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As spring rolls around the corner, we are moving into election season. Presidential primary elections, yes, but more importantly, Washington High School voted for next school year’s class presidents, vice presidents, and treasurers, as well as ASB President, vice president, treasurer, and secretary. The winners were announced on February 23rd. The class of ‘25 president is Saadhana Rajesh, vice president is Kaitlyn Opiana, and treasurer is Asees Aulakh. The class of ‘26 president is Kevin Hsieh, vice president is Elsie Lee, and the treasurer is Sharon Lee. The class of ‘27 president is Rohit Pulle, vice president is Allison Lau, and treasurer is Meharinder Sandhu.
Associated Student Body, or ASB, is also a significant organization, as they deal with the entire school when it comes to events, merch, and media. It requires a distinct set of skills and creativity to be an ASB officer. For ASB, the new vice president is Sienna Gomez, secretary is Timothy Nguyen, and treasurer is Michael Peng. The 24-25 president is Winnie Bui, who will be a junior next year. In an interview, Bui expressed her excitement about winning the election and seeing what the future holds for our school and leadership. According to Bui, Washington has a problem involving a lack of spirit, as we saw when we lost in the battle between schools in our district during Winter Week. Winnie hopes to “make sure everyone feels more included in Washington and that everyone will want to participate.” She aims to do this by “creating and overseeing more events that can bring Washington together as a community.” She is heavily inspired by her two older sisters, who both were ASB presidents. Winnie always admired the accomplishments and changes they made, and is ready to continue their legacy by using the knowledge she’s gathered up from her years of watching her sisters in her new position.
Rohit Pulle, the new class of ‘27 president is also ready to make a change. Despite being new to this school, he already “hope[s] to improve school spirit in many events such as spirit week and lead [his] class to victory.” He has his goals planned, but who helped him get to achieve such a position as class president? He mentions how Evan Dang, the current president of class of ‘24, was a huge inspiration for him, as he liked what Evan did for his class.
Both future presidents of ASB and the class of ‘27 have something in common when approaching how they are going to plan events. They agree that it’s crucial to come up with an event that the majority of students will find interesting and be willing to join. Previously, there’s been a lot of time and effort spent on events that students ultimately just ignore.
These school presidents and officers all have to struggle with the lingering effects of online learning. Being isolated and not being able to communicate with other students left people dazed when returning to in-person school. As the pandemic made everyone rely on electronic devices, everyone is reverting to that, failing to find interest in school events. Our new student officials like Winnie Bui and Rohit Pulle are ready to bring spirit back for the 24-25 school year.
Hanya Hussain is a senior at Washington High School. She was born in Hayward, but has lived in Fremont all her life. This is her first year at the paper and she's really excited to participate in the Hatchet. She's interested in writing about other people and their perspectives in life. She is a cheerleader and loves to hang out with her friends in her free time. She also likes to take walks and go on hikes whenever she can. In college, she wants to study criminal justice.