As news spread Sunday night, Feb. 5 about the elementary school’s flooding, high school Principal Tricia Campbell dreaded making a call to her student leadership about changes to the school calendar. But instead, she received numerous SLT messages that night from students concerned about the crisis.

The Student Leadership Team is formed by BRHS’s student council members. Sydney Blake is the senior class president and an SLT member. She said the team immediately knew the focus should be on the crisis. SLT members contacted Campbell Feb. 6 volunteering to help school officials make a smooth transition for elementary school students who were moving to the high school beginning Feb. 13. The SLT volunteered to move resources and furniture beginning Feb. 9 as the team’s first act. 

The students’ sacrifice meant postponing Winter Carnival until the return to in-person instruction. School officials decided high school students would return to Zoom conference learning beginning Feb. 13 until an alternate location was found for in-person learning. 

“We’re not cancelling Winter Carnival. We are just going to postpone it until we return to school,” Blake said. “We’ve been meeting during lunch periods trying to organize our efforts. Right now, it’s juniors and seniors involved with the brainstorming and planning. But once we have a plan, we’re hoping to recruit more student volunteers.”

Junior Class President Colby Allen is also an SLT member. He believes the students’ participation is necessary during the community crisis. “Obviously, we wanted to come together as a community. The Leadership Team wanted to find ways to move younger students into the high school. We also want to help teachers prepare their classrooms and provide them with teaching tools lost in the flood,” he said. 

Campbell was appreciative of the spirit her student body showed through its sacrifice. On Feb. 6,  Campbell wanted to contact Leadership Team members to discuss either abbreviating Winter Carnival to three days or possibly postponing it. But before Campbell contacted them, team members had already contacted her.

“I’m in tears just thinking about what they did,” she said. “I started receiving messages and thought ‘Oh, my God! Students contacted me saying they wanted to postpone winter carnival so they could focus on the immediate needs of families, young students and the community.”

During the Feb. 7 trustees meeting, Superintendent Bob Kahler took time at the end of the meeting to “brag” about Campbell’s high school students’ generous proposal. “To hear and see high school students say they want to postpone their winter carnival so they could help elementary school students says a lot. It is so telling about our students and community,” he said. “ I can tell you high school students, this is not remote forever. We are not forgetting about you,” he said.