is up to and highlight club events and sports games in an effort to connect all UD students. If you have something you want to share with the UD, whether it is a personal achievement to celebrate or a competition to support, we encourage you to use the request form on the CC web page. We want to spotlight and broadcast all of your passions and accomplishments and hope we can bring our community closer together with school spirit.

Above all, we want you to tell us your concerns, even if they are not related to a CC initiative — approach us with ideas, feedback, or if you need someone to talk to about life at HM. Although we have forms and electronic platforms to suggest new ideas, we are always available in-person. (This may be biased, but we are very nice and approachable people!) 

Freshmen, we hope you consider running for the CC as grade representatives. The CC is a great way to make an impact on our community and it has helped define both of our lives at HM. Look out for an email from Señor Dalo in the coming weeks for details about candidate platforms and submission instructions. Also, feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about running. 

See you around on campus, and let’s have a great year!