Q: Do you mind providing a brief introduction of yourself and your role in LTHS Student Council?
A: “I’m Beatrice Levin. I’m a senior, and I’m the Student Council (StuCo) vice president. So, my position specifically focuses on working with the president, and we mainly focus on [ideas]- generating and leading the class. A lot of the time, the StuCo class is led by the two of us, Nick (the StuCo president) and I, and we take ideas from the class or generate ideas that we personally think of. A lot of the time, we’re the ones who receive certain information, and we modify it or we try to be realistic about things. We help modify ideas and stick to realistic budget standards because ideas don’t always keep budget in mind. We also focus on promoting StuCo, so Nick and I are both open to talk about it, and we answer any questions. I also help manage the StuCo Instagram and Remind. Nick primarily focuses on meeting with the [Lebanon Trail staff] such as our principal or any of the AP’s in regards to what we can do and what sort of deadlines we have to meet. It gets a lot more technical than people assume it does, but a lot of it is more focused on making sure things are realistic and tangible.”
Q: How would you describe the brainstorming process for homecoming themes?
A: “So what we’ve done for the past four years that I’ve been on StuCo, [and] one of my favorite parts, is when everyone is [getting] to know each other at the beginning. We braindump with a lot of stuff. There’s a specific site we use to look at homecoming decorations we can potentially buy and from, that we draw inspiration. For example, someone saw an eiffel tower on that site and they essentially thought that the theme would be cool. But what we all do, including every single one of the officers, StuCo members, and the sponsors; we just throw a bunch of ideas on the board and start voting and narrowing it down. And before we do that, everyone tries to explain their idea, give some sort of examples, so they get their ideas across clearly. We got so many ideas, one of them was completely crazy. It was like Barbie v. Oppenheimer, but obviously no one really wanted to do that, so it rules out the less realistic ideas. But, yeah we just throw it all out and we start narrowing it down and our top four, we look at them, see if there are decorations we can actually buy for it, and then we send the form out to the student body and essentially we let them take it from there and decide what they want.”
Q: What websites do y’all use to brainstorm for homecoming themes?
A: “We use Pinterest and then obviously Google. We have a deal with Amazon, so we look at Amazon sometimes for homecoming decorations, but there’s a specific site we use for decorations that I can’t remember the exact name of right now. We try not to get too focused on whether there are decorations present because it kind of limits the creative flow of ideas. But, we do use [websites] after we plan out the process.”
Q: How does StuCo plan the decorations for homecoming, planning and budget wise?
A: “So, we have something that I think a lot of the other clubs have, but I think StuCo relies on PO’s or purchase orders. Essentially, we are given a budget every year and in the beginning of the year, we don’t have a whole lot of money because there aren’t any fundraisers yet. Then, there’s this budget, it’s normally a little bit smaller, so we are not able to go out as fully as we can. We separate each other into different groups, and everyone starts coming up with different things that they see online. The sponsors, or main officers, will remind [people] that it should be affordable. We also have a StuCo closet, which is a massive closet, with a ton of different decorations and pieces that we’ve gathered from over the years. We go through the closet and start looking to see if there is anything we can reuse. So, for this year we used a little flower shop stand we had in the closet for the Paris theme. Amazon is our biggest platform when it comes to selecting stuff to buy. We make some things too. Some things we make by hand with cardboard. We are currently making a flower cart. Then, we’re going to make a bakery station with a little sign that’s supposed to be rustic and French looking.”
Q: What are some challenges y’all encountered when planning and how did you overcome them?
A: “I think the biggest thing with not only Homecoming but with any sort of idea-based planning, is butting heads. Everyone sort of wants their idea to be represented and with Homecoming, we can’t always get everyone’s ideas to be used just because we don’t have the money nor the time to execute everything. So, I guess that’s the biggest challenge, and then, obviously our budget because we don’t go into Homecoming with a whole lot of money. Homecoming is actually what helps generate most of the money that we use for the rest of the year. [Also], we need to make sure students do show up to Homecoming and [it’s decorated] enough [so] that they do get what they were expecting.”
Q: How does StuCo finance the homecoming dance and decorations? Do you mind sharing how you allocate your budget towards the DJ and other decorations?
A: “The DJ that we use normally is from the same company every year, so the rate doesn’t change a whole lot, unless the specific DJ [costs] a little more. A lot of the time, we have these fixed costs that we always prioritize when we’re making our list of how to allocate our money. Those fixed costs go in immediately, and whatever money is left over, we start to look for the more creative decorations that we want. We are given a small amount of money to use by Frisco ISD, however we see fit, and we also use money left over from the last year, [however] not much.”
Q: What did the timeline of Homecoming planning look like?
A: “Honestly, I think with Homecoming, every single year, it comes on so much faster than we expect. I would say even after the first or second day of class, we’re already thinking about Homecoming and what we can do. We’re already looking at how much money we have, and already starting to come up with themes. Normally, that sort of planning period where we’re shouting out various ideas, happens within the first or second week of StuCo. There’s really no break between the beginning of school and starting homecoming related projects in StuCo.”
