Student Council Ideas: Fostering School Spirit and Leadership

Whether your school has an elected student council in high school or a teacher-nominated student council in elementary school, student council members serve as ambassadors of school spirit. School spirit encompasses all the events and activities that make everyone feel like they are part of something greater than themselves. The student council offers numerous benefits to both the students and the school community as a whole. Being a part of the student council cultivates leadership skills in students. They learn to collaborate, communicate, and make decisions collectively, honing their abilities to lead and inspire others. Here are some fun and effective ideas to inspire your student council and foster a strong sense of school spirit, improve the school, and create a more inclusive and impactful environment.

Building School Spirit Through Fun Activities

Dress Like a Teacher Day: Kids love to imitate their favorite teachers, so host a "Dress Like a Teacher Day." Students dress as their most influential teachers for the day.
Lip-Synch Battle: It's karaoke night, but with school spirit. Students sign up to lip-synch their favorite songs and end the battle with the school song.
Talent Showcase: Many students have talents that aren’t showcased every day. The student council can organize a talent showcase to highlight these unique abilities.
Pie-Baking or Cookie-Making Contest: Try a mini version of "Top Chef" by hosting a pie-baking or cookie-making contest. Recruit the home ec teacher to coordinate and choose judges.
Trivia Contests: Nothing brings people together like trivia! A trivia contest is a fun homeroom idea, or you can hold it in the lunchroom to include a mix of people.
Color Run: A Color Run is a healthy and fun way to show school spirit. Students wear a shirt they don’t mind getting dirty and run around a track while teachers throw colored chalk on them.
Flash Mobs: Flash mobs are a great way to bring students together. With just a few guided practices, they can be part of a fun and special event. All you need is a music system and a few students who are on the dance team who can get a team ready with choreography.
Tournament or Game Night: Engage students and foster a positive school climate by hosting a tournament or game night.
Open-Mic Night: This activity is great for middle and high schoolers. Turn the theater or cafeteria into a cafe or other space for an open-mic night. Kids can express themselves through song, poetry, comedy, or other performances.
Decades Day, Twin Day, Pajama Day, or School Colors Day: Get everyone involved with fun dress-up days like Decades Day, Twin Day, Pajama Day, or School Colors Day.

Promoting School Pride and Traditions

School Song Revival: A school song is a tradition that will create lasting memories for generations. If you have a talented student or teacher musician, you could even compose an original song. Already have one