Shalhevet’s Just Community has approved a proposal to amend the school Constitution so that the Agenda Committee is responsible for making sure that passed proposals are actually being enacted.
At Town Hall on Nov. 7, two proposals were presented. One was that the school establish a chapter of the National Honor Society, and was defeated. It was presented by sophomore Ella Nadel, and met resistance from students who felt Shalhevet offers enough other ways for students to distinguish themselves for their achievements.
The proposal that passed, about enforcing proposals, came from sophomore Ariel Mazar, and was approved with 78.8% of the 66 responses voting in favor of it.
It aimed to “fix a hole in the Constitution,” as Ariel said during his presentation that day. In an interview later with the Boiling Point, Ariel said he had noticed the problem a year ago.
“I noticed that last year a couple of proposals that were brought were passed by the student body but never actually were enacted.” Ariel said.
For example, he said, last year a change to have the students run the Student Store was passed with 86.3% of the students voting for it out of 160 voters. But Ms. Muriel Ohana, assistant to Head of School Rabbi Block, was running the store at the time, and was told to keep running it. She still does today.
Another example is that on April 9, 2021, then-sophomores Evan Beller and Eli Weiss proposed in Town Hall that if a teacher has not graded work three weeks after the due date of the work the teacher cannot assign tests or projects until that work is graded.
Now that we are tasked with executing, we’re going to make sure that any proposals that come to the Agenda Committee are going to be detailed well enough for us to actually implement them.
— Agenda Chair Rami Melmed
That rule passed with an overwhelmingly large majority of students voting in favor of it – but no one was assigned to make sure teachers were complying.
Since Ariel’s proposal was approved, the Agenda Committee will now be tasked with implementing all changes.
However, Agenda Chair Rami Melmed said it wouldn’t be a simple change
In an interview with the Boiling Point, Rami said that many of the proposals that the Agenda Committee had seen were vague.
“We would be left a little lost in how to actually implement them,” Rami said.
Without specific and detailed instructions on how to go about implementing a certain proposal, Rami said, there could be several different ways to actually execute it.
He said a solution to the problem would have to be found while reviewing proposals before they’re brought to Town Hall.
“Now that we are tasked with executing, we’re going to make sure that any proposals that come to the Agenda Committee are going to be detailed well enough for us to actually implement them,” said Rami.
Agenda faculty adviser Dr. Sheila Keiter agreed, and said another of last year’s proposals – this one about reprinting and re-framing the Just Community Constitution, was a “perfect example” of the problem of who is supposed to be implementing passed proposals.
“That proposal didn’t say who’s going to make it, how much is it going to cost – none of that was in the proposal,” said Dr. Keiter In an interview with the Boiling Point.
“In theory, we could have just drawn [a copy of the Constitution] up in red crayon and stapled it up to the wall,” she said, “and we would be complying with the proposal.”
How to frame the revised Just Community constitution will not, however, come up under the new rule. Rami noted that what was approved doesn’t say anything about applying retroactively.
“The language implies that we have to enforce proposals, but only ones that happened after that proposal has passed,” said Rami in an interview.
He said it also does not state anywhere that the Agenda Committee is responsible for enforcing proposals “ex post facto,” he said, using the Latin term for “after the fact.” He said this applied especially to approved proposals that the committee doesn’t have a record of.
Lack of records, however, is another element of Just Community life that is not currently active.
Under both the original and revised Just Community constitutions, the elected Secretary of Agenda is responsible for keeping a record of passed proposals, and posting them in a permanent place on the Just Community page on Schoology.
As of Dec. 17, the Boiling Point was not able to find any such record in either the Just Community or Student Activities Schoology pages, including on their Resources, Albums or Discussion pages.
