Groups of students sit in class creating a campaign trying to win over peers and get votes. The day of the election comes and anxious students sit waiting to hear the results. Rayaan Ahmed is the winner of the AP Language and Composition election.

MCHS APLAC teachers Peter Kim and Heide Dunn created this assignment for students to have a presidential election. Pairs of students were made in class, one running for APLAC president, and the other vice president. Students made campaigns and showed what changes they could make. Classes then dwindled down to eventually four candidates.

Alayna Majkrzak, a junior at MCHS “I do think I learned something from it, especially about how to effectively use language to persuade people … and finding a way to effectively communicate ideas and outline them.”

The election presented many opportunities to the students who enjoy public speaking and presenting. Rayaan Ahmed, a junior at MCHS and winner of the APLAC election said, “I love to present and speak in front of people. It is something that I am passionate about and being able to do this in front of my peers was a perfect opportunity for me to do what I love.”

“I do think he deserved to win, I voted for him.” said Alayna Majkrzak, “He was a very good public speaker, he was one of the candidates with the best laid out plan for what he would do. His campaign was centered around students’ mental health, and how hard school is on kids, and how it affects their mental health.”

“As a child I grew up a Muslim, throughout grade school I experienced a strong contrast between the modernized Western world and living in a mini Pakistan with 17 different family members,” said Ahmed.

Ahmed has experienced difficulties in different parts of his life, the public school system being one of them. “Now as I entered the education system, as any child I attempted to be included with my peers, but because of the strong difference in our mannerisms, the way I spoke, what I ate, how I ate, I did this by rejecting who I am in terms of my culture, so much so that I nearly convinced myself that being white was the right way to be.”

Ahmed also experienced difficulties growing up due to the way public schools disregard students’ mental health. He says, “As a student, I was more focused on the correct way to speak, to eat, on my embarrassment of being who I was.”

Ahmed’s goal was to advocate for better mental health awareness in our school. “My intentions are to create a place where one feels safe, safe with the teachers that they spend all day with, safe with their peers. One where we all feel involved, involved in the school, involved in the small cliques we create here in this school.”

Students hear the news and immediately get excited, they believe Rayaan Ahmed was the perfect winner for the APLAC election.