Haven Happenings

Student Council candidates promote ideas, campaign goals

Leadership-minded students run for a spot on the 2026-2027 student council.

Morgan Matthews ’28, Fiona Seale ’28, and Rowan Brown ‘29

May 3, 2026

ILLUSTRATION

Sloganed posters and colorful flyers decorate Haven’s halls as eager candidates pass out goodies and stage photo ops with student voters.

Candidates can run for one of four positions: President, Vice President, School Board Representative, or Officer. Sophomores and juniors were the only grades permitted to run, however freshmen will also be allowed to vote. Seniors are not involved in the electoral process.

One-third of the election process comes from the student vote. The other two-thirds come from an interview with student council leadership and an adviser, and ratings given by teachers on a 1-5 scale.

Students will have the opportunity to vote for their chosen candidates on a Google form sent out after campaign week.

The Panther Press invited candidates to share their answers to several questions, varying on which office they were running for.

See what they had to say below.

Astrid Beach ’27

Candidate for: President

Why should the student body vote for you?

“Last year I was an officer, and I think I was really able to help work towards making some of the changes we made in our school. But I think that the student body should vote for me for president, because I’m really committed to our school, and I know that everybody in school offers a different, unique perspective, and everybody brings something to the table. I really want to be the person to be able to highlight those things, and I think I’m somebody that can be an advocate for anybody in our school. I also think I have some skills like time management and organization and optimism that can just make the school a better place and a better community for everybody in it.”

What do you hope to accomplish?

“Some of the things I’m really hoping to do if I am elected as president is kind of work on community involvement and connection and communication. I know that our school has so many activities, and sometimes certain activities are more popular than others, with people always going to football games and things, but I think it’s really important for everybody to be highlighted. So I’m hoping to allow everybody to get the chance to have their club or their activity highlighted and promoted. As for some other things like communication, I’m really hoping to allow each student to get their voice shared through suggestion boxes and surveys. And then the last thing, kind of bridging the gap between freshmen and eighth graders coming into our school. I feel like it can be a little bit hard to adjust, but I’m hoping to close that gap and use peer mentoring opportunities to help close that gap.”

How will you accomplish this?

“I think as president, I would use some of my skills like public speaking to communicate with the administration and other teachers, and even just students, to hear their opinions, see what they want to do. And I’ll use that and work to promote activities and events, and work with the rest of the council like the officers and the other vice presidents, to collaborate and use these suggestions that we get to make everybody at our school feel welcomed and feel like they belong in a place where there are so many different people. I’m hoping to use those things like groups, social media and peer mentoring opportunities to allow everybody to feel connected and happy in our school.”

(Rowan Brown ’29)

Madeline Garson ’27

Candidate for: President

Why should the student body vote for you?

“I think that I get to be involved in a lot of different activities here at Strath Haven that give me the opportunity to meet many different people, and I think that as President, I can serve as an effective communicator between those students and the administration.”

What do you hope to accomplish?

“I hope to get more people involved in activities they didn’t previously think that they wanted to do through, like different club events where we could advertise clubs at like, later times in the year to get new people involved. And I also want to work on peer advising, to help students customize their schedules to their personal interests and their strengths.”

How will you accomplish this?

“I want to make student council a facilitator of schedule advising sessions between students, like underclassmen students and upperclassmen that they can then meet with and discuss potential classes that they’re interested in, and then get firsthand experience from somebody who took the classes they might want to take.”

(Rowan Brown ’29)

Weiler Graham ’27

Candidate for: President

Why should the student body vote for you?

“I think that the student body should vote for me because I have a genuine love for this school and community, and I really just want to do everything I can to make it a happy and safe place for everyone.”

What do you hope to accomplish?

“One thing that I really want to focus on is connecting groups that don’t usually get to connect. I want to be that person that can help boost the school morale and spirit by just connecting all of our groups together.”

How will you accomplish this?

“I plan to just be a voice for every group and to communicate with everyone in the school; administration, students and teachers, to ensure that everyone is happy and make sure that everyone’s ideas are shared with each other.”

(Rowan Brown ’29)

Carter Sturgis ’27

Candidate for: President

Why should the student body vote for you?

“The student body should vote for me because I bring a lot of valuable ideas in terms of school communication and announcements for all of Strath Haven High School. I would like to update the monthly calendar into maybe having more detailed weekly calendar grids of any sports activities, daily, lunch schedules, clubs, etc, but also making the loudspeaker announcements a little bit better.”

What do you hope to accomplish?

“I hope to change the way students receive their communications for any announcement like I previously mentioned, with the calendar. It would be my dream to start a news channel, if we did, we could have different segments, and it could be like a school wide initiative project for the entire school to take part in not just Council led, but clubs, activities, and sports, etc.”

How will you accomplish this?

“Maybe for the news channel, we would record the morning and afternoon announcements the day before, unless it’s Friday, going on Monday, we would record Monday on Friday, but we would have to obviously be late, the school news thing is just an early thing, maybe a live stream or something. It would be broadcasted into the teachers projectors on a YouTube channel and then be posted to the channel where anybody can just go back, click the day’s announcement and watch it.“

(Rowan Brown ’29)

Noah White ’27

Candidate for: President

Why should the student body vote for you?

