Associated Student Body

The Associated Student Body, almost always abbreviated to ASB, is IPoly's student council. Laura Darshan used to be the council's adviser, but upon retirement, Lorelei Ortega took over 9th and 10th grade ASB while Whitney Schiller took 11th and 12th grade. According to the, "the purpose of ASB is to promote positive student morale and to plan, fund, and sponsor events throughout the year. ASB works in conjunction with PTSA."

Purpose
ASB's official general purpose is to connect the students with the staff to help better the school. Below is an incomplete list of ASB's visible functions. The full extent of these functions are unknown.
 * Plan and enact school-wide activities and events. For example, ASB sells pizza on some days during lunch and also organizes the pep rallies and dances.
 * Organize all fundraisers. For example, if a teacher or club needs funding, they need to go to ASB before fundraising. This is so that two clubs are not trying to sell the same item at the same time.
 * Manage all school clubs. According to the official student council guide that ASB follows, ASB only has authority to control the financial aspects of clubs. To do this, ASB requires that all clubs must be registered with them to request funds and have fundraisers. However, ASB also requires approval for just about anything a club can do, including but not limited to fundraising, use of funds, putting posters on campus, and creating a social media account for the club.

Structure
ASB's structure is largely unknown to most students, and even class representatives have difficulty explaing the structure to those not in ASB.

Representatives
Class representatives are nominated and voted on by students. Each house has its own elected representative, and everyone in that house votes. Representatives give announcements to their houses. Many students have claimed that their class representatives do not have a say in ASB's affairs (see Representation).

E-Board
E-Board, short for Executive Board, is a board of students that have ultimate control over ASB. It is unknown how E-Board is put together, as many of its members are not voted in. Some ASB representatives have speculated that E-Board is selected by teachers, which is cause for concern from some students. However, this theory is somewhat disproven because, when asked, even teachers are not sure how E-Board is selected, or what they do. One teacher reported that when they asked an E-Board member what they did, they answered "we do everything".

Members

 * President - Anh Le [12]
 * Vice-President - Micah Burlas [12]
 * Activities Director - ??
 * Treasurer - Xomar-Xander [12]
 * Secretary - Russell Rickards [12]

Representation
Many students see ASB as undemocratic, arguing that their ASB representatives represent E-Board, the highest positions in ASB, more than their house. It was also discovered that in the past, E-Board had hidden information not just from students, but even from Laura Darshan, their staff adviser. Some of this hidden information, such as how much control over a club ASB has, may be found in ASB's bylaws, but a copy of this document was never obtained, and seemingly did not exist. Because of this discontent, students often attempt to bypass ASB when creating clubs and otherwise avoiding ASB whenever possible.

Solutions
With the start of the 2018-19 school year, the E-Board is made almost entirely of new members. This change also brought numerous changes to how clubs work and how ASB works internally, appearing to provide a sufficiently robust solution to the problem of representation. All ASB members, including E-Board members, can be found much more often than the previous E-Board and are willing to listen to feedback from teachers as well as staff.

Club Meeting Minutes
In the 2018-19 school year, ASB began requiring registered clubs to record and submit minutes for every meeting. Though many club leaders are mildly annoyed by this, ASB has been required to collect club meeting minutes by the ASB organization.

Overpricing
Students also often complain that ASB's prices for dances and fundraising are too high. They argue that if the prices were lower, more students would buy tickets and would therefore bring ASB the same amount of profit that higher priced tickets would. It is also often mentioned that seasonal fundraisers, such as Valentine's grams, often are not carried out according to their announced schedule due to the under staffing of distribution teams.

Solutions
ASB announced that the current seniors would share a prom for the 2018-19 school year. The juniors will also have their own prom for the 2019-20 school year. This is an attempt to get more students to go to prom, which would spread the cost among more people and therefore allow ASB to make prom tickets cheaper.

ASB Officer Elections
In the past, a cause for concern about ASB elections is that no one seems to know who counts the votes. During elections, which are held during house a week before the last pep rally of the year, teachers pass out paper ballots to all of the students. Once students have filled out their ballots, the teachers collect them and put them in an envelope. Soon after, a student comes into the classroom and takes the envelope away. It has been observed that the student collecting the envelopes is an E-Board member. A few students have theorized that E-Board counts the votes, giving them the ability to change votes and therefore effectively rig elections.

No ASB officer election appears to have been tampered with in recent years.

Solutions
A simple solution would be to have the house teachers count the votes of the students in their class. However, it does not appear as though a solution is necessary, as no recent elections appear to have been tampered with.

Fundraising
ASB has been known to get upset when other clubs' fundraisers steal customers from their own. As a result, ASB sometimes threatens to shut down the club's fundraising. Despite these threats, there has been no confirmation that any fundraising has ever been stifled by ASB. As for the new E-Board of 2018-19, it is much too soon to tell if this trend will continue.

Sadies 2018
In March 2018, many students refused to buy tickets to the Sadies dance, saying that the dance was going to be boring and an overall waste of money. Up until about a week before the event on March 9, fewer than 40 students had bought tickets. According to ASB, the dance was on course to be cancelled because not enough people were going. A couple of days before the dance, the number rose to around 50, which was enough to keep the event.

Reform
Over the years, complaints against ASB have been piling up, but students' attempts to bring change have not been fruitless.

2018-19 Restructuring
During second semester of the 2017-18 school year, the elected ASB leaders were told that ASB would be restructured, starting the next year (2018-19). Since Laura Darshan's retirement, Lorelei Ortega leads 9th and 10th grade ASB while Whitney Schiller leads 11th and 12th grade.

On top of the elective changes, three of the five previous E-Board members graduated in 2018. These spots have been filled with three new members, although it is still unknown how E-Board members are chosen.

April Revolution of IPolynesia
In April 2018, Chetna Nayyar and William Salazar launched their campaign for President and Vice-President, promising that they would give "power to the people". During the last pep rally of the 2017-18 school year, they were announced as the 2019 Junior President and Vice-President. The same day, Christian Salazar and Patrick Aniel were announced as the 2019 Sophomore President and Vice-President. Friday, May 11, 2018 is called the April Revolution of IPolynesia, sometimes called the Socialist Revolution of IPolynesia. This event was seen as the first step to the reform of ASB by some of the Class of 2020.

The so-called "Revolution" has since died down.