Endrit Ramku ’27 is running for student president with co-runner Iris Vasi ’28. Their main focus is to ensure students do not fall behind in school due to academic or sports-related events. 

“A big focus of our campaign is making sure that people in extracurriculars don’t fall behind in school, and that encompasses both athletes who go to state competitions and debaters or Business Professionals of America who go to competitions,” Ramku said.    

To make this happen, Ramku and Vasi would work with administrators and teachers on adjusting testing days and schedules for students when they have a big event coming up, like state competitions or national conventions. Ramku acknowledges that there will be struggles in planning and recruiting teachers to help.

“I mean, I expect some teachers to be resistant, so I would try and work with teachers who aren’t willing to initially compromise and work towards a solution that benefits everybody,” Ramku said.

Another goal of Ramku’s is to make students’ voices heard. In the past, suggestion boxes and forms haven’t been effective enough to make this happen. Therefore, Ramku wants to exchange the forms for social media to reach a larger portion of the student body and hear more of their thoughts.  

Ramku feels prepared for the presidential role because of his experience from three years in student government and four years in speech and debate. Through these activities, he has learned a lot about communication and leadership which would help him as president.  

Ramku acknowledges that the hardest part of this role is the fact that he won’t be able to please everyone.

“We’re going to have to compromise in some places, but it’s always equity over equality,” Ramku said. 

Oliver Neppl ’27 is running with sophomore Nirvan Kandel, and they plan to focus on building community throughout West High. They acknowledge West’s academic excellence but note that more efforts for schoolwide bonding should be implemented. 

Some specific ideas they plan to implement to achieve this are making teasers for plays required for teachers, club fairs, more pep rallies and promoting student sections for sports apart from football. They have also taken some inspiration from City High’s traditions like their annual field day in which students spend half the day outside playing games. 

“I have a lot of friends at City High and comparing West to City, West is a very grade/work oriented school. Whereas City is, they have the grades, they have the work, but they also have all these events. And there’s a lot more community,” Neppl said. 

A struggle the pair anticipates is managing the budget to make their events happen, particularly due to ICCSD’s tighter budget moving into the 2026-27 school year. Neppl has plans to crowdfund and hold raffles to make up for a lack of district support to achieve his goals.

“I don’t think there’s a world in which our goals are not achieved, just because I think me and Nirvan are such pushers, we’re gonna keep asking and we’re going to tweak the plan until it can work,” Neppl said.

Neppl and Kandel feel they are the best candidates for the job due to their joint outgoing personalities and experience in West High activities. Kandel is the current underclassman representative for West’s student government and feels this experience will serve their team well if elected. 

Holliness Nzenga-Mumbele ’27 threw his hat in the ring for president after hearing about the elections and knowing he wanted to make the school a better place. Nzenga-Mumbele feels he would be a good candidate for the president because of his adaptability and willingness to speak to others.

“I have a friend group in every single part of the school. I can appeal to everybody,” Nzenga-Mumbele said.

Nzenga-Mumbele chose Alan Delgado ’28 for his vice president running mate. He met Delgado at work and notes they have complementary skills that benefit their team. 

“He’s just funny and outgoing, and if you want to be a good leader, you have to want to talk to anybody,” Nzenga-Mumbele said.

Upon deciding to run, Nzenga-Mumbele talked to different students around the school to get an idea of what their main issues were with their school environment. He found that most students aren’t satisfied with the current bathrooms and cafeteria food, and plans to make these issues his main focus. 

“[Those] would be like my main strikes, and after that, I would just branch out to all different types of things,” Nzenga-Mumbele said.

Current Vice President Eddie El-Fadil ’27 is running for president with co-runner Emma Lai ’28 for vice president. The main focus of their campaign is to unite the student body and increase student government transparency so students have a better understanding of what members do. 

“We noticed that a lot of the community is disconnected from what the student government does, and that’s because they don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. So we’re gonna try and be more transparent with that, as well as letting them have more of an opinion on the things that we voice, rather than trying to assume what they’d like,” El-Fadil said.

If elected, El-Fadil and Lai would work on more community-based activities. One activity Fadil had in mind was fun activities on West’s front lawn.

“We have a really big field out here in front of West High, and you want to utilize it in ways that we see fit, like a field day,” El-Fadil said.

El-Fadil and Lai would also work on event improvements, like changing the powderpuff uniforms to pink and blue for juniors and seniors, changing DJs for Homecoming and getting more student opinions on Spirit Week ideas. Another area of improvement that El-Fadil and Lai will work on is communication with the student body; they plan to feature on the Monday Message more often, send out monthly forms and make the student government website more well-known.

El-Fadil chose Lai as his running partner for many reasons; he felt that she was the most prepared and suitable for this leadership position. He also chose her because they both know different spheres of the student body.

“I picked a candidate who I thought could help me represent the most amount of people. For example, if I picked one of my friends, it would just be kind of what the people around me want, not so much as the people all around the school,” El-Fadil said.

The duo feels prepared for their potential roles, acknowledging that they’ll struggle to appease everyone but will try their best to.