It’s election day. Isaac Cofie ran for Class Officer – he rallied his friends to endorse (him) in his video and posted all over social media – and now he feels his heart pounding as the newly elected students are announced. Cofie closes his eyes as he hears the new officers of his class. The announcements call out Cofie’s name and a cheer erupts in his advisory. Congratulations! He has officially become a Class Officer, and he can already feel the ideas for next year formulating.

Fast forward to next year, he has been acquainted with his board of Class Officers, and yet when he walks around the school, people seem to forget that very fateful election day, let alone can name a single class officer in their grade. Alas, this is a usual occurrence for the class officers at Westerville North.

Class Officers are students selected by their peers to represent their class, demonstrating good character to be in charge of the activities that are held for the students and the community that the school participates in. Although these chosen individuals are the voices of their classmates, it still seems that many students don’t know who their class officers are.

There are way to get to know Class Officers better.

There is a board right outside of room 122, where Kristen Whiddon, a Class Officer advisor, is located. It is updated often, giving the names of the Class Officers in each class and more insight on who they are. For the past year of 2023-2024, there have been “Barbie” photos of the members, discs that had their favorite disco song, and most recently, a “In and Out” list for the semester.

Mariah Chaffin, a 2025 Class Officer, shared how students can stay connected with class officers by checking social media since all of the Class Officers have an instagram page for the class of 2024, 2025, and 2026. She said students can listen to the announcements since Class Officers are on really often, and look out for them at school events and blood drives.

When Class Officers aren’t planning dances and three blood drives as of this year, they are attending other leadership gatherings such as the Ohio Association of Student Leaders Blue Jackets field trip and Leadership Conference, and working with Westerville North groups like Warrior Athletic Leadership Team. They are also planning and gathering research within their classes to present to the admin and staff at Westerville North to give insight for their classes. It can be a little disheartening when they are only able to voice the opinions of 1⁄4 of their class when presenting the data and opinions of their fellow peers.

Caroline Tenney, a 2024 class officer, has had the role of class officer since junior year and shares her thoughts on the impact of the role. “I think it’s someone who knows a lot of students… to go in front of other teachers and staff, and even the administration and talk about the things that students are struggling with,” Tenney said. “I think it’s kind of cool to have a middle man between the students and administration to be like ‘Hey, this is how the students are feeling.’”

During December, Class Officers created slideshows that showed how students felt about the new Five Commitments at Westerville North and the school year.

Mikey Jones, a 2026 class officer, has worked with the officers in his class to gather the data from December to give to the admin. He explained how he uses strategies to ensure inclusivity and representing diverse perspectives of his classmates. “When we do surveys I can really dig deep when making the questions to make sure everyone is heard,” Jones said. It can be hard for Jones to voice the opinions of his classmates when only one-fourth of his classmates participated in the survey.

Being a Class Officer is not always an easy task, but the lessons are rewarding. A few Class Officers have shared the skills they gained from having this role.

“Students can take more initiative when wanting to lead stuff,” Isaac Cofie, a 2026 Class Officer said. “You can go out of your way to make something… but it’s all on you.”

“It’s taught me how to lead and how to act when you know that people know you’re a leader and that they’re watching you,” Chaffin said. “I think that it’s also humbling so I have to be able to watch myself… and make sure I know what I’m talking about (and that) I’m representing the school well.”

Whiddon, one of the advisors for Student Council/Class Officers described her experience. “This is the first major extracurricular that I led, so I have learned a lot about working with outside organizations especially with the blood drives and working with vendors for homecoming,” Whiddon said. “I’ve learned how to delegate to the students more and put them in positions to make plans and call vendors and reach out.”

Additionally, the 2024-2025 school year will come with more opportunities for students to be a part of student leadership at Westerville North. Class Officers and Student Council will be two different groups with the Student Council focused more on leadership opportunities and ideals while Class Officers focus more on planning and collecting data for the class.

Whiddon said that there will be a movement toward the All N Commitment philosophy by promoting more leadership ideas and activities in every advisory. In each advisory, there will be students elected by their advisory teacher to be a part of the Student Council as a representative. These representatives will be led by an executive board of six students elected by their classes to serve as a cabinet of overseers.

She said how she is shifting her role to guiding the students so that they take more leadership decisions and has discussed with Principal Yancey about the changes and the bright future for the new setup of student leadership at Westerville North. This will provide more opportunities for students to not only get to know who their student leaders are, but also to have a better chance at being a part of the leadership at Westerville North.