PACA Kicks Off The Year with the High School STUCO Election

This year’s High School STUCO includes Davi Magalhaes, Sean Cho, Ana Mestre, Priscila Fray, Sofia Saldaña, Lilah Denham and Jun Yoshikawa. [by Dr. Cristina Meier]

by Aline Dobashi

On Tuesday, 12th of August the PACA High School Student Council Election took place in the auditorium. It included presentations by the candidates that were running for specific leadership positions, including promises and talks to convince the students in high school to vote for them in the specific position they wanted to be. 

The candidates for this year’s STUCO were the following: Davi Magalhães (12) and Eric Zhang (11) for president, Jun Yoshikawa (12) for Vice President, Ana Clara Franklin (12) and Priscilla Fray (12) for Secretary, and Sean Cho (11) for Treasurer. Also, there was Ana Beatriz Mestre (11) and Esther Hadassa Lima (12) running for Spiritual Life, Sofia Saldaña (12) and Julie Perón (12) for Social Life, and Lilah Dehnman (12) for Social Media Coordinator. They all prepared speeches and presented them to the high school students on Tuesday.

Ana Clara and Sofia Saldaña did a presentation with qualities and plans they wanted to offer for this year’s STUCO positions of secretary and social life coordinator respectively. Other candidates who also provided visual presentations were presidential candidate, Erik Zhang and secretarial candidate, Priscila Fray. Fray used her school bag as a prop, as she pulled out useful tools that would help a STUCO secretary be successful in his or her role.  

After the speeches were finished, Mr. Ham concluded the chapel time together by encouraging all of the candidates who had been bold enough to run for STUCO positions and prayed over their time together.  

In past years, the voting included paper ballots distributed at a designated time during chapel.  However, this year, students did not vote after the election speeches were completed. They were given a full evening to think and pray about their votes before coming to school the next day.  

The voting was made on Wednesday by an online google form with all the candidates and a choice to not vote. Students arrived at school and the voting happened during homeroom, and students had 10 minutes to complete the voting. When it came time to count the votes, there were 93 students out of 103 students who voted. 

By lunchtime on Wednesday, STUCO sponsors were ready to announce the winners.  A special announcement was made in the gym in the last 10 minutes of lunch recess. This year’s High School STUCO Elections are: Davi Magalhães for President, Jun Yoshikawa for VP, Priscilla Fray for Secretary, Sean Cho for Treasurer, Ana Mestre for Spiritual Life, Sofia Saldaña for Social Life and Lilah Denham for Social Media Coordinator.

Magalhães, the new STUCO President, said that part of his plan includes the way that STUCO provides snacks and beverages to students at PACA.   

”My plan is to restart the Pop Shop as soon as possible and also to organize some social events for the high school,” Magalhães said. 

This past week, STUCO has started opening the Pop Shop to sell a limited supply of gatoraides and other drinks.  They are also selling candy grams as a fund raiser to restock the Pop Shop for the 2025-2026 school year. 

Candy Gram sales are taking place until Monday, September 8.  Students can buy them at lunch time, outside of the cafeteria.  The price is R$5 for one candy gram or R$20 for five candy grams.  Once the funds are collected, candy grams will be distributed later this month.