OES Holds 'Special Elections'

Miss a few days of work and I miss a lot.

Like this REALLY neat event last week at Ossian Elementary School:

On November 4 at 2:45, Ossian Elementary will be holding a swearing in ceremony for our student councils representatives and for our student council officers. Our guest speakers will be Mayor Ted Ellis and Senator Travis Holdman. This year, we changed how we did student council. We allowed any third, fourth and fifth grade student to be in student council. They had to get the signatures of ten people who thought they would be a good student council representative as well as get the signatures of their parents and classroom teachers. We have 70 student representatives! (which allows us two to three student reps for each classroom in the school) This week we are holding elections for the officers. Fifth grade students were allowed to run for office. We had twelve candidates (three for each office) We wanted to make the whole process a learning process about the importance of voting. On Monday, during lunch we showed a video about voting. Then every student had to register if they wanted to vote. They had to stop at a table on their way out to recess, check their name off with a parent and then print and sign their name certifying they were a member of the Ossian Community and that they were in the third, fourth or fifth grade. The idea of doing it after lunch before recess was to show them that you have to take time to register and to vote. We had about 75% register to vote (which isn't too bad). Today our candidates made their speeches and tomorrow all third, fourth and fifth graders who registered will vote. Again they will have to stop on their way out to recess (and some are quite in a hurry) and make the time to vote. At our swearing in ceremony (our first ever), we have asked Mayor Ellis and Senator Travis Holdman to speak about the importance of serving your community and getting involved. Dr. Mills will be administering the Oath of Office to the representatives and the officers. It has been a fun experience for all of us to watch the students get involved in an electoral process. Our student council is divided into sub committees and we have service projects and student activities in the planning process. Our biggest project is to help raise money along with Ossian Elementary's teachers to contribute the Ossian revitalization project. Our goal is to purchase a lamp post. We will also be holding a food drive and doing a project for the Leukemia Society (Pennies for Patients) in honor of one of our kindergartners who is undergoing treatment for Leukemia. In February we will participate in Jump Rope for Heart in cooperation with the American Heart Association. We are also planning school spirit days to promote our school community. These activities are all being planned by the student committees, with a little guidance from us (the school spirit committee wanted to have a day of no school to promote school spirit...we had to tell them that was not possible!)

Patty Atkins Janice Kenline Student Council Sponsors
(Submitted, w/ photo)

Somehow, with everything I had going on, I missed this, and I am sorry for that. Student sponsors, faculty and the students themselves, worked very hard to make this program a success. Good job all of you!