To the students of Cistercian Preparatory School,

I want to give you all my sincerest thanks for electing me to lead you all next year as the Student Body President. For the past three years, I’ve seen many past presidents make empty promises that are never fulfilled. My first promise to you all is that I will not make that mistake. I will work tirelessly for you, and every goal I have will be of benefit to you the students first and everyone else second. I can happily say that the new council has already made headway in adopting new policies and establishing new trends that everyone will get to enjoy for many years to come! Of course, you’d expect that with new ideas some old traditions are bound to be left behind, but I want to assure everyone, that will not be the case.

For starters, the Black Hand seems to be mostly made up of members of the varsity sports teams and are only able to lead their fellow players on the field. Don’t get me wrong, we need strong leadership on the field but what we also really need is strong leadership in the stands. The few who inspire the crowd to chant all of our original battle cries at the opposing team should be recognized for their leadership as well. So my second motion is this: I will make sure that the Black Hand has dedicated leaders who will lead pep rallies and chants in the stands for all sports. And this applies to more than just football. I want to see more turnout to our sports games in the Winter and Spring and reward you for your participation. With this in mind I will have more school events such as tournaments and after parties throughout the school year. I plan to have at least three more after parties during the winter, including introducing the first ever official student tailgate before a Soccer game so we can cheer for our soccer team! Along with the parties, I will start hosting competitions during half times that will give out prizes such as enough money to buy your Whataburger after the game.We should be a united student body and we need to make sure SPC schools know that we are the best school in the conference both at home and on their own fields. That starts with filling the stands with the largest number of loud fans this side of the Rio Grande.

My final promise to you all is my biggest one. I would like to start investing time, resources, and money in sponsoring new clubs for Upper School. These clubs can be of any interest or purpose. Those interests may be a Ping Pong club, a book club, or even a Super Smash Brothers club. The more you guys show interest in something, the more student council will do everything it can to get it off the ground. We only ask that clubs have at least four members when first founded, have a teacher sponsor for the club, (which the council will gladly assist you in finding), and most importantly have the ability to host a workshop, discussion, or event that students are invited to attend or help participate in. To help start up interest in these clubs, I will dedicate one Friday, once Homecoming is over, to host a School Club fair. This way the new upper schoolers and those of you who decide to have a change a pace can go see all the clubs Cistercian has to offer and start getting involved in their activities as well as ask for registration of a new club if there are no clubs to your liking. Clubs can be founded at any time so do not worry if you can’t register at the fair.

With the new decade ahead of us, I hope to have started a new era of Cistercian life for all of its students and community members. You all gave me this responsibility and I promise I will not let you down.  You all come first and if any one of you has a question, comment, or concern, please tell one of your student council representatives or me personally and we will act on them immediately. I’m very excited for the year to come and I hope that I have shown you all enough to share that excitement with me!

Thank you,

AJ Sklar, The Student Body President