Daniel Jung & Ryan Lee for Stuyvesant Sophomore Caucus
Transparency Inclusivity Progression
Events
One of our campaign’s central ideas is progression, in other words, we want to continue and build off previous caucuses. Events have always been a successful trend in caucuses and we do not intend to change that. We believe that it is important to host events, not just because of the funds that they raise, but because they give our peers a chance to have fun and unwind with their friends, which is especially important because of COVID-19. Furthermore, because of our current situation, a majority of our events will have to be online. However, we intend on making the best out of this unfortunate circumstance. We’re hoping having online events will lend us some extra leeway with the administration. Finally, we will survey the students on their preferences for the types of events and speakers they prefer.
Local Businesses
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a massive toll on the local businesses in the Tribeca area. This neighborhood, however, is one of the most critical parts of the Stuyvesant experience and we believe that it is important to give back to this community. To achieve this, we plan on contacting local businesses within the Tribeca area to acquire discounts, and as a result, incentivize students to visit and support our local establishments. These partnerships will help local establishments on their road to recovery and well as benefiting our peers, because who doesn’t like saving money? Although the pandemic has made us lose parts of community interaction that we all value, our campaign knows that the pandemic will force us to look inward to form a stronger community, even when we can’t physically interact. These steps we are taking are our way of saying thank you to the many people and businesses that make Stuyvesant a place that we all love.
Newsletter
One of our caucus’ main arches is transparency and full communication with the student body. We believe that the best way to uphold such transparency is through the use of a bi-weekly newsletter. This newsletter will detail what the caucus is currently working on, events coming up, art and writing competitions, and the special achievements of students and clubs or teams. One challenge that we may face is getting students to open and read the newsletter. We plan to poll the students on the formatting of the newsletter they are most comfortable with, whether that be a pdf or one converted to an email. In addition to this, we will incentivize students to read the letter by including relevant information, competitions, interesting articles written by students, events, and new discounts available for students.
Rainy Days
As Stuyvesant students, we all face many difficulties throughout our days, like that one teacher who gives too much homework or that locker that just doesn’t quite close. We believe that walking home in the rain shouldn’t be another stress on our shoulders. Through Project Rainy Days, we will rent umbrellas to our peers of the sophomore class for $1.00 per day. The students would then return the umbrellas on the next day. And in order to keep track of the distribution of umbrellas, we will use a scanner to record the student’s OSIS, name, and proof of purchase. To coordinate the caucus members who will distribute the umbrellas, we will use a rotation and contact system. Although we will not be able to implement this project until the spring, we will prepare for the spring by testing a variety of umbrellas, setting up a payment and distribution system, and buying the umbrellas.
Study Guides
As students of Stuyvesant, we know that studying is arguably one of the most important aspects of Stuy, and study guides can be very beneficial. However, many students find it hard to spend time making study guides for all of their classes. With this policy, we intend to help our peers by acquiring study guides from our upperclassmen. To incentivize the submission of study guides, those who send in their guides will be entered into a raffle to win a gift card. In addition to asking upperclassmen for study guides, we also plan to ask our fellow sophomores for their study guides so that we may work with the freshmen caucus to aid our underclassmen in their studies. And of course, the sophomores who submit study guides will be entered in a separate raffle for a gift card. To ensure our study guides are seen and received by all our peers, we will display them on our website, as well as announce whenever we receive another.
Coming In Early
The Coming In Early Policy will allow students to return to the building after leaving for their free or lunch periods, not just after the warning bell rings, but throughout the entire period. Because this policy has been shut down many times when brought up by the previous caucuses, we have contacted and plan to work closely with the administration to create a trial period. The trial would take place over a week, in which the scanners would be placed so students can both exit and enter throughout the period. In the event that we are not able to enact this policy, we will continue to pave the way for future caucuses to one day enact the Coming In Early Policy.
Little Things
The Little Things policy is not so much a policy as it is a guarantee to our fellow students that we strive for professionalism. Caucuses in the past have let the students down far too often with small mistakes, often failing even to correct them later. We believe that these seemingly small mistakes are a crucial part in shaping the view of the Student Union in the eyes of the students, so we are making it a priority to make as little silly mistakes as possible in everything we do, whether that be newsletters, events, or implementation of our policies. We plan on achieving this with multiple rereads by different editors because we believe that professionalism in Stuyvesant and the Student Union should be a top priority.
Mini Policies
Mini policies are smaller policies that, while no less important than any of our other policies, do not take a full two pages to write up as they are either self-explanatory, a continuation of a previous caucuses’ policy, or only need to be explained briefly. Our mini policies are:
Speaker Series: The SU invites speakers to come and give lectures. Due to COVID, they will be hosted over Zoom.
More Merchandise: We want to give students more options on merch: Popsockets, laptop stickers, wristbands.
Suggestion Form- An online form in place of a “suggestion box” where students can leave anonymous comments about the performance of the caucus.
Student Resources: We want to expand the StuySU textbook list as well as work on fixing StuyApollo.
Inter-Caucus/SU Relations: We want to attempt larger projects that cannot be achieved by one singular caucus, so we want to work with the SU as a whole.
COVID Policies
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all students switched to fully-remote learning, which had various negative consequences on the quality of education for many students. Although some of us are returning to school quite soon, most students are still opting to stay home, and with our COVID policies, we aim to help both parties. Even though some students may be going to school, the majority of their time will still be spent on online learning. Many of the issues that students faced during remote learning were related to the ways that teachers structured their classes. Although we do not have the power to force teachers to abide by strict guidelines, we aim to work with the administration and the SU in order to try our best to enact our policies.
Recording + Uploading Live Lectures: Many students say that they have missed live lectures before so teachers recording and posting their live lessons would help students who missed a meeting or just want to review.
Lesson Plans: A more achievable alternative would be to ask teachers to upload their lesson plans for students who may have missed the meeting or just want to review.
Chain of Communication: Although there already exists a chain of communication for students to report various problems, during quarantine, many students opted to ask Julian and Vishwaa for help instead. We aim to continue this practice and add two more representatives to help the sophomores.
Cabinet Structure
Every caucus has almost free reign in how they design and run their cabinet. We believe that a properly run cabinet is a crucial part of a successful and effective cabinet. That’s why we have already begun to plan out how we will operate as a caucus. More importantly, we also believe that it is important to be transparent to the student body, and this transparency extends to how we will operate our cabinet.
