Dear HSSC,

I love you. I really do. In fact, I often call myself your no. 1 fan, what with me reposting all of your social media posts and passionately promoting school-wide events to my peers and all. This is a letter dedicated to you, from someone who wishes you the best, always.

I love your leadership. The way you take charge of a room sets my heart alight. Your booming voice echoes through our halls and fills it with community. Students abide by your word and follow in your footsteps. 

I love how people look up to you. Your representatives make up some of the strongest members of our student body, equipped with intelligence and a heart of sincerity at the same time.

I love your work ethic. You are always coming up with events and services to knock my socks off. Every time you announce something new for our school to enjoy, I am thrilled to participate. We all love Snowball and Senior Prom, Assassin and Cartnivore—these idiosyncratic characteristics of our school that would not be possible without you. You personify us in the best way possible.

I love the way you listen. You serve as our voice. At least, I know you strive to do so on the daily. You are someone I can confide in. But I need you to and know you can take the step further from listening: help us by using that listening to support us in actively articulating our opinions. The lack of communication between the student body and the administration has long been an area of concern. Surely, you have the capacity to serve as the body to bridge this gap. This is not to say that you are at fault for failing to transform this enduring culture thus far. I blame the system: that which is so geared toward the opinions of adults and away from that of the students.

Most international schools in South Korea are run by adults—titles that come to mind are administrators, business managers, and moms. The power of parents is especially incalculable. Once they find an issue with a school policy, its riddance is just a matter of time. Their passion paired with the administration and leadership team’s executive decisions are usually what gives birth to the rules that run our school. Meanwhile, the students who actually attend the school and have first-hand experiences with everything that comes up on the daily are quite often overlooked when it comes to serious issues. And because of this immense influence that the adults have, students have no direct say with the inner workings of our school. 

I love your ability to instigate change. If at all I have any concerns, or even if at all I have any compliments, I would like to know where to go to be able to honestly voice my opinions to a group of people who would be willing to listen. Simply heading to the office by oneself to discuss these things can be intimidating for a majority of the student body. I know you can do this for me, StuCo. For all of us.

Having a communicative platform for having our voices heard would empower students to feel more comfortable speaking out. Perhaps bringing back your open meetings from a few years ago or having an all-accessible submission form for general suggestions from the student body could foster an environment of mutual understanding and help all of us strive for developments that would benefit both the administration and the students.

It would also be important to consider making your processes more transparent with the rest of the school: most of us are curious as to what is going on behind the scenes, so a plausible first step could be to share some weekly meeting notes with the school via the high school daily bulletin. Once we begin to lean on each other and trust one another a little bit more, we can work together in enhancing our school community.

I know you, StuCo. I know how wonderful you are. I’m saying all this out of hopes that you reach your full potential. Either way, I’m happy with what you are doing. I’m excited for every milestone in your life, and I am here to celebrate them with you. Happy late Valentine’s.

Love always,

Your Secret Admirer