There have been several changes to H-F this year, including the incoming of our new principal, Dr. Clinton Alexander.

With new leaders also comes new ideas and plans, and Alexander has many of those. Though, he’s not acting alone. Alexander has gathered a group of students for his own Principal’s Advisory Council (PAC) to give input on school-involved matters.

The Council acts as a cabinet to help “improve the quality of our [H-F’s] culture and climate,” according to Alexander. 

Meetings are held on the last Thursday of every month during Viking Compass periods in the TLC room. In each meeting, both pre-existing business and new endeavors are discussed. 

Every meeting begins with a leadership workshop, and the purpose of these workshops is to implement a sort of leadership curriculum. Fostering this curriculum has been very important to Alexander.

Last month’s workshop was based on diversity and inclusion, and a specialist came in to give some insight and training on the matters. 

Alexander briefly spoke about how certain leadership ideals will be implemented at next months meeting.

“Our [H-F] alum, a NASA engineer who was responsible for aligning the asteroid that was coming, is going to be virtually connected, a 1987 grad. I believe her name is Ms. Chin, and she’s coming to do a leadership workshop on innovation and problem solving,” he said. 

Alexander spoke a bit about his own leadership style and the importance of having student voice through the council.

“I thought that the principal’s advisory council would be a good instrument to use to allow students to have a voice to impact school choices and options. That’s within my philosophy as a leader to have student input and student agency, and to have students as agents of change within their learning community. That is something that I really embody and hold close to my leadership style,” he said.

School spirit has been greatly lacking here at H-F, so increasing that has been preached heavily this school year. Considering this, it has become one of Alexander’s main goals that he wants to achieve with the council.

“By the end of the year, I want us to have a comprehensive system for improving school spirit and I want those things to be institutionalized so that next year we can keep it going without having to recreate anything. This would be like the baseline and the template for starting those school spirit initiatives.”

Alexander sees many benefits that will come out of escalating Viking spirit and promoting Viking pride.

“There’s research behind the engagement of students in the classroom who have school spirit. Most students who value their learning environment do better in school. When you like your school, you invest in your school, so we want to increase that to hopefully increase student engagement, which should tie into academic achievement. ” 

At this month’s meeting on Dec.1, members were able to solidify spirit days set to occur all throughout the second semester. 

Members of the council have successfully managed to come up with a school spirit initiative involving pep rallies, different spirit days, school wide incentives, and school decorations, which is something that Alexander is very excited about. 

Students and staff can look forward to seeing positive changes being made around the school in the coming months executed by the PAC through their hard work and careful planning.