After holding a four-hour retreat before the start of school, Student Government teacher Brett Mattix kicked off his second term with several changes to the program’s structure.

The retreat detailed the plan for this term’s curriculum and familiarized the students with each other.

Junior Student Government member Jake Solso found that the exercises were helpful in communicating with his fellow classmates.

“We learned what it meant to be in Student Government and what our purpose is on campus,” Solso said. “We not only learned our purpose but we also did some team building exercises.”

Due to complaints at past school dances, Student Government decided to take a different approach to music by offering a student-picked playlist at Junior Prom.

“Junior prom is going to be a little different because we have figured out in the past that people have complained about the DJ, so we are going to try a playlist this year,” Junior Student Government student Kara Wilson said.

Student Government made this decision after a survey on the @classof2018 twitter account in which 79 percent of the 236 votes preferred the playlist to having a DJ like at past dances. The playlist will be made entirely by student input and student chosen songs.

Song requests will either be picked separately or by subscribing to a music program including many songs that the students want to hear.

“We want people to hear songs that they want to hear, but we also have the responsibility to make sure that it’s student appropriate,” Mattix said.

Student Government is now investing in other features for the dances with the money left over from not hiring a DJ.

“They are adding more stuff to the dances, such as a photobooth and other fun things that the students would enjoy,” RHS junior and dance commissioner Kevria Shill said.

This year’s junior prom theme of Great Gatsby was also decided by Twitter poll, along with Casaba’s Winter Wonderland theme.

Shill also took her own initiative to poll about a possible snapchat geofilter for Casaba from her personal Twitter account, which resulted in 83 percent of 115 votes voting “yes.”

According to Mattix, the new methods and additions to the class fall in line with continuing to prioritize the creative direction of his students over anything else.

“We wanted to give students time to create the program,” Mattix said. “It’s not a Brett Mattix program, it’s a student government program.”

Mattix decided to bring back the interview process this term for students wishing to enroll in Student Government, citing a need for diversity.

“We are really looking for a lot of diversity to come into the Student Government class, so that is why we brought back the interview time,” Mattix said.

The interview process intends for Mattix and the panel observing the interview to get to know the possible Student Government students and to make them aware of what is expected of them going into the program.

The panel observing the interviews consists of Mattix as well as the reigning ASB officers. This term, Mattix also turned towards social media to gauge student opinion on school events that the program host.