“One reason is that I feel like I have a really strong connection with the teachers, along with also having one with the majority of the student body, so I can be a great pathway between student body and the teachers. I feel that that’s definitely the main reason why I would have students vote for me, and also because I can, kind of, I can mingle my way and, like, speak with multiple types of people, different introverts, extroverts and groups of people. I feel like that’s my main role. I would connect the bridge.”

What do you hope to accomplish?

“My main thing I want to accomplish is really just set a culture for Haven, like a new one, like one more school pride, like we all support each other. Because I feel like there’s like we always go to football games, we always go we occasionally go we occasionally go to basketball games and sometimes baseball games. But it’s like, I want haven to always be supporting Haven, and I want to start building that culture next year. So if I can start that culture, not necessarily set it in stone, but start it for the next generations, that would be my main accomplishment.”

How will you accomplish this?

“I’m kind of a good gateway between the two, obviously, teachers and staff and then the students. I feel like one thing I would do is definitely boost communication about sports events and kind of connect with the Panther Pack, whether it’s that or just supporting Haven boosts spirit. I also want to start more more like event nights for chance. I know we always have volleyball night, and then we always have other events like that too. But also I feel like we could have something every month to do, maybe once every one to two months, just an event, like it could be spike ball night or ping pong night, just anything to just keep everyone engaged.“

(Rowan Brown ’29)

Advaya Singh ’27

Candidate for: Vice President

Why should the student body vote for you?

“I think the reason they should vote for me is because, I think now I could talk about my own qualifications. I think the main reason you should vote for me is because I want to focus on student stress. Sophomore year, junior year, the classes got hard. It hit me pretty hard. And I started thinking about student stress a lot more. So this year, when I’m running… the main sort of focus for me is just student stress… doing whatever it’s in my capabilities and capacity to sort of curb student stress and make sure students are relaxing whenever they can. That’s just the main reason.”

What do you hope to accomplish?

“What I hope to accomplish is I think if someone can point to a decrease in student stress, or sort of a decrease or, I guess, more relaxing environments at lunch, or just like, whenever something sort of good occurs… I think Advaya had a decent part in doing that.”

How will you accomplish this?

“I just had my interview with [student council], so I asked them that question exactly. I asked them, how am I to accomplish this? For example, one of my ideas was creating sort of a bit of equipment, specifically hacky sacks, making sure everyone can relax, have a fun time at lunch. I just asked them ‘how would I go about doing that?’ So they mentioned that since you’re a vice president you have sort of this unique access to administrators. So talking with administrators, making sure they’re okay, right? I mean, if there is too much equipment at lunch I could see how that could be a problem, right? Too many people, too much injury or something or the other could happen. So just talking with administrators, but then just doing things like step at a step.”

(Rowan Brown ’29)

Josh Lund ’27

Candidate for: President

Why should the student body vote for you?

“I’ve been on Student Council this past year as an officer, in both music ensembles and athletics, I’m on the Activity Council, and I’m involved in a lot of clubs, and so I think there’s a lot of different things that I’m a part of, and therefore I know a lot of people, and I know a lot of experiences from people, and so I think I’ll be able to represent the entire school community, not just one specific niche.”

What do you hope to accomplish?

“One thing that I tried to work on a lot this past year as an officer is improving the amount of voices students have in sort of what student council does, because we’re meant to be the representative body of students. And so I think this past year, I’ve put out some new forms about spirit week ideas and things like that. And this year or next year, if I were president, I want to continue that by doing even more Google Forms for student input about Homecoming, spirit weeks or other other events like spring fling and I also want to do quarterly sort of school wide student council meetings. So one meeting a quarter, we would have, preferably, a meeting in the auditorium or in a large space where, you know, it’d be a normal student council meeting, but anyone from the school community, or anyone from any student can come and, you know, give their suggestions to truly be part of the process. And I also think the third big thing I want to try to implement is, I know they were doing this a couple years ago, but every week, like Sunday night or Monday morning, I want to try to put out sort of a weekly schedule, like a calendar, of what’s going to be happening that week in school, every activity, every sporting event, every music ensemble, just so we can get have some kids have no excuse to not come out to things, because I think that’s one of the things that I ran on last year and was trying to improve this year is, you know, getting more kids to show up to different events. You know, everyone comes to the football games, but what about the lacrosse games? What about all the concerts? What about dance Haven? And I know that was last night, and so just trying to give people all the information of when things are happening, and making sure everyone understands exactly how much goes on at Strath Haven and what they can be a part of.”

How will you accomplish this?

