Despite the myriad challenges that have resulted from the coronavirus pandemic, Broomfield High School’s Student Council has been orchestrating interactive events for the student body to participate in. This year has been far from normal, so Student Council has been forced to move most of their traditional activities to a virtual setting. Hearing about spirit weeks and trivia contests and food drives offers some familiarity to the school years we used to have.

There are several virtual Student Council activities coming up in the next few weeks.

Student Council’s latest project is a series of virtual homecoming-style events. To cap off a virtual spirit week, there will be a homecoming Google Meet. Maelynn Higgins, a sophomore who has been in Student Council since her freshman year, said, “[They’re] going to have raffles for prizes,” on the live meet. Plus, the winners of each spirit day, as well as Student Council’s homecoming proposal contest, will be announced along with homecoming royalty.

Students who want to join the event can do so from 6:00-7:00 PM on Saturday, November 14th.

There’s also a multitude of events occurring beyond homecoming:

• A canned food drive for FISH, Broomfield’s local food bank, is going on until November 20th. Students can donate money for cans directly through RevTrak.
• Student Council will also be collecting donations for Fire Relief Colorado through RevTrak.
• There will be a virtual trivia competition at 1:00 on Monday, November 16th. Students can participate for the chance to win a giftcard!
• Students can sign up for Broomfield’s Got Talent, a virtual talent show (hosted via Google Meets) that will be held in multiple rounds starting on Monday, November 23rd.

A lot of thought goes into the production of Student Council activities like these, even under normal circumstances.

So, what happens when the challenges of planning activities for the whole student body meet the challenges of a global pandemic?

The Student Council executives for the 2020-2021 school year—Trey Holloway (12), Andy McMahon (12), Kailey Morales (12), and Ryann Zechmann (12)—are in charge of overseeing the events that the group decides to put on. None of them are new to Student Council, yet they are still being forced to adapt to the conditions brought on by COVID-19, making the class a lot different from previous years.

Zechmann said that it’s “a big change for [Student Council] this year just having to go virtually,” as the events that they are used to putting on, “like ping pong and dodgeball,” are in-person.

What exactly does this transition into the virtual world mean for Student Council? “It’s been difficult to try to come up with new ideas,” said Holloway. Still, the group has already put on virtual activities for students to participate in, including a Halloween pumpkin-carving competition and a spirit week costume contest. In order to be successful in coming up with these ideas, Student Council members “have to keep a very positive mindset about everything.”

Aside from just trying to brainstorm ideas, Student Council is facing the difficulties of getting the student body involved in the activities they plan. Student Council is “struggling to get people to participate” in new, virtual events, McMahon said. It’s especially difficult because students “are online all day for school, and [Student Council] can really only do [activities] online.” Being online all day may make students hesitant to log back on to do a virtual Student Council event.

Plus, in the days before the coronavirus, students were constantly informed about events through loud-speaker announcements and flyers hanging around the halls. Now, however, the only way that Student Council members can inform kids about upcoming activities “is through social media or emails,” Morales said.

She said the best way for the student body to help out with the lack of participation, aside from joining as many events as they can, is by “hyping them up.”

McMahon said that a virtual event that reaches beyond one friend group can still give “a little sense of community” to a student body that isn’t able to interact much during these unprecedented times. He reminded us that we can still “get pumped up over the little things.”