Leadership in the Era of COVID: An Inside View from the NCS President and the Vice President

Ariana Lotfi '21 and Sophie Graf '21

As the new school year approached, the NCS Student Government coordinated with the faculty sponsors to reimagine the year’s agenda. Our primary goal was to unite the student body and create excitement for this school year, and we had to adapt our approach in order to achieve these goals. Despite the virtual setting, we were able to start off the year with a Nest Activity. For those who don’t know, the Nest Program is a cross-grade initiative where the 9 th graders are paired with 11 th graders and 10 th graders are paired with 12 th graders. During the Upper School Student Government Assembly, we dedicated the majority of our time together to a Nest activity where Nest pairs were organized into groups so that they could get to know each other better. This virtual activity was definitely more difficult to coordinate compared to an in-person event because of the technological logistics, but the faculty provided a tremendous amount of support and cooperation which made the planning easier. We have received feedback and ideas from both faculty and students about the event, which we will integrate into our future events. We are planning to host more Nest activities throughout the year, so we hope all of the NCS upper schoolers are excited!

Furthermore, as many of you remember, last Spring, the NCS Dean of Student Life, Ms.
Clark, hosted an “End of Week Celebration” Zoom on Fridays at 3:30 pm. This time provided a
relaxing opportunity for the NCS Upper School to come together for a few laughs after a long
week. This year, the Student Government will host these weekly celebrations and plan fun activities to engage both teachers and students. We look forward to seeing students from different grades engaging with one another and the greater NCS community during these times.

Even before remote learning began in the spring, Student Government began brainstorming how to work with the administration to lighten the homework load for students. Given our virtual environment, the Student Government believes that it is now more important than ever for students to share their suggestions to the NCS administration about reducing the amount of homework and screen time. With this in mind, Student Government is in the process of submitting a proposal (to be applicable to both remote and in-person settings) to request that
each class have one weekend without any homework per quarter. We hope that through Student Government’s dialogue with the faculty, we can reiterate the need for enforcing the daily homework time limit and the understanding that rigor is not equivalent to a heavy homework load.

Despite the occasional ~dead silence~ in meetings, Student Government is in awe of how student leaders have creatively reimagined their roles in the Upper School, and we can’t wait to
plan more events to bring the whole school together! If any NCS student has any suggestions or ideas for Student Government this year, please do not hesitate to contact any of the members! We want to hear your ideas and opinions!!