Spencer Redula
Technology Commissioner
9 August 2022
Position assessment: In my position as technology commissioner, we have been daily busy entering this year but we will have much more to come. Before the school year started, Gideon and I filmed for orientation, set up music, and I personally helped with Link Crew. For the black light rally, Gideon and I also recorded, I did the music for all classes and the entrance of the seniors, and Gideon mostly helped with the setting up of the black lights as I was rehearsing with the people. Inside our job but outside of our class, we successfully raised $2500 for new technology. This would include a new MacBook for editing as well as a new drone which would make this end-of-the-year video even better. We have great ideas for our intro video for leadership and our next main video would be the gratitude besides that.
Standing Committee: I have been at no standing committee this year.
Special Committee: I am a part of the technology black light committee and the “music committee” for orientation.
Mentorship Evaluation/Completion at time of Meeting: From prior to the school year up until right now, Kylee Machado and I worked together mainly on the professional aspects of development. I walked her through the basics of leadership (in my opinion). Procedure forms, POs, all paperwork in general, generalized tips from what I learned from my freshman year experience, as well as weebly work. I set up her weebly and always helped her whenever she asked questions about anything. I am really proud of her because she asks when she is confused and it takes a lot of courage to do that as a freshman. She is a woman who stands up for herself, works very hard and diligently, and is a great leader, who in my opinion, is most definitely going to be a legacy leader. She has everything and every component of a great leader, and I believe she will do great things this year.
Concerns: I am concerned about the people in this class not doing their work and failing when Homecoming comes around. I know that it doesn’t affect me directly but I am afraid that our classes will fail when the time comes around.
Positive comment: Someone I would like to shout out that has done a great job is Makenzie. I know everyone shouts her out but she has overall done such a great job this year and doesn’t get enough credit for being yelled at and dealing with all of the stress in general. I really appreciate her methodical nature and everything and I hope she doesn’t get too overwhelmed this year.
One change: One change I would like to make would be to allow us to choose our seats but if we are disrespectful we can’t sit with those people the rest of the year. This would encourage people to be respectful for once and actually bond.
My Impact: Moving into a year where I am an upperclassmen, I have really shifted my perspective on various things. I have entered this year with a much greater positive attitude and have helped out so much with people in all of my classes, with freshmen during the first week of school for classes, as well as helping out any of my teachers in classes to make their life easier.
Technology Commissioner
9 August 2022
Position assessment: In my position as technology commissioner, we have been daily busy entering this year but we will have much more to come. Before the school year started, Gideon and I filmed for orientation, set up music, and I personally helped with Link Crew. For the black light rally, Gideon and I also recorded, I did the music for all classes and the entrance of the seniors, and Gideon mostly helped with the setting up of the black lights as I was rehearsing with the people. Inside our job but outside of our class, we successfully raised $2500 for new technology. This would include a new MacBook for editing as well as a new drone which would make this end-of-the-year video even better. We have great ideas for our intro video for leadership and our next main video would be the gratitude besides that.
Standing Committee: I have been at no standing committee this year.
Special Committee: I am a part of the technology black light committee and the “music committee” for orientation.
Mentorship Evaluation/Completion at time of Meeting: From prior to the school year up until right now, Kylee Machado and I worked together mainly on the professional aspects of development. I walked her through the basics of leadership (in my opinion). Procedure forms, POs, all paperwork in general, generalized tips from what I learned from my freshman year experience, as well as weebly work. I set up her weebly and always helped her whenever she asked questions about anything. I am really proud of her because she asks when she is confused and it takes a lot of courage to do that as a freshman. She is a woman who stands up for herself, works very hard and diligently, and is a great leader, who in my opinion, is most definitely going to be a legacy leader. She has everything and every component of a great leader, and I believe she will do great things this year.
Concerns: I am concerned about the people in this class not doing their work and failing when Homecoming comes around. I know that it doesn’t affect me directly but I am afraid that our classes will fail when the time comes around.
Positive comment: Someone I would like to shout out that has done a great job is Makenzie. I know everyone shouts her out but she has overall done such a great job this year and doesn’t get enough credit for being yelled at and dealing with all of the stress in general. I really appreciate her methodical nature and everything and I hope she doesn’t get too overwhelmed this year.
One change: One change I would like to make would be to allow us to choose our seats but if we are disrespectful we can’t sit with those people the rest of the year. This would encourage people to be respectful for once and actually bond.
