The Importance of ASB at DLA
ASB or Assistant Student Body is the core foundation here at our campus, they promote scholars to interact in their fun activities such as fun Friday’s, pep rallies, and dances. When scholars participate in ASB’s fun activities scholars earn house points towards their house color. House colors are divided into 4 separate groups which are SILVER, ORANGE, TEAL, and BLACK. At the beginning of the school year all the teachers and advisors get together to be randomly assigned a house color for their advisory class. Once scholars get their advisory class, the advisory teacher will notify all the scholars which house they’re in. Each house is competing against each other to earn house points. House points can be earned by either showing your spirit for ASB, that either might be showing school spirit in pep rallies, participating in fun Fridays, or by showing teachers that you helped a scholar out. At the end of the school year the house who has the most points will win a root beer float party. ASB first created house points to promote a lot of spirit towards Del Lago and to make each scholar feel equal, no matter what grade level they’re in.
ASB is always so successful with helping scholars interact with the community on our campus, but what does ASB truly mean for people who are in it and how are they so successful with helping scholars interact with our campus? To answer these questions I went to talk to the ASB director Mrs Lania Padilla, who is one of the Spanish teachers here at Del Lago. And the ASB president Jane Pham, who is a senior scholar here at Del Lago. I started my interview by asked both the director and president “in your opinion, what do you think ASB means?” The director replied by stating “ ASB stands for Assistant student body and for me it’s an organization that represents the students, that is run by the students, and that is for the students and we are a service organization; so our goal is to make the campus better and hopefully the community as well.”
The president explained to me that “ASB is a service organization that serves the school’s student body and that our goal is to represent the students voice and then plan the events to help improve the experience here on campus.” The next question I discuss with the director and president was to figure if ASB runs things similarly or differently at Del Lago than other high schools. The Director explained to me that “ASB here at Del Lago is the same in that we try to have the same activities and events that the other schools are offering. We have dances, pep rallies and fun Fridays so in that way we are similar, we’re not similar because our organization is allotted in x block, in most other schools you would get to meet daily so you would be able to plan things or activities every day.” The president then added on by explaining further to me that “Since we are a small school it does make it a little difficult for ASB we only meet twice a week, however that will never stop us from pulling off huge pep rallies, dances and we also try to do our best to incorporate some of the things from traditional high schools but add our own twist here at Del Lago.
During our interview I asked an additional question regarding about What are people’s inspiration for joining ASB. The Director explained furby that “I think most of the people that join ASB because they enjoy all the activities we do. I’ll be honest, I think that’s part of the reason why, but I think scholars want to join ASB because they want to make a difference in making our school better.” The president explained to me personally that she joined ASB because she really wants to play a part in planning all the activities that we do, but to have a part in what types of things are happening with our campus. she knows many of my peers along with a lot of the cabinet ran for the positions and joined ASB because we want to see a difference made at our school to make sure that our voices are heard when we’re making decisions what we have on hand.”
An urgent question I discussed with the director and president was to explain what is ASB’s main role at Del Lago. The Director explained explained to me directly that it’s service. She explained more furby that it’s serving scholars, their main goal is to make the school more enjoyable and better for the scholars. At the end of the day we’ve done just that we’ve done a good job on enhancing kids experiences at Del Lago. The president then explained to me that everything they're doing is for the scholars, all the pep rallies, dances and funds that they’ve raised goes back to students in making sure they have a great experience at high school.
At the end of our interview I asked a final question that relates to them personally, I asked why is ASB important to you. The director explained to me personally that she always tells the scholars apart of ASB that “ASB is my heart, it’s my favorite part of my day when I see them because they inspire me, their ideas are incredible I try to empower them to be the best they can be and I think that, I see the best in students for ASB and it’s not to say that I don’t see that in Spanish but in ASB I really see kids shine and for me personally that’s just the best, I just love this organization and love the kids who are in it.”
The president explained to me personally that “For me by joining ASB I was originally a very shy freshman but ASB gave me the opportunity to grow as a leader, I’ve become more confident in myself and I’m more outspoken for certain events and I think without ASB I wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow as much as I already have or developed the skills that I already have right now such as making emails or congregating businesses all these kind of skills you would need when your going into the workforce and I think that’s what ASB provides for me which is kinda really a unique experience especially if your are a high school student trying to look forward on how you can use those skills in real life.”
ASB puts in a lot of effort in trying to make scholars either feel comfortable or help scholars build up their confidence levels at the campus. They put in a lot of effort on planning, preparing, and building their pep rallies, dances, and fun Fridays for the scholars to get them motivated in participating. ASB helped so many scholars from different grade levels grow and they make sure scholars have a great and awesome experience for when they leave Del Lago. So if you either know or see anybody from ASB you should take the time to thank them for how much effort they put in to help our campus. They want scholars feel like their apart of something big at our campus not just the important scholars, but all scholars here at Del Lago Academy.