It is an honor, and gives me great pleasure, to introduce the Student Council section of the MCSM RamPage. The mission of this section is solely to inform the students of Manhattan Center about their class representatives, the goals they have for each grade, the whole school, and the important things that are brought up during meetings. As most of us are unaware of those who are representing our grade levels, getting to know them better will also allow us to communicate with them and let them know what changes we would like to see. As the years change, so will our representatives. We intend to target the positive aspects of each story we publish regarding our council.
Thank you,
Beverly Danquah, Editor-in-Chief, MCSM RamPage
Henri Louis Merino: We, the Senior Student Council of Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, are the official representative body for all students in our school. Our mission is to empower the student body to improve students’ overall educational experience in MCSM. We will do so by collaboratively working with the administration and teachers. This year, the council is comprised of students from many different cultures, races, religions, and ethnicities; as varied as the school itself. They come with many ideas to improve the school and make this the best senior year ever. Our goal is to differentiate ourselves from past senior councils and change the way we interact with each other. We are in the final stages of making a website that will be used to acquire your input throughout the year. The website will contain one or multiple surveys at a time. For example, “Suggestions and Complaints” is a survey composed of multiple-choice questions in order to figure out what kind of category the complaint or suggestion is for; and a text area in order to write the suggestion or complaint. Events to promote school spirit will be supported in order to have an entertaining and fun senior year. These events will create a good balance between work and entertainment. Senior year will be the last time we see each other after 4 long years and we must make the best of it to both improve our senior year and the future senior years.
Hello, my name is Stefanie Reyes and I am the vice president of the senior council for the class of 2015. I am Dominican but was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. I was also the previous co-president of the junior council. I am also a member of our schools ASPIRA club and the current president of the ASPIRA Club Federation of New York. I decided to run for senior council because it’s our last year at Manhattan Center and I wanted to be able to represent my classmates and make it the best year we’ve had at this school. I was a member of the junior council last school year and I feel that we didn’t really have a strong cabinet and that we didn’t do the most that we could for our class so hopefully this year we can make some changes.Since senior year contains many events and requires many decisions to be made, I want every class member to have an input on the decisions that are made. In order to do this, I am hoping to start a new online system, with the help of my cabinet members, where every student can vote on the decisions that have to be made such as voting on a design for the senior hoodies, the location of our prom, our senior trip, our senior luncheon, our theme days and so on. This way every student can feel like they have a voice in our decisions. Overall, I am hoping that this will be a very successful and productive year for our student body while still being able to have a little fun!
Hello Manhattan Center students! Most of you may know me but for those of you who don’t my name is Geraldin Diaz. I am lucky enough to be Secretary of this year’s Senior Council. My reasoning behind running was my strong leadership skills and my desire to put them to the test this year. I am also excited to work with strong, like-minded individuals to make this the best senior year any of us will ever have (hopefully). I want everyone in the Class of 2015 to succeed in whatever career path they go down. I want to have workshops this year informing the senior class about important things they need to know before we finalize our applications for colleges. I’m pretty sure that many of my peers are procrastinating and will wait until the last minute to get started on the college process. This is why I want to have a workshop informing the seniors how to create a Common App, how to use it and how it works. I also want to have a resume building workshop. One final seriously important workshop that I hope happens is College Essay writing. I feel that students will find these tools useful later on in life. Now to get to the fun stuff, I will push for an overnight senior trip. The Class of 2015 has earned this trip by working hard these past 3 years and we will work even harder this year. I would love to try something different this year and switch up the prom location. I want to have super fun events, such as Spirit Week, Dress for Success Day, Pajama Day and other events that make us bond as a class since it is our last year in Manhattan Center. At the end of the day, I just want everyone to have a smooth sailing senior year. Class of 2015 let’s make this the best senior year ever.
Hey everyone! My name is Cristina Cruceta. I’m a 17-year-old Latina who’s hardworking and ambitious. I love to be funny, make others smile and help out as much as I can. I was born in the U.S and went to the Dominican Republic at 8 months. I came to U.S at the age of 5 knowing only Spanish and I had to learn English and sign language at the same time. My mom is deaf and mute which is why I had to educate myself in sign language. I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I’m fluent in both and I’m very proud of myself. I’m also involved in the NYPD Explorers Program which helps me get involved with the community. I ran for the Community Chair position in ASPIRA, and not to mention I was also captain of the bench for the softball team for 2 whole years…so many of you guys may not even know me but that’s okay, I’m not mad because I had fun! My goal for the senior class of 2015 is to be able to create a long-lasting memory in everyone’s hearts. I ran for class representative so that I can be able to incorporate everyone’s ideas into the meetings that I will be attending. I’m an open-minded individual and so I would love to hear everyone’s opinions/ideas/thoughts whether it’s big or small. I plan to do a lot of things for our senior year. I’ve been planning to be a part of the senior student council since the 8th grade. I always wanted my last year of high-school to be special, so, I decided to run and be involved in senior council so I can make sure for myself that I help make that happen. It’ll be our last year in MCSM and we’re going to live it up!
My name is Mariatou Jatta and I am your junior student council president. My reasoning for running for junior council president includes my passion to encourage change, the opportunity to work with other people who have a desire to make a change, and further developing my leadership skills. As junior council president, I plan to serve as a middleman between students and the MCSM faculty/staff. My goal is to serve as an outlet for students and to make sure their voices are heard. As president, I aim to introduce new ideas to school faculty and the other councils to ensure that we, the students, are getting what we want and need. Junior year is usually a busy and stressful year in high school. Another reason I ran for junior council president is to try and help juniors feel less stressed and get through the year as stress-free, and as productively as possible. A few of my proposed changes concern the stairways, bathrooms, and after-school tutoring. I plan on trying to make the stairways and bathrooms more sanitary. There should be more student-led tutoring groups after school. This way, we students can help engage our fellow classmates in student-planned lessons. Now, I don’t plan on making all of my ideas educational, we students still need to enjoy ourselves. I plan on holding fundraisers to help fund events such as an open mic/poetry reading, a movie night, a morp (a dance for underclassmen), a spirit week, or even a theme day that raises awareness for current issues in the world. I am excited to be president because I love hearing other people’s ideas and would love to be a part of helping those ideas come to life. I cannot wait to work with the other council members this school year. I know that together we will make junior year as great as possible. As president, I can’t guarantee that we will get everything we want, but I and the other student council members will try our best to make sure that student requests are heard. I was a part of the freshman and sophomore council so I am experienced and plan on utilizing what I learned to make my voice heard. This year is going to be great and I know that if we, the juniors, are all cooperative and supportive of each other, the opportunities are endless.
My name is Mariam Abalo-Toga. I was born in the United States to parents from Togo, West Africa. I was inspired to run for president of the sophomore council because I observed that the underclassmen were not given much opportunity to voice their opinion. School officials would look to the upper classmen for input on decisions that would affect the student body as a whole. I also wanted to represent the freshman population; just because they do not have a council does not mean they do not get an opportunity to be heard. As president I plan to change the way underclassmen are viewed in our school setting. Although they are lower in class they have just as much of a say in what takes place at OUR school.