Meet Your Student Council
by Laasya Kandula and
Katherine Du
November 1, 2021
by Laasya Kandula and
Katherine Du
November 1, 2021
The results are in, and our student council has been chosen.
The student council election took place on Thursday, October 14th during class. Students were given ballots and were told to vote for two candidates for their co-presidents, and one candidate for their student senator. Thanks to the election, our current student council co-presidents are Maram El-Sharif, and Pagalavan Sivakumar, and our student senator is Yanni Dai.
Maram El-Sharif
Our co-president, Maram, has quite the experience in roles of leadership, as she is the co-head of the McCrae Mosaic, a Key Club exec from 2019-2020 and an important member of the OCDSB Black Youth Forum 2021. She has many plans for exciting events and spirit days, proper electronic waste disposal, tutoring programs and much more which you can find on her Instagram @maram.coprez. Maram values student input about the school, and you are always welcome to reach out and contact her on Instagram or by email about issues you feel would be important to discuss with her. She’s interested in reading memoirs and computer science, and would describe herself as ambitious and someone who has leadership skills.
As Co-Pres of the JMSS Student Council, Maram would like to “improve communication between Stud-Co and our student body by making info about events and activities more accessible for students. This includes: Google Classrooms for each grade with daily announcement posted (So every can stay in the loop), a document with all the clubs at our school (Club info and meeting times will all be in one place), a Student Tutoring Program where tutors can receive volunteer hours and to bring back Battle of the Grades for spirit events to encourage general student body participation”.
Maram says she “felt very grateful to the JMSS student body for choosing me to represent them.” “I am honoured to be their Co-Prez and will do my best to amplify their voices and make their suggestions a reality. I am excited to put my goals into motion working in collaboration with the rest of Stud-Co. Although I know there are many restrictions in terms of what Stud-Co can organize, I hope to make this year a little less stressful and a little more enjoyable!”
Pagalavan Sivakumar
As co-president of the JMSS Student Council, Pagalavan believes strongly in stress free learning, and has plans as co-president to make learning more enjoyable and less stressful for mental health. These plans include question forums for anonymous or public involvement and discord servers designated by class for peer to peer learning. You can reach out to him on his Instagram @pagalavan_sivakumar, or communicate by email. Pagalavan considers himself to be someone very outgoing who enjoys programming, playing basketball, soccer and video games with his friends.
When asked on what he plans on doing in the future to improve the school, Pagalavan believes “the school really lacks a connection between peers outside the classroom and I wish to develop services like a tutoring service that allows students to help each other with their academics in a stress free way. Additionally, the students will gain volunteer hours for helping each other!”
Yanni Dai
Our student senator Yanni will represent our school on a board level. She also has quite the experience, being involved in the JMSS Debate Club, SDG, and as iLeap Club Facilitator. Her plans as student senator include advocating for important emails to be sent to both parents and students, and she promises to use her platform in an informative and supportive way. If you would like to reach out to her, you can contact her on her Instagram @yanni.studentsenator or through school email. Outside of school, Yanni enjoys debate, snowboarding and reading non fiction books.
A common problem in school Yanni intends on fixing are ones that revolve around mental health, and “working in ways to help that. A student has suggested a dedicated safe space when you're having anxiety attacks or panic attacks''. She became interested in becoming student senator because it is her senior year and she “wanted to be more involved with school spirit and activities… The reason I chose to run for student senator is that I think it’s a really unique role where you get to meet people from all over the school board, and I really thought it was a valuable learning experience.”
Yanni believes that “running for an elected position is a game of guts. Lots of people are qualified but are too scared to run. I think the reason I’m a good fit was just that I chose to go for it and put in lots of effort. All we were required to do was film a 30 secs campaign video but I made sure to make an Instagram post, important info about the elections there etc. and I think even if you didn’t know me, if you saw my campaign account you would see the effort.”
Sara Hamri
We also have our Grade 9 representative, Sara. You can contact her through the school email.
She likes to spend her free time doing judo and reading books.
Sara believes she is the best person for the job because she can be “described as charismatic and I believe that that’s a characteristic a good representative should have”. She says she chose to become a grade nine representative because “it looks good on my résumé but it’s mostly because I have lots of fun with the Student Council.”