My Impact: Moving into a year where I am an upperclassmen, I have really shifted my perspective on various things. I have entered this year with a much greater positive attitude and have helped out so much with people in all of my classes, with freshmen during the first week of school for classes, as well as helping out any of my teachers in classes to make their life easier.
Spencer Redula
Technology Commissioner
7 October 2022
ASB Meeting September and October
Position Assessment - In my position thus far, a lot of my job has been in recording film as well as solidifying orders for our new SD cards and with the MacBook. To start, I created a PO for new SD cards as well as a SD card converter (since we ran out of storage for our current 16MB SD), which definitely came in handy once we got them. These SD cards have 10+ hours worth of footage, which is well more than enough for this year entirely. In addition, I have filmed all football home games, some home and some away volleyball games, and Gideon and I are working on getting water polo as well as cross country footage this week. I have been communicating with the IT person/people via email to hopefully get our MacBook in soon. Besides my direct position, I have been helping our class with setups/cleanups as well as float building, decorations for the lemonade stand, and various other miscellaneous activities related to Homecoming.
Standing Committee - I have been in no standing committees during this time.
Special Committee - The special committees I have been a part of during Homecoming would be the coronation committee as well as a sub-committee for technology. I did the audio and recording for the night rally, recording for the coronation reveal, recording for the Homecoming parade, and did other menial tasks such as working with the candidates on a weekend for the audio and such.
Mentorship Evaluation - During this period, I have done some brief work with Kylee because both of us have been very busy, but what I have helped her with include her website, general advice for Homecoming, and some personal advice for how to proceed with the Halloween Dance and Homecoming. Not to go in too much detail, but I was giving Kylee my personal insight and things that I have learned from all of my time in leadership and high school in general. I know that she has a lot of potential as a leader and as a person because she has that drive to be great even if she is a bit of an introvert. I’m not sure if my advice directly affected her performance, but I believe she has done a great job individually with Homecoming and I am very excited to see what is to come.
Concerns - A big concern that I have within this program is the amount of toxicity within it even though these events won’t even matter in 25 years. I completely understand having some competitive nature to all of Homecoming or any class competition, but to take it to the level where people are not only trash talking other classes but each other, it has gotten out of hand. Morty, I know that this is the surface of my journal entries, but you completely understand the significance of this point.
Positive Comment - Someone that I would like to highlight this time period is the sophomores as a whole for staying so positive, nice, and supportive of everyone. Even though some of their things didn’t go the way they planned, they acted very mature throughout this event and I am really proud of them for where they are to go and where they are now.
Change - A thing that I would definitely want to change about leadership is the culture within it, as mentioned in the “concerns” portion. I don’t know how to address it, but as my years have gone on in this program, it has just gotten worse and worse. I don’t know if it is because of my class and the lack of maturity spreading, but something needs to change for future events and generations of the program.
Impact - The impact that I have made throughout this period would be through helping my peers as well as in leadership. I believe I have adopted a more chilled out mindset and perspective, focusing more on positivity and laughing than taking things seriously while still having the same work ethic and consistency in results. I believe that I have done great things to my peers, even starting up a inside joke within some of my periods of being an “academic weapon” -- this is constituted by working hard, not going on your phone, taking notes, and paying attention. It seems stupid but it has spread a lot around the juniors.
Spencer Redula
Technology Commissioner
14 November 2022
Position assessment:
Technology Projects - Gideon and I during this time created both videos, the Gratitude and the Dude Be Nice video. For most of the work days, we worked on it the entire period. We were very productive during this time and I believe that both of the videos look very good and were high quality.
Individual CASL project - I did an 11-slide presentation all about the Gratitude and Dude Be Nice videos. I explained their purpose, what happened, how it can be implemented in other schools, and the things required to be successful. I finish this over the first of the 2 weekends for the work days and it has been officially submitted.
Group CASL project - For this project, it was about how we measured the program’s success. My group while I was gone recording Mr. Rangel for the Gratitude project made a rough bullet point list for the general ideas then I wrote the response over the weekend. I mentioned the various different components of the procedure form, the pros and cons of each event that we hold, quarter evals and position assessments, the grading rubric we get judged on, how we get external indicators from the students, staff, and community, and a generalized conclusion paragraph.
Standing Committee: I have been on no standing committee this year.
Special Committee: I have been appointed to a special committee in the CASL assignment as well as in a technology committee for the gratitude and Dude Be Nice event/video. Alongside Gideon, we created both of the videos and played them during the Dude Be Nice rally; in addition, I recorded the rally while Gideon played the videos and everything went smoothly.
