Though the community service conversation dominated the most recent Grand Council meeting, the Student government, Jennifer Given, and Richard Barnes also explored the future of Halloween at Hollis Brookline High School. Though the Halloween assembly is a fall tradition at HB, some prefer the idea of dismantling the tradition. Reasons include that high school students have “outgrown” the acceptability of dressing up at school, and that the pressure put on teachers to moderate the appropriateness of student costumes is unfair.

Given personally was not in favor of continuing the annual event, calling it her “least favorite thing,” but she acknowledged that the tradition was widely enjoyed by the students and should continue if they so desired.

Most of Council were in favor of the Halloween festivities. Michael Friedman ‘18 suggested that the student council look at reinventing certain aspects of the Halloween assembly, as opposed to dismantling it. Among the changes he proposed were different games, a different judging system for costumes, and different award categories for those costumes. Vivek Nithipalan ‘17 reminded the attendees that they were required to work with a fixed time constraint. Barnes added that he was in favor of continuing to combine Treb Day with the Halloween assembly, and noted that as third graders would be travelling to the school to examine the trebuchets, “best behavior” was required. Openly acknowledging that the last five years have been “awesome,” Barnes stated that students would need to continue to earn the privilege of having the annual event.

Megan Corban ‘17 closed out the discussion by bringing up that, in past years , the junior class has organized the assembly and the Seniors have MC’d. Last year, Corban said, the assembly was rife with miscommunication between the two classes. Her request that they arrange a different division of responsibilities was positively received.

Given concluded the meeting with a reminder that Spirit Week would be occurring in February this year. Stay tuned to stay updated on HB assemblies, and on the plans that Student Council form throughout the year.