The role of the petition: The effort that brought back Sadies

You’re an upset student. The administration has made a decision, and you vehemently disagree with it. You feel like they don’t know the students' side.

What is the best approach? Lately, it seems that the default method is as easy as a Change.org petition. But evidence suggests other more traditional methods are likely to be more effective.

The process that went into putting the Sadie Hawkins dance back onto the school event calendar is an example of the ideal method of negotiations between students and administration.

It was a tough argument for the dance and Spring Fling commissions to make to the administration that Sadies would be successful if it did happen this year. In the recent past, the dance has failed to attract many students. Last spring, 100 tickets were sold just two days before the actual event to enable it to go forward; the year prior, the event was altogether cancelled due to a lack of ticket sales. So, up until Feb. 29, the Sadie Hawkins dance had not been included on this year’s calendar of school events.

Yet after two months of preparation, the case for Sadies was successfully made by head dance commissioner junior Danielle Berkowitz-Sklar and head Spring Fling commissioner junior Eileen Toh. The result: Sadies is now scheduled to take place on March 26 in the Small Gym.

The success by Berkowitz-Sklar and Toh in bringing Sadies back as a school event was due to multiple efforts. There was indeed something that resembled a petition created by the team — a written sheet of student signatures and student support — but this was strictly meant to complement face-to-face discussion with the administrators.

Berkowitz-Sklar said they recognized the stigma against petitions, saying she didn’t want their effort to be seen as just a petition. “We don’t want it to come across in an offensive kind of way,” she said.

According to assistant principal Brian Safine, student-made petitions are more likely to work when there’s “a discussion” between the petitioners and the petitioned. That’s how the effort to put Sadies back on the calendar succeeded.

Various student groups in the past have made petitions, but their record of success is mixed at best. Accessible and distributable, petitions — online petitions in particular — have become the go-to vocalizer for high school students with something to say, but they’ve gathered somewhat of a bad reputation.

Last December, junior Julia Vita created an online petition to add more buses to Winter Formal. More students than expected wanted to purchase tickets for the dance, so there were initially not enough buses booked for transportation. Vita wanted to immediately bring this to the administration's attention.

Vita said that the petition “had a really great response” and received around 500 signatures.

Yet the effectiveness of that petition remains unclear. The reason that there were not enough buses booked, according to ASB Board Representative senior Kanaai Shah, is that the original maximum capacity of the venue, as decided by the people in charge of the venue, had already been reached. Activities director Rebeca Marshburn and activities secretary Anna Ybarra had already been communicating with the managers of the venue and trying to book another bus, regardless of the petition.

Marshburn believes, in general, that “petitions don’t work at all.”

Vita added that Berkowitz-Sklar told her, when Marshburn eventually heard of the petition “she was a little upset, because [the petition] was targeting administration, and there was nothing else they could do about the situation.”

By the time of Winter Formal, another bus had been added.

While petitions can be seen as confrontational, they are a way to gauge the level of support ideas hold.

For example, in response to the controversy surrounding next year’s bell schedule, junior Max Vo created an online petition in support of the original proposal by the Schedule Advisory Committee. When word spread that, in light of community concerns, superintendent Bob Mistele instead favored a schedule modeled after Los Gatos High School’s, Vo was among those who were outraged.

According to Vo, his petition served as an “outsource for expression” to those who left a signature or a comment. “Sign this petition to let your voice be heard,” he wrote.

Located in the cyberspace of Change.org, Vo’s petition garnered the attention of many and the support of over 750 online signatures within a week.

While Mistele’s decision remains changed, Vo’s intention was to create a rallying cry and draw attention to what he and his supporters perceived as an injustice.

“At the time, nobody had publicly spoken against the change in a way that would unite many opinions,” Vo said.

Online petitions are a means for amplifying student voices, garnering support from a large student body and often faculty as well — that’s evident in Vo’s online petition, with its slew of supporters and string of perceptive comments.

Petitions can be successful — that’s something both principal Paul Robinson and Safine agree with. But it’s when “petitions come out of the blue, without any context or any face-to-face conversations” that they lack efficacy, Safine said.

Equally important, Robinson said, is an in-person talk with the administration or student leadership — it’s always a reliable way to get student opinion across, a point proven by the reinstatement of Sadies.

“Petitions can be misleading,” Robinson said, “[But] I really trust face-to-face communication.”