Student Council began the school year with two new sponsors, Chadalee Ritonya and Traci Grimm.

Grimm said that the two sponsors are working together to bring new energy and ideas to the club.

“We’re really excited,” Grimm said. “We want it to get big and we want to try new things. So hopefully we bring that attitude to the kiddos as well.”

According to Ritonya, the sponsors have many goals for Student Council this year including increasing the numbers.

“We’re trying to get more people to join and have people be involved in something other than a sport around here,” Ritonya said. “Student Council is a place for everyone.”

Grimm mentioned that when she was in high school, there were only about 20 members in her school’s Student Council. She wants Bellevue West’s Student Council to be much bigger and “all inclusive.”

According to Student Council Co-President Reece Flores, this year Student Council is also creating some new events including the Senior Sunrise and Sunset, where seniors watch the sun rise on the first day of school and set on their last. 

 “It seemed like a really good idea because it’s kind of a symbolic way of starting your senior year with the sunrise and then ending it with the sunset,” Flores said. “It just makes it a full circle experience.”

According to Flores, her job as an executive is to help look over things and take a deeper role inside of them. She said that now, “it’s a little bit easier to divide the work and know which sponsor to go to.”

Other student council members also said having two sponsors is easier.

“If one doesn’t know something, then you can ask the other,” junior Ava Williams said.

According to Grimm, the two sponsors work very well together with their opposite, yet complementary personalities. She is a big picture person whereas Ritonya is more detail oriented.

“We’re like yin and yang,” Grimm said. “We actually work really well together. I’m really type A, she’s much more type B.”

RItonya mentioned that although the club has two sponsors it is still mostly student led. She mentioned the Senior Sunrise/Sunset idea as an example of students leading the group.

“It’s a really cool idea,” Ritonya said. “They’re very creative. And our job as sponsors is just to embrace what they want to do and go with it.”

Ritonya said that the end goal of Student Council is to bring back school spirit.

“We’re really just trying to bring back the school’s spirit, it is definitely lacking,” Ritonya said. “Be involved, join Student Council, go to the games. Let’s bring back school spirit.”