On October 19 at the Student Senate meeting, it was all about voting, Tiger pride and ping-pong.

 “Every student in the school will have one of these in their hands,” said adviser Paul Rykken.

 Rykken was referring to the Student Voting Guides, a blue packet of information pertaining to the candidates in the senate, assembly and governor elections as well as the differences between the two political parties. These are to be used to help students make a decision about which candidates to vote for in the mock elections during next week.

 “Voting will be done during the morning and also during lunch. Students will need to have ID to vote,” said Rykken.

 The goal of mock elections is to get students eager about government. The senate is shooting for a 60% turnout, a universal percent they hope for during each election. Due to the fact that the election of the senators only brought a 44% turnout, the senate is working to bring students to the voting booth.

 “Students will not vote unless you appeal for them do to it,” said Rykken.

 As well as informing students about political candidates, the senate is informing administration what students want to see change in our school. Junior and vice-president Josh Hanson had a meeting with assistant principal Mark Weddig and talked about student concerns. The main issue was scheduling.

 “They’re looking at a few options for scheduling. One would be A/B blocks, like what’s done for AP classes or skinnies. They may also have three days of eight classes and two days for blocks,” said Hanson. “The computer scheduling will stay.”

 The issue of our math system was also brought up. Core math is being investigated, but for the meantime, students can take online courses for math if they prefer something other than integrated math. One of the biggest concerns of students was discussed during the meeting as well.

 “Parking passes were also brought up,” said Hanson. “They’re just for money, so they’ll stay.”

 After the discussion about the meeting with Weddig was over, the senate talked about both an issue and a goal for the year: Tiger Pride. Senior Eric Helstad had an idea of how BRFHS can improve its Tiger Pride.

 “It’s hard to have pride when you go to other schools and they’re really nice,” said Eric Helstad. “We need some upgrades if we want school pride.”

 Helstad also pointed out that in order to receive these upgrades, we need to let the community know that we do care about the appearance and quality of our school.

 “A lot of people think that we’re just teenagers and we don’t care about our school and how nice it is, but that’s not the case,” said Eric Helstad. “It’s not about making the changes, it’s about letting our community know we care about changes.”

 On the lighter side of issues, some students believe we need to add a new organization at our school.

 “We need a ping-pong club!” said junior Aaron Miles.

 The idea of the club was brought up during the meeting withWeddig as well, but was turned down. Activities during focus are meant to be academic, whereas a ping-pong club was said to be more on the recreational side. Students would be permitted to get together after school and have the club, but were not encouraged to meet during focus. Sophomore Nathan Helstad made a closing argument in attempt to get the organization started within school hours.

 “If we can’t have any recreational activities during focus, then why can we go to the gym?” said Nathan Helstad.