By Uy Pham
Fountain Valley High School’s Associated Student Body (ASB) has confirmed its Executive Council for the 2024-2025 school year following a surge in voter turnout in the recent ASB election. The executive board will be composed of the following people with the respective positions: President Kayla Nguyen, Vice President Isaac Luu, Secretary Joyce-Pauline Dang, Treasurer Chloe Im, Co-Parliamentarian McKayla Garcia and Co-Parliamentarian Josh Nguyen.
ASB Activities Director Patricia Brewer confirmed the updated member composition to Baron Banner in an email on Wednesday, April 17. Previously, on March 22 after the election had closed, five members were verbally confirmed on morning announcements to be a part of the executive board (Kayla Nguyen, Isaac Luu, Dang, Im and Garcia).
Until Brewer’s email to Baron Banner, there had been no other official morning announcements or social media updates at the time of publication. After Baron Banner originally published this article on Friday, April 19, FVHS ASB announced their members for the next school year, including the six new executive board members, on Instagram later that day.
Out of the six confirmed members for next year’s executive board, Josh Nguyen was the sixth member added to the board since the March 22 announcement.
Brewer confirmed that the selection process for the executive board remained the same since the 2022-2023 school year.
According to the ASB By-Laws as Baron Banner reported in 2022, the five candidates with the highest number of votes receive positions on the 2022-2023 school year’s Executive Council, though a sixth may earn a spot if the ASB Advisor and current Executive Council see it fit.
Baron Banner has reached out to Brewer and Assistant Principal of Activities Hayato Yuuki to confirm that Josh Nguyen was added to the Executive Council as an additional sixth member. Per the ASB By-Laws, a sixth member may be added in addition to the top-five vote recipients based on ASB Executive Council and Advisor discretion. The candidates that received the five most votes are required to receive positions in the new executive board.
Furthermore, Baron Banner previously requested the list of the top six vote recipients from this year’s ASB election, including the vote counts associated with each candidate.
After Yuuki provided information about the total turnout on April 17, he declined to comment further in the same email.
“At this point in time, we have no further information to share and nothing else to discuss,” Yuuki said.
On April 22, Yuuki responded to Baron Banner’s request for confirmation by declining to comment and referring only to previously provided information.
“Please refer back to Mrs. Brewer’s and my previous email, but at this point in time, we have no further information to share and nothing else to discuss,” Yuuki said.
At the second period House of Representatives meeting on April 25, a student questioned why there were now six executive council members instead of five. In addition, Baron Banner inquired about ASB’s rationale for not releasing the exact vote counts each candidate had received in the election.
Both times, Brewer answered by declining to comment.
“At this point in time, we do have no further comments,” Brewer said in response to both questions.
On May 28, Baron Banner sent a California Public Records Act request for the vote counts to HBUHSD. In a statement, HBUHSD Interim Public Information Coordinator Noel Adamson stated that HBUHSD did not have access to these records.
“The District is unable to fulfill your request as the District does not have access to the records
requested,” Adamson’s statement read in response to the public records request.
Baron Banner sent a response to Adamson, inquiring why HBUHSD did not have access to the records for the election results. Additionally, Baron Banner sent the same request to FVHS Principal Paul Lopez.
Lopez replied stating that public records requests would only go through the school district.
On July 3, Yuuki provided the record for the total number of votes for each of the top six candidates only: 488, 437, 425, 379, 333, 304.
This year’s voter turnout
All FVHS students besides the current senior class are eligible to vote in ASB elections. According to Yuuki, out of 2043 eligible voters, 981 students voted in the election, which was open from March 18 to March 21.
This equates to 40.82% of the student population voting, marking a record high in voter turnout compared to the previous four elections: 25% (2022), 33% (2020), 20% (2019) and 31% (2018). There was no election in 2021 during a period of hybrid learning. 2020-2021 ASB Advisor Kelly Skon justified the decision due to the potential for low voter turnout, the distanced learning situation and a need to rebuild school culture with younger council members who could serve for years to come.
This article was updated on Monday, April 22, at 9:37 A.M. to update that FVHS ASB posted on their social media to announce their new member composition and executive board for next school year.
This article was updated on Tuesday, April 23, at 9:08 A.M. to update that Yuuki declined to comment on Baron Banner’s request for confirmation that Josh Nguyen was added to the Executive Council as the sixth member beyond the originally confirmed five.
This article was updated on Thursday, April 25, at 5:50 P.M. to update that at the House of Representatives meeting, Brewer declined to comment in response to two questions about the executive council and the election process.
This article was updated on Friday, June 7, at 8:56 P.M. to include information regarding a California Public Records Request sent by Baron Banner to HBUHSD for vote counts and the response received from HBUHSD regarding the request.
This article was updated on Tuesday, July 9, at 3:15 P.M. to include Yuuki’s response to the California Public Records Request sent by Baron Banner to Lopez and Yuuki.
Katelynn Luu and Tessa Nacke contributed to this story.
