Student leaders chosen for upcoming year

BY ANISHA MONDAL

Marking the end of the school year, graduating seniors from The Octagon, Medallion and Student Council have chosen their student leaders for 2023-2024.

The Octagon is Country Day’s student-run newspaper that publishes eight print issues annually and exclusive online content on its website for everyone to access.

Junior Lauren Lu and sophomores Ava Eberhart and Garrett Xu are replacing the current print editors-in-chief, seniors Simone DeBerry and Garman Xu, and the online editors-in-chief, seniors Samhita Kumar and Adam Akins. Bonnie Stewart, the adviser of The Octagon, is retiring at the end of this school year.

Junior Siri Atluri will be in charge of The Octagon’s new position: Director of Technology. Atluri will be responsible for managing the Octagon’s website and ensuring that stories are posted online in a timely fashion.

“We’ve decided to have Siri be in charge of operating the website and making sure it runs smoothly because that’s been a problem in the past,” DeBerry said.

The upcoming EICs will manage content for both the print and online platforms.

“By merging online and print leadership, students will be able to work better together,” Deberry said. “If these three are responsible for both sections, they’ll be able to give each section more weight because they’re sharing that responsibility.”

Eberhart is happy that the EICs will no longer have specific online and print roles.

“Since now we only have three EICs it would be very helpful to have everyone work together,” Eberhart said.

Eberhart’s goal is to get articles in on time. She wants to make sure that pasteups, the week where page editors design the pages of the print issues, goes smoother for next year’s page editors.

“I also want to make sure that no one feels left out and that people get articles and points when they need it,” Eberhart said.

Final semester grades for the Octagon are calculated as a percentage of points students earn by writing stories, taking pictures and designing pages.

At the Medallion, a yearlong elective dedicated to creating the yearbook, editors-in-chief seniors Amaya Anguiano and Jackson Fox selected three sophomores to take over: London Hoffart, Priya Chand and Manny Biddle. Melissa Strong will be returning as the Medallion’s adviser.

Anguiano said her, Strong and Fox collectively chose the new leaders based on their ability to lead.

“They all stepped up and worked on a lot of design,” Anguiano said. “Whenever we ask who wants to design a spread, London’s always the one volunteering.”

Anguiano is proud of the work that the staff completed this year and is confident that the new EICs will succeed in leading the rest of the staff to create next year’s yearbook design.

Biddle plans to change the structure of how work is assigned.

“This year everyone was asked to do one spread,” Biddle said. “We plan to change it so that it’s more of a collaborative thing.”

Although he is sad to see the seniors go, Biddle is excited to take on the role of an EIC.

“I think the work might be more challenging, but it’s also something I enjoy,” Biddle said.

Biddle recognized freshman Claire Gemmell for being the only freshman who would be an editor next year.

“She’s becoming a design editor, which is really exciting because her designs this year were really good,” Biddle said.

The Student Council, which handles organizing high school events, is going through leadership changes, too.

President senior Jonah David and vice president senior Callister Misquitta chose juniors Harper Livesey and Brooke Barker to be student body president and vice president respectively next year. Garrett will return as the Director of Communications, and Atluri, sophomores Saheb Gulati and Griffin Misquitta will be the new Directors of Finance.

Student Council adviser and computer science teacher Charles Farris prompted the new student leaders to assume the top leadership roles immediately.

Livesey, Barker and Garrett are taking over the weekly Wednesday and Friday morning meeting announcements. Callister said that the students made their choices based on leadership experience and involvement in Student Council. He considered how they worked in groups and how involved they were in Student Council.

“I think next year will be a fun year for everybody because I know they are very involved with Student Council and they are going to make sure to plan events all the time,” Callister said.