A new student council experiment at Ecole St. Margaret School in Moose Jaw was a big hit, so to cap it off administrators at the school went through the process of requesting a visit from Their Honours the Honourable Russ Mirasty and his wife Donna.
“We started a new extracurricular activity at our school this year, which was a student council,” explained Katherine King, principal at Ecole St. Margaret. “The purpose of that student council was to learn about government authentically, like if you were interested in going into politics or an official position, and also serving the school and serving fellow students.”
King said the experiment was a big success — everyone had fun and learned a great deal, and the idea proved popular with the entire student body.
The eventual president of the council, Ronin, is a Grade 7 student, and his vice-president Paula is in Grade 8.
“Our student president did an excellent job. He was elected by our student body after running an actual campaign, as in he went around meeting students and explaining to them what he would do for the school and how he would serve them,” King said. “He’s a great student and a great leader in our school.”
Representatives were elected to the council from each class alongside the president and vice-president. They led assemblies, went on field trips, attended school community council meetings, and more.
A mother at St. Margaret told King about the process of inviting the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan to visit, and after completing the application they were thrilled to learn he had accepted.
“It was really interesting, because as you can imagine, there are many protocols that go with receiving a visit from him. So, that was another neat process for the students to learn about. The student council set up the gym for his arrival, prepared questions for him about his role, and we had a whole student-led school assembly. We had the choir sing ‘God Save the King,’ and we had students playing the piano for ‘Oh, Canada.’
“The visit went really well.”
King said the fact that Ecole St. Margaret School is bilingual led to other interesting topics, as well, because Mirasty’s first language is Woodland Cree. Mirasty is the first Indigenous person to hold the role of Lieutenant Governor in the province, and he spoke about his Cree language and what his culture means to him as well as addressing leadership topics.
The visit ended with the Mirastys taking a tour of the school and posing for a picture with King and the members of the student council.
Learn about the process of inviting and hosting the Lieutenant Governor, with all the event protocol it requires, on the official Lieutenant Governor website at ltgov.sk.ca.