Concerns that you would like addressed: I have a few problems with the class up until this point that I do believe was highlighted by these past two weeks. Number 1: people making this a social hour during work days. I understand that it's fun to talk and do things, and I’m not some bad cop wanting complete silence, but some people are not doing work and just talking. That crosses the line from being productive and having fun to hindering the class and being a thorn on everyone’s side. Number 2: a lack of care. As mentioned in my little tidbit during book study, if you want something enough, you will do everything in your power to do the best possible job. Now I’m not at all saying to make this program your entire life, because it should not be whatsoever. But what I am saying is that some people clearly don’t care enough about this program to do their work and do it well, so I think it might be necessary for some of them to reevaluate their priorities in life during this upcoming election season. Number 3: immaturity. Not immaturity as dumb “yo momma” jokes, but immaturity in the fact that some people cannot live their life without shitting on others and being toxic. Your business and thoughts are your own, and you are subjugated to them, but to ruin other people’s day and talk trash about them, especially the people you call your leadership family, is very two-faced. I am not perfect either but all of my thoughts that I have I don’t spread to everyone and their momma and especially not during class while the person is in earshot. I’m not calling out anyone in specific but I have seen far too many instances of unacceptable and immature behavior. We are better than this and we can grow from this, but if no change is made then problems start to happen. Let’s not make our environment something to hinder us but rather an area for all of us to make each other better; if we are not growing as a team, we can only be decaying.
Positive comment: I would like to highlight Claire for everything that she has done up until this point. Knowing her more personally than most people, I know things haven’t been too easy thus far but she has pushed through in times when she wanted to quit. She has been going through a lot but she keeps pushing every day to do her best and I am proud of her.
One change that you would like to see: Put a grade on workdays to punish the people having a party in those class periods and be more mean to maybe instill some fear into some of them because some of them are clearly out of line for acting the way they do.
My Impact: Throughout this time, I have tried my best to be a great role model academically and as a leader in all of my classes. I do not take __ from people and I push the people who try their hardest to be the best they can while still being supportive of them. I have given up on wasting my time on people who don’t care and rather focusing all of my energy on those who want to succeed.
Spencer Redula
Technology Commissioner
9 December 2022
ASB Meeting December 2022
Position Assessment - Within these past months, mainly our work has been focused on getting ready for the various videos that are coming up as well as getting our MacBook and getting that dealt with. First, we have started filming for the positions video (which we will edit during Christmas break) but have put a halt to the recording of other sports as of now because of their schedules. Within January, there are a lot of home games for all of the sports, and we plan on recording them for the end-of-the-year video because most games right now are either away, or at “home” (i.e. soccer playing at mistlin). In addition, Gideon and I did work and helped out during the yearbook rally, which was nothing special.
Standing Committee - I have been on no standing committees this year
Special Committee - I was on the “technology committee” for the yearbook rally if that is applicable to this section.
Mentorship Evaluation - Over these past couple of months, Kylee and I haven’t really been able to see each other that much because she has been gone a lot for sports. She is gone a lot for soccer and she has been sick a good bit, but she has still come to me if she had any questions.
Concerns - A concern that I have would be that people aren’t turning in their work and not putting in the work outside of the class, which can be reflected and paralleled to their work in this class. It is sad to see how little care some people have for their grades which in most cases represents their care about this class in general
Positive Comment - I would like to shout out Mr. Waters on his contributions recently despite his stomach absolutely messing with him every day. I know the pain of throwing up multiple times a day and it is not fun whatsoever. Despite this, he makes it to most of his classes and puts forth his best effort as a student and as a technology commissioner these past months.
Change - A change that I would like to see would be faster attendance at the beginning of the period so we can get to work on whatever we are doing for that day instead of spending 10 minutes seeing who is and isn’t here.
Impact - The impact I have made these past few months would be either in my math classes or AP Lang during things such as seminars. For the math classes, I help out as much people as I can (especially in precalc) because I have already covered all of the content and most of them are stuck for a little bit. In AP lang, I try my best to call on people during seminars that are more shy to make sure they get their points in because their points are as important as mine but they are a bit scared to speak.
