Class of 2012 Executive Elections
Tech News, Videos — By BTHSnews on May 15, 2010 at 4:38 pmPRODUCED BY FAISAL MANSUR & ANDY MAI
EDITED BY ALFRED NG
The Class of 2012 Elections have begun!
Look below for Candidate Speeches and choose wisely!
Vote on BTHS.edu starting May 17th!
DON’T FORGET TO VOTE BELOW IN OUR PRE-ELECTION POLLS!
MICHELLE GORBONOSOV
JACOB AZRILYANT
Sophomores: Who do you want as your Junior year president?
- Michelle Gorbonosov (50%, 46 Votes)
- Jacob Azrilyant (50%, 46 Votes)
Total Voters: 92
Loading ...Replies from the forums:
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Yep, it's definitely the video quality, and no one else's fault.
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Alfred, on , said:
Yep, it's definitely the video quality, and no one else's fault.
No, I admit it was my fault as well, but the video quality does play an equal part. Not that it wasn't my fault to start with.
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http://spreadsheets....NGNiY2I0NGU
Vote for next year's Elected Officials.
Although there is only one Candidate for Sophomore Class Vice-President, you must still place a vote..
So this year's Election is ONLY for the position of Sophomore Class President.
ONLY students from the Class of 2012 can vote.
Students can ONLY vote ONCE.
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My fellow technites! I stand before you today as part of a long and rigorous journey to the Presidency of the Junior Class. Over the course of the year, Student Government tried to help the student population in a way they deemed was necessary. However, there are a few things Student Government has failed to accomplish that I believe are important to the student body, and to the safety of this school. A time for reform has come. Now, more than ever, SGO needs you, the students to help SGO in its endeavor for a better, more advanced, Brooklyn Tech.
Now let me tell you a little about myself. For the past two years I was on the Debate Team here at tech. Debate has allowed me to think analytically and to anticipate the problems that may come with solutions we propose. But apart from debate, in the outside world, I’ve interned at the Borough President’s office, and thus being in the middle of the political atmosphere. I’ve went with my boss to meetings, done paperwork, write cases, and analyze policies while proposing my own, which eventually made it as far as the Deputy Borough President’s desk. I’ve learned more about being organized, using political analysis, and increasing my skills in public relations. I believe these aspects will allow me to serve the student population.
Now, let’s talk about the student population. Tell me, how many of you have ever participated in a bake sale? Now, you generally agree that was a good method of funding, yes? Now how many of you remember our friends at the DOE who established A-812, or more how we know it, the Bake Sale Ban? As I can imagine, the DOE has probably received hundreds of thousands of complaints from both students and parents, yet nothing has been done. The problem here, is that all these complaints were individual, unorganized, and they all lacked something I value very much; unity. A small group with unity can achieve more than a large group without it. What matters is not the amount of people you have, but what you do with those people. What I propose is that we look back into this ban, and figure out what we’ve done wrong. Anyone want to guess what it is? Its disunity. Earlier this year I attended a bake sale ban protest at City Hall. When I showed up, there were about 80 or so students, from NYC. If this school has 5000 alone, then from the entire city of New York, only 80 students were willing to protest outside of the Mayor’s office? This is the biggest form of disunity imaginable. It’s not that we loved those delicious sweets that would light up our day when we walk through the center section, but it’s also the money! The funding that came from the bake sales was extremely important to many of our clubs and teams here at school. Well except those PSAL kids they have their own thing going on. So what I propose is that we unite not just this school, but with other schools as well to have a systematic response. Remember this: United, no matter how big the enemy, no matter how much power they have, united, they will, be, defeated. Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity. Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are hundreds, but where there are thousands, millions, that is where serious politics begin. Just look at the school closures, UFT sued the DOE, UFT won, a union of teachers. After all, don’t you think Joel Klein is drinking a nice cold Coca Cola right with a bag of Doritos next to him in an air conditioned office? I do.
Next, on terms of safety. Its interesting, when I first put up my posters, I wrote on there that I wanted to install smoke detectors in bathrooms. That didn’t go to well with many people, especially the smokers! I just want to make this clear, the smoke detectors I want to install is not an attack against people who smoke, I want them there to ensure a faster response time by both security and other school personnel if there is a fire. Basically, if the smoke detectors go off, we won’t have to wait for somebody to go in to notice, or for smoke to reach the halls, the noise emitted will alert nearby classes and security patrolling the halls. This means that the fire can be stopped and evacuations can be proceeded with as necessary before anything drastic happens. If you all remember last year, the boys bathroom on the third floor was set on fire, and smoke was in the hallway. The fire alarm was pulled considerably after the fire was created, and if that fire was bigger than it was, things might’ve not turned out so well as it did as the fire was contained.
Now here’s something I think you will all enjoy, regular student polls. Wouldn’t it be great if for once SGO actually polled the student population to get a consensus before it did something that affected us on a mass scale? I strongly believe in popular sovereignty. Meaning, that the power to govern doesn’t come from the administration, but the power to govern comes from the students. And if the students don’t support or believe in their SGO, then SGO has failed. I have heard many times over the course of the year, “SGO? I haven’t seen a single thing they’ve done for this school.” I’ll have to admit I also said that in the beginning of this year, and then I got involved in Student Assembly and I learned how much SGO is really involved in. According to a poll that an SGO member did “50% of students don't know their executive council members, 1/3 of students know what SGO is / does, 65% of students think there is a lack of communication between SGO and students, and about 79% of students think there is a lack of communication between SGO and clubs.” Now this was out of a total of 60 students, but this sort of sample group sets the basis for what the rest of the student population might think. This just goes against SGO’s argument that they’ve “increased communication extensively, because apparently, the students think otherwise. However, regardless of SGO’s position as a representative of the student body, I believe in a direct democracy. In order to achieve this, I call for regular polls available hopefully on the BTHS website. These polls will cover issues important to the student population. And these polls will allow the SGO accurately make a decision knowing they have the support of the student population. After all, the SGO is there to defend the interests of the students, not the interests of the administration.
I’m Jacob Azrilyant and I’m running for Junior President!