The students of the Baltimore School for the Arts elected 13 new student government officers on Tuesday, November 2nd. This election is the first under the school’s new administration and represents the first widespread student government election at the school.

Student Government Advisor Meg Grouzard has wanted to start a Student Government Association at BSA since 2012. While originally never coming to fruition due to administrative problems, the need for a Student Government became apparent after students spoke out about racism and sexual assault that happened at the school. 

Both Grouzard and fellow Student Government Advisor Jocelyn Providence emphasized the need for students to have a place to speak their voice. 

“I realized that people didn’t have a place to go,” said Student Government President Sydney Lane-Ryer. “Because people had nowhere to go with their concerns and because I had personally seen so many things, I thought that I had to do something.”

Lane-Ryer, who helped run Survivors of BSA, an Instagram page dedicated to sharing stories of sexual assault and harassment, plans to continue to work for the students of BSA. “My goal for the Student Government is to empower the students in any way that we can,” Lane-Ryer added. “We’re going to start training on things like consent and microaggressions.”

“I really want to see the SGA do a lot of things, not just events,” said Student Government Vice President Quinn Bryant. “I really want people to know that an SGA exists and be able to say by the end of the year, ‘Oh wow the SGA did this for me.’”

“I think we learned a lot when there wasn’t really a solid student government and there were all of these things that were happening. Until my friend created the page, there was nowhere to go, and still, with a lot of issues there was nowhere to go”, Lane-Ryer explained. “There has to be somewhere to go, and I think the Student Government can be that.”

To contact this writer, email Muse Newspaper at musebsa@bsfa.org.