Spencer Redula
Technology Commissioner
30 January 2023
ASB Meeting January
Position Assessment - In my position thus far, it has mostly been negotiating and communicating with the IT people and anyone in charge to try to fix the situation with the MacBook not being able to work at home and logging in. This is extremely frustrating but hopefully we can fix it in time so we can have an end of the year video for the student body to enjoy. On that note, we have also done some filming, but less than normal since both of us have been extremely busy in sports and for me with my health. In addition to all of this, I manned the music for both rallies, the night and winterfest rally. Everything went smoothly and the music levels and output were wonderful with the systems that we have now.
Standing Committee - I have been in no standing committees during this time.
Special Committee - I was on the special committee for the butcher paper in the storage room with April to reorder it. This was very brief but we ordered this and got it covered. Besides that, there was no indication of technology in Winterfest but we served a vital part to the music and the output of the event.
Mentorship Evaluation - Gaby and I have had a great time as new mentors for the semester, and have gone out for a lunch in the early part of January to Isabels to get to know each other more. This was really fun, as we also talked about our classes and our personal lives. Although I already knew her before this, it was nice to go out and had a lot of fun while walking both ways. Besides that, she has been out a lot during the school days so I haven’t had a lot of time to talk to her during leadership class, but we always greet each other with a “hey boss” in between 3rd and 4th period.
Concerns - A concern that I have would be an excessive amount of talking sometimes during discussions. I’m not saying we should be completely silent during a discussion and never talk, but sometimes it gets out of hand and we need to calm down and be more quiet with our voices and the people we talk with.
Positive Comment - Someone that I would like to shout out would be Dillan just because of how much work he has been doing despite already getting into Stanford and could have easily just given up and entered senioritis. He is working extremely hard in his clubs and in class, and is even doing multiple fundraisers and activities such as blood drives to help us out, which is honestly unselfish and awesome.
Change - A change that I would like to see would be more spreading out of people in class because people normally congregate in the middle rows and create 6+ seats for a 4 person table and it is kind of excessive.
Impact - Throughout this month I believe I have made my impact with my actions in clubs to reach our community and communities abroad. With the Red Cross, we are doing a blood drive to save lives and help out people that need it, and with the Environmental Club we are doing a fundraiser to raise $2600 to create a clean water source for an entire village in Vietnam. I want to be a part of something bigger than Ripon, and with these actions I am making a real difference.
ASB Meeting March 3
1. What committee(s) have you been placed on, explain them, what is your role?
During The Challenge, I have been placed as the team leader for the gift to the teacher, a lone project that incorporates the entire class for the work. What this project does is to have each student write a 1 page letter on parchment paper (that we will order on a PO), punch a hole in the top left corner, and then connect 3 roses with twine to give each teacher a heartfelt letter. I am the facilitator and lead of this project, and everything is planned out and ready to do as of now. Besides that, I have work and am helping out on projects for the students (to which I write 6 letters to 8th graders and give them advice), as well as helping out in general with the rest of my free time.
2. What did you contribute during the week to the committee work and presentation for next week?
For the committee work during this week, I was the lead for the teacher committee and as a result did everything for that, including POs, organizational plans for the idea, as well as helping out other groups. For Mina and Jaydin’s group (the student project), I did my 6 pages relatively early and turned those into Mina ASAP. As for the presentation slides, my first slide is laying out the organization behind the event: each date has a meaning for my project to serve as multiple goals. The next slide shows the two things I ordered as well as the prices for them, and the last slide shows the overall layout and the progress made.
3. What will you be in charge of the week of the challenge?
As stated earlier, I am in charge of the teacher gift committee, and am directly not in charge of anything else. I am helping out all of the other groups but I am only in charge of my 1 committee.
4. What are some pros that you saw during this week while planning and executing various items?
Some pros that I saw during this week was the amount of work that we got done despite all of the work placed on us. The A-Z project, the 6 letters, planning out the event for my committee, this ASB report, as well as our own AP and honors class work was definitely a lot. But despite that, I personally worked crazy hard (to what I call the “finals mode”) and got all of my work done with a lot of time. A good amount of leadership got their work done and was productive outside of school.
5. What are some cons that you saw during this week while planning and executing various items?
Some cons during this week, especially in class, was it being super noisy and some people are not getting anything done. It was especially frustrating because there is so much we have to do yet some people are messing around. I am incredibly frustrated with some people not doing their work and just messing around but overall the class was pretty good. Note - I did have to put in my airpods to silence the noise to actually concentrate
6. What will you be speaking about in the formal presentation?
During the formal presentation, I will be presenting on the teacher appreciation, with 3 total slides. The first slide will be covering the timeline outline, the second slide has the pictures of the POs and the orders, and the last slide has the overall updates and plans.
7. What is your overall opinion of the event idea?
I do like the overall event in general because of what we can provide for the student body and the staff and expecting nothing in return. Everything that we are planning thus far is incredibly great for the students and I am proud to put this event on for the 2nd time. As for my dislikes, I wish we did this earlier in the year and had more time, but at the same time having this restricted time frame allows for the procrastinators to not be able to slack off and mess around.
8. Do you believe this class will be successful in planning and executing this event?
I am not sure that this class will be successful in executing the event, but I am confident that we will plan it out well. I trust all of the team leaders including myself to get a good layout of the event, but I am not entirely sure if I can count on my other classmates to do their job when the time comes. I am not wishing for the worst in this event, but just by my pure judgment, I am not entirely confident that this will go out well.
9. What should be done to peers in the class that do not fulfill their jobs?
In my personal opinion, I believe that the people that don’t do their jobs and are slacking off get a huge assignment in the biggest weighted category for them to do for the rest of the semester. That way, if they slack off there too, they will fail the class! Another option would be to absolutely fail them on the evaluation and talk to them about how they need to get their act together. I am tired of people in this program not doing this work and getting things done when they need to be. We should be the best of the best yet some of us aren’t doing what we are supposed to be doing.
10. What is your favorite aspect of this event? What are you most excited for?
My favorite aspect of this event would be the gift to the teachers, my project for the event. Teachers don’t get enough credit for what they do on this campus and need to be praised, especially in a field that never normally gets praise. I am excited to see the positive impact that we can have on them, since a simple email that I do every semester already makes their day. I am most excited for the dance, since the taco catering I will eat so much of, as well as the spikeball which was so fun last year. This dance isn’t like the BTSD but it can be very fun overall anyways.
Spencer Redula
Technology Commissioner
4 May 2023
ASB Meeting April and May
Position Assessment - Within these past two months, technology has been in a whirlwind of what the MacBook has been about. With dealing with the problems it brings, communicating with IT and Vache, or communicating with Morty, it has definitely been a huge problem we have faced within these months. Problems aside, a good amount of progress has been going towards the End-of-the-Year video and hopefully will be done on time with the quality that we want. JROTC has also requested the sound system multiple times within these months, and I have guided them to setting it up and using it, and everything has gone smoothly thus far.
Standing Committee - I have been in no standing committees during this time.
Special Committee - The main special committee that I have been on these past few months would be for the Challenge. Within the Challenge, I have led, organized, and completed the teacher appreciation assignment. On the 14th, teachers will get a handwritten letter from one of the leadership students expressing their appreciation for what they do both inside and outside of the classroom.
Mentorship Evaluation - Our assignment back in February to do with our mentors was to discuss our legacy and goals. When discussing our legacy, Gaby C and I focused on a couple of different topics to discuss (our meeting was in the library on 2.24). As for my legacy this year and throughout the rest of my leadership career is to promote time-management and discourage procrastination through my own actions. As for Gaby C, she wants to show to not take opportunities for granted as well as being kind to everyone she meets in her legacy. As for my goals this year would be to stay on top of studying for my AP classes, make sure my part of the Challenge is done perfectly, and to help teach James and Deep the ropes going into next year. For Gabby’s goals, she wants to keep up with her grades, finishing the scrapbook pages she is designated to, and be more diligent about reading for her English 2 honors class. Besides this, Gaby and I have been working very hard for our AP exams and the Challenge as it draws closer.
Concerns - A main concern that I have is the MacBook going into next year. As Morty discussed with me recently, it might make more sense for technology to fundraise for a new MacBook and use that as a rogue computer. The problems keep stacking upon one another and it is very frustrating to have to deal with this.
Positive Comment - Someone I would like to shout out is Jenna. She has been super hard working throughout these past months with track, AP exams, finals, and leading everything that she has done. I am proud of what she has accomplished and am ready for her to lead this class next year.
Change - Something that I would like to change is the seating. I find it pretty annoying at some class periods when people keep talking and the volume of the classroom is obnoxiously high. With some variation of the seating chart of a talk, we need to fix this so going into next year we can be more productive but still have fun.
Impact - The impact that I have made throughout the RHS campus would be found through academics and track. My main influence would be through pushing all of my classmates to achieve their highest potential, explain or review concepts with them, or help build their form/work on sprinting within track.