ASB works to change school constitution

Starting in late October, the ASB decided to revise its constitution in order to legitimize ASB processes and clarify rules concerning clubs and elections.

According to ASB President Nikhil Goel, many students are not aware of the ASB’s role in school processes.

“A lot of students don’t know the rules for ASB elections or the process for becoming a club,” he said. “So, we wanted to put all of those updated rules into one document.”

ASB Treasurer Robert Eng, who is spearheading much of the project, believes that the constitution isn’t very well known around campus.

“The constitution is supposed to be the governing document on campus and supersede any other law or decree, but asking around, only a few people really know what it is,” Eng said. “Last year, we didn’t really following the constitution very closely, so I wanted to rewrite it to make it more pertinent to issues on campus and to gain more awareness.”

Eng said that though a constitutional commission has been created, information about the constitution has spread beyond the 10 people in that commission, which consists of the all the ASB members, sophomore Luke Salin and senior Samuel Liu.

“We try to update the ASB, student council and the legislative council on our progress to ask for ideas as well as their opinions on different changes,” Eng said.

ASB clubs commissioner Grace Ma specified some changes to the constitution including clarifying requirements for elections. Previously the process and prerequisites for candidacy were unclear because multiple places stated different qualifications. The commission plans to place these requirements on the constitution as well as instill rules regarding GPA and absences.

“What we’re trying to do this year is to make these rules more clear,” Ma said.

The ASB also wants the administration to give a courtesy notice of two weeks before any major policy changes are enacted. Goel said that in doing this, the ASB can give the administration important student feedback before the policy is enacted.

“We want to legitimize the ASB more as that intermediary body between the students and the administration,” Goel said.

Eng added that the main reasoning behind the movement is that if the constitution is more relevant to students, they’ll be more interested in it.

“In the end, we want the constitution to play a larger role in school procedures and hold some authoritative power,” Eng said. “Anyone signing up for office or even walking around school should know what the document is.”