HOWL is a small group of leaders in the school who deal with details and solve problems to help better school assemblies and spirit.
The class is led by Special Education department chair Katie Bonnema.
“The actual course title is Student Leadership in the School and Community,” she said. “We tackle school-related issues that require a student’s input, plan assemblies, and do more academic-type work where we study characteristics and attributes of leaders.”
Sophomore Anna Welch is a member of the 15-person group.
“I chose to do this to improve myself as a leader,” she said. “And also to become more confident in myself.”
This group is different from Student Council because members are not elected.
“It’s just a class,” Welch said. “Students elect other students to StuCo, and they work on things like Homecoming and Sweetheart. They also meet once a week, and we have class everyday.”
Junior Natalie Paré became interested in HOWL because of her involvement in Student Council at West.
“I knew that they were starting a leadership class this year, which I was really interested in, so when I came here I decided to be in it,” she said.
The type of people attracted to HOWL and StuCo also vary slightly.
“StuCo is full of people who want to be leaders and know they are going to be leaders in the future,” Welch said. “HOWL is for people who are interested in learning about becoming leaders.”
Bonnema said that a criteria of being accepted into the group was to be someone who is a positive role model for their peers.
“We want kids that are committed to their school,” she said. “[Kids that are] interested in being leaders in some capacity and have a vested interest in bettering their school and community.”
“Since leadership and student leadership in particular is an area of interest for me, I jumped at the opportunity,” she said.
Since HOWL is a semester long-course, the group is open for new applications for the spring.
Welch hopes that as school spirit increases, so will the quality of assemblies that the group can plan.
“Hopefully our assemblies will get better, but in order for that to happen, student participation needs to increase,” she said. “I think it will, though — everyone is pretty pumped up right now. But, if it doesn’t, then assemblies will just be awkward.”
HOWL collaborates with the broadcast team to make assemblies fun.
“We start from the very beginning stages and try to really make our assemblies something different and better than any other school,” Paré said.
Hearing feedback about the assemblies that she helps plan makes the work worth it for Paré.
“It’s a lot of fun to see what people have to say about the assemblies and what kind of input they have for the next one,” she said.
Outside the class, the group — which is comprised almost completely of girls — is friends.
“Some girls got together over the weekend and made all the girls in the class tutus for one of the Homecoming spirit days,” Welch said. “We’re all friends have a lot of fun together.”