“I think in terms of getting student input, I think it’s going to sort of start from getting the officers next year really involved with bringing ideas to the table. And they talk to all their friends and their friend groups and everything, but just getting them to then bring those ideas to us. And then I also mentioned the sort of quarterly school open to everyone meetings where we can get people to give their actual, real ideas, you know, make sure that we can make sure everyone’s voices are heard, because we will give them an opportunity to do that. And I think in terms of the weekly calendars, I think that also sort of starts from the officers and from, you know, their entire school community, like, if someone knows that something’s going on, we’d like to make student Council a space where people can come and just, you know, stop me in the hallway and say, ‘Hey, we have this going on this week.’“

Lavanya Dixit ’27

Candidate for: Student School Board Representative

Why should the student body vote for you?

“The student body should elect me for this role because as school board representative you’re voicing the entire school’s opinion and I’m involved in a variety of different areas at Haven, whether it be arts, a variety of clubs, or just talking to people in general, with my experience on Panther Press I have access to so many different opinions. In addition to that, I also do speech and debate and I’ve spent a lot of time honing my speaking skills, I know that my communication skills will also be really beneficial in this role.”

Why are you qualified for this role?

“I think my qualifications mainly stem from my involvement and my experience in speech and debate. In addition to that, I also served as student council officer last year, I know the ins and outs of student council. I’ve been there before, and I’ve done it all this year, so I know that next year, I’ll only be able to continue student council spirit while also helping with the rep position as well.”

What are some issues you would bring before the school board?

“I feel like right now, the school board representative does a lot of talking about what Haven’s up to, like saying when homecoming is, et cetera. But I want to, as school board representative, bring up more student opinions on things like AI policies and phone policies, because I know the school board is currently working on these different policies, and in order for them to make a policy that accurately reflects students, they need to be able to be able to understand what students are actually thinking about these topics. So, these are two factors I definitely want to emphasize and bring to the forefront of the central administration’s minds.”

(Rowan Brown ’29)

Henry Hewitt ’27

Candidate for: Student School Board Representative

Why should the student body vote for you?

“I think I represent all of the different parts that make up Strath Haven, from being a varsity athlete to being on the mock trial team, to being on the Hi-Q team. I feel like I really have seen all the different parts of Strath Haven, and I think I am able to represent what it means to be a Strath Haven student.”

Why are you qualified for this role?

“What made me want to run for school board representative was last year, the proposed phone policy by the parent advocacy group Haven Hold the Phone proposed a fifth block and lunchtime cell phone ban. I led a petition of 300 students to the school board against this, and I want to continue representing student voices and student needs on the school board.”

What are some issues you would bring before the school board?

“I’m very interested in the proposed phone bans that are getting here next year that the parent advocacy groups are still getting raised again, and the school board is still actively considering. I’m interested in the budget policy and the budget deficit we’re currently in and how that’s going to affect student needs, and I want to be able to stand up for student voices as those issues continue to affect us.”

Joy Yang ’27

Candidate for: Student School Board Representative

Why should the student body vote for you?

“One of the first reasons I think people should vote for me is because I was this year’s school board rep. So I have the experience and am currently doing a lot of stuff, trying to get the superintendent and the rest of the board on board with the idea of letting the report include more student opinions, rather than just happenings like dances or like football games. So that’s something I’ve been working on his whole year, and I really like to continue pushing that, instead of falling off and just hoping that anyone new will keep it going. Another reason is that I’m on speech and debate, so I’m a pretty good speaker, so I would definitely represent your voice.”

Why are you qualified for this role?

“I have the experience to do it. I already know what it looks like. I know what it’s like to be in front of all those adults in suits watching you give a report. And I also had the experience with writing them. Me and Daksha, who’s the other rep, we wrote once every month so we know where to look for things like happenings or student opinions. Yeah, I think those experiences make me qualified for the position.”

Why should the student body vote for you?

“I think that I really just care about Strath Haven. The community means a lot to me, and just being able to come here and have such a positive experience every day and just see friendly faces and just build on the community means a lot to me. So just being able to be a part of that and better it is really important to me to perfect anything else that was.”

Skylar Hill ’28 (Staff)

Hadley Howells ’28

Candidate for: Officer

Why should the student body vote for you?

“The student body should vote for me because I care. I’m very dedicated, I work hard, and it would be a great way for students to see my creativity and my ideas.”

(Rowan Brown ’29)

The following candidates did not complete an interview with the Panther Press as of the time of publication. This story may be updated.

Hailey Barras ’27

Owen Zeserson ’28

Jayden Yang ’28

Arav Rajesh ’27

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About the Contributors

Morgan Matthews ’28, Detours Editor

This is Morgan’s second year as part of the Panther Press staff. She’s taking on the role of Detours Editor and is so excited to see what the publication can accomplish this year. She is involved in many facets of Haven life and enjoys playing tennis, listening to music, and spending time with friends and family in her free time.

Fiona Seale ’28, Opinions Editor

Fiona is excited for her second year on staff as the Opinions Editor. When not writing stories she enjoys journaling, painting and spending time with friends and family. She is a volleyball player and an avid reader.

Rowan Brown ‘29, Reporter

Rowan is a freshman at Strath Haven High School and a contributor at The Panther Press. She is a part of the Panther Marching band, Camerata, and Cantata. Outside of school she likes to watch movies, eat food, and listen to music.

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