What does the student government do? Student government is a class where Milwaukie High School students do a lot of things like plan dances, plan, set up and run blood drives, help with homecoming week, plan assemblies, and more. To get in, the students have to apply and then be selected by the student body.

Kelsey Balint is the teacher for student government. She taught it for 3 years at a school in Arizona and this is her first year teaching it at Milwaukie High School. There are not very many differences, the overall goal is to make the school and its environment a better place. The kinds of things the student government does are run blood drives, run all homecoming week events, run Milwauike cares week, holiday family adoption, along with the winter formal, the spring fling, prom, and assemblies. Balint says that the student government is 100 percent helpful to have. ¨Even the most connected teachers don’t have a pulse on what students want and need…having a student voice is really important.¨

Jody Iverson is the 9th-grade counselor for Milwaukie High School. This is her first year working here, but from what she’s seen they plan lots of events and ¨gives the students an outlet to share their views with how the school is run and how it should be run.¨ Iverson appreciates the student government because they set up events that take a lot of bodies to complete. Events like food drives, blood drives, and holiday family help would be harder to do without the help of the student government. These events are so important because they help the school and city community and help people in need.

Sam Thielke is a sophomore who has been in student government since her freshman year. She says that the student government can be lots of work depending on your position, but says student government is helpful for the school and without it, most stuff around the school wouldn’t happen. Thielke encourages people to join the student government, saying ¨We can use all the people we can get!¨

Aviendha Fuehrer is a freshman member of the student government who has helped with events during homecoming week, run passes for the blood drive, helped with the school’s Instagram, and helped with registration. She was there for the student government retreat and said she liked it a lot. During the retreat, they did a lot of icebreakers to get to know each other which were then used for the freshman during Making A Mustang Day. If Fuehrer could give her younger self advice about joining the student government she would tell herself ¨Don’t stress out too much about it.¨

The student government helps not only with things around the school like dances and assemblies, but it also helps the community with things like registration, blood drives, donations, and holiday help. Without the student government, the dynamic around Milwaukie High School would change and events that take a lot of bodies would not be able to happen.