Leadership decided to make a series of changes to the homecoming court nomination system. These changes included restricting voting for homecoming king and queen to seniors for the first round and allowing teachers to vote for homecoming court as well, in which a teacher’s vote would weigh more than a student’s vote. There are differing opinions on these changes. In the class of 2015’s Facebook group, there were complaints about how ASB members always end up on homecoming court, and the denial of certain nominees’ autobiography, particularly that of Marco Schwiebert, for homecoming court. These protests caused Mike White, Assistant Principal and Leadership Advisor, to join each classes’ Facebook groups.

Senior Nish Ullagaddi is a part of ASB and was a nominee for homecoming court king.

El Estoque: What were the major changes made to homecoming court nominations?

Nish Ullagaddi: The new thing we added is that teachers also get to vote because we feel that teachers see another side of students that [other] students don’t get to see…. So we felt like incorporating the teacher’s perspective would bring something new for who might be nominated for homecoming court.

EE: How do you feel about the facebook post that ironically advocated voting for you in homecoming court to point out that ASB always being on homecoming court?

Ullagaddi: I didn’t feel too bad about that only because I know it was a joke made by the person…He understands the process of homecoming court, so I feel like he made the joke only because he understood it so well. But not so many other people know the process behind homecoming court, not everyone knows the behind the scenes, so not everyone took it as a joke, not everyone knew it was a joke. So it came off as something very serious and an attack towards me which is understandable.

EE: What do you think the intention behind that post was?

Ullagaddi: I think it was to rail on the idea that ASB always gets nominated only because people know ASB well. Students see them around school as they are always helping around school. That is a part of ASB, that is what ASB members do. So as being apart of ASB and him being my friend, I am sure he took advantage of that situation.

EE: How do you feel about Mr. White joining each class’ Facebook group?

Ullagaddi: I think it is fine that he joined, but the only thing is that I feel that students might be scared to post freely about what they might want to talk about on the facebook group… But aside from that I think it is good that Mr. White is in the facebook group just so he can see what is happening on social media as well as at school.

Junior Arpit Jasapara is a member of Leadership and Treasurer for class of 2016.

El Estoque: How do you feel about all the homecoming court nomination changes? 

Arpit Jasapara: I feel that it is not too necessary. Basically, the class does vote for who they want to recognize and who they want to represent the school and I feel that by implementing such additional things we are trying to change who we want to represent the school, which we should just leave  up to the class and school.

EE: How do you feel about Mr. White joining the each class’ Facebook group?

Jasapara: I feel that I can see his point of view and it is in his best interest to make sure we don’t do anything. It feels a little restrictive too, but I can understand and live with it.

Senior Max McCann is a student at MVHS. He was upset by administration’s decision to deem his friend, Marco Schwiebert’s, autobiography for homecoming court nominations as inappropriate. McCann decided to protest against this action by not wearing pants to school. In Schwiebert’s autobiography, he described himself as a watermelon who evolved into a full human. In the beginning of his autobiography he writes: “Hello, I am Marco Schwiebert, the pain in my life has led me to achieve many things I was told were not possible for a watermelon.” Marco’s original paragraph was posted on the class of 2015’s closed Facebook group.

El Estoque: What were the reasons for your protest?

Max McCann: What happened is that for homecoming court a couple of the candidates had to write a little paragraph about themselves so people would know about them. Three of my friends were on the ballots to be nominated and all three of their paragraphs were edited and deemed inappropriate. The worst was my friend, Marco Schwiebert. We wrote a story that we thought would intrigue people and that would get people to think ‘oh this guy is funny and creative’ and they would vote for him because of that. It was posted and they immediately said that it was inappropriate and that they wouldn’t use it even though there was not a single thing in there that could be in any way considered inappropriate, so what we decided to do, me and a couple of my friends, we decided to protest by not wearing pants to school to show how we are free and we don’t want people limiting us, but the protest ended 3 days later.

EE: Where there any other reasons for your protest?

McCann: Everyone knows that ASB wins every year and people think they deserve it because they put so much work into [homecoming] but if that is just how it is then ASB is always going to win homecoming. We really thought our friend, Nolan Hurtado, deserved homecoming because he worked so hard he is nice to everyone, but it looks like people only vote for ASB cause they know them.

EE: How do you feel about Mr. White joining the each class’ Facebook group?

McCann: I feel it is somewhat an invasion of privacy because that is our group. Usually, on Facebook, that is where people want to be away from school. They want to be inappropriate and so that kind of sucked to have him in there.