“Congratulations for winning the 2011-2012 school year presidential election. Thank you to all who participated.” LTV, our school’s broadcasting network signed off and I walked back to class. I was an “original” on LTV because I had done it since the start of seventh grade.

I had just heard I won the election and I had to go to science class, my least favorite subject, and sit right next to the girl who lost to me. My school definitely wasn’t accepting the news well. They would yell, “Rigged, Rigged, Rigged!” When I walked by, call me a liar, and worse.

I had never dealt with not being accepted or not being liked. I am always hanging out with my friends and yes, LTV did ruin my “reputation” but in seventh grade I didn’t care. All that mattered were my friends, and my grades. But in eighth grade it started to matter to me; a lot.

Kids not only didn’t want me as president, but didn’t like me either. One of the most popular girls in school ran against me. She played on the basketball team, and she hung out with the popular crowd. I did too, but I was never fully accepted.


Let me back up, I wanted to run for president my eighth grade year. To be secretary, president, treasurer, or vice-president, you are supposed to be in Leadership class, an elective. At my school you could only take one elective so in seventh grade I decided to take french. The problem with french is, you have to take two full years in junior high for it to count as one year in high school. Once I started running, the counselors told me if I was to win I would have to drop french and go into leadership class even after spending a whole year in french already. It wouldn’t count for high school and I would have to take it over again.


I didn’t take this lightly. Were they telling me I couldn’t run for office unless I was in this special class? Yes they were. It even said in our planners that if a student won they would be enrolled in Leadership class. I knew this wasn’t fair. But, school rules. I told my dad about it and he was really mad. So, instead of complaining verbally, we took the writing approach. I sat down and wrote a letter, expressing how I didn’t feel it was fair to exclude me from running. They read my letter and allowed me to run. Through the whole election process, one of my best friends, took side’s with the popular girl I was running against. She barely even knew her but decided to completely go against me. To this day I have no idea why she acted like that.


I wrote my speech, saying all of the things I wanted to do. I wrote down even the most far fetched ideas like adding a sports team to our school. But I didn’t once say I promised anything. That speech was a nightmare. It was a huge success for the first couple days; people talked about it, facebook’ed about it, texted about it, anything they could do to spread the word. But after a couple weeks of presidency everyone grew impatient. It’s not like you can raise enough money, ask the leadership class, and order a vending machine in a month. NO WAY. Then the teacher of the leadership class elected a second president. I was heart-broken. I had done so much to earn this title and the “co-president” lost the election by getting in second place and still got the honor. I couldn’t believe it. As the months passed, he took over he monthly meetings, the school rally’s, anything and everything. I felt completely shut out. But not only that, I was still getting comments about being a liar. I hated being president and I hated the school.


It is now halfway through the year, and I have still done not one thing. I hate the pressure, and wish that my school was fair, and I am still getting students coming up to me asking for a vending machine, a sports team, and etc. when I have suggested more the ten ideas at the meetings. Now does this sound fair to you?