Russell Coniff For President
Hello, and welcome to my online campaign headquarters! Right off the bat, there are some things you need to know about me. Lets have a list, shall we?
--Things to know about Russell--
Russell...
believes in America1
believes in YOU2
believes in OHS3
loves Apple Pie4
loves flags5
would kiss your baby6, shake your hand7 or sign your campaign flyer8
is adamantly opposed to deregulation of Ukrainian coal exportation (as first proposed in Plenary session 37b) to post-Soviet quasi-states until the Balkans Economic Council (BEC) concludes its investigations into the relationship between local petrochemical concerns and the regional military junta. He feels very strongly about this.
--(Kinda)Serious Stuff--
Well, good, that's out of the way. I suppose you'd like to know a little bit about my life, what I've done at OHS and what I'd like to do, so let's get on that. I was born and still live in San Diego, California which is nice, but slightly disappointing because it doesn't offer me much in the way of an awesome accent. For that, please see my local campaign staffer Calvin Burkhart. He's the one diverting money from my campaign treasury to his sketchy investments in 3rd world countries and secret CIA slush funds. Great guy, Calvin. Besides from a few interesting years training in the way of the ninja9, I imagine my life's been like a lot of yours and thats why I'm in OHS. I've seen public schools, secular and religious private schools10 and even tried with community college for a while. Some were better fits than others, but I wasn't really satisfied with any of them. One day, I found out about OHS, signed up and I've been fairly happy ever since. See, teachers did a lot for my education and we've got some pretty good ones here, but what I found set my experience at OHS apart from my time at other schools was how the rest of the school was, how you were. I will sound corny<11, but the school is special and its because of the student body more than anything. We all actually like learning, we're good at learning and a lot of other things, and I imagine most of you hate being slowed down; by teachers, by other students, but poor and repeated usage of commas... Anyways, that's what my campaign and my government would aim to be about. You're smart enough to make good decisions and so I'd make it easier for you to. The Constitution Committee was able to open up a lot of the student government for these elections and if elected, I'd carry it further.
--The First Month Agenda--
Right now, there are 13 formal positions in student government. I believe I could double that in my first month in office with new (and very useful) committees, deputy positions and real incentives to join the Student Government General Assembly.
The first thing on my government's agenda would be creating a committee of student services to provide mentor programs and organize group study sessions. This would fill a rather big hole in our school and fix the rather hit or miss way study sessions were handled last year.
Going to school online obviously doesn't afford nearly as many opportunities to hang out as a regular school would. Ideally this is partially off-set by enjoyment of the classes and your own work at finding fun things to do, but lets be realistic. I aim to create an Executive Senate-level committee to manage clubs and competitions in the online high school. Hopefully, once the position's created and the committee filled out, anyone that wants to take part in or start a new club can with the help of the committee. The Committee of Clubs and Competitions would be in charge of matching club proposals with faculty, scheduling centra sessions, fundraising and preparing our school for competition with other schools.
I'd like to think that all of my plans fit within the existing capabilities of the OHS, but they just don't. To create new committees, build new clubs and get the attention that our school deserves, we're going to need an expanded, student run Technology Committee in charge of club websites, video-conferencing an ideally a technology helpline for school and clubs.
As it exists now, there's a General Assembly that anyone can join and there are a few rules to make it run. They're nice rules and they do a good job handling things like voting, but really, they don't make the General Assembly a very interesting or sufficiently influential body. I'd like to change that with legislature to give a majority in the GA power to do a lot more things like create the committees that my administration hadn't gotten to yet or organize school wide events. Really quick here, I think I should explain my position on pep rallies and assemblies. I'll admit, I have an acquired bias against inhumanely peppy people wielding megaphones and competitions to see who can yell the loudest. That whole GroupThink thing kinda bothers me. However, the experiences of my dear12 old13 public school have not turned me off to school wide events if they reflect the actual interests of the student body and not the air-headed, ascot-wearing14 machinations of a peppy elite15! ...Right. So I want the students, not one person, to create their events and my administration would give you to the power to do so.
--My 'Administration'16--
I'm prohibited from mentioning other candidates on my website, but I'm happy to link you to the shared website of a number of like-minded candidates who've agreed to work together if elected towards, if I may quickly summarize, these goals:
The creation of a student government that doesn't get in the way, but has a place for anyone interested
The maintenance of the unique sort of openness, enthusiasm and respect that at present defines the school
The preservation and improvement of OHS's so-far sterling reputation through academics, competitions and service to rather diverse communities.
6A. ... also dependent on you having a baby
7A. ... you do have hands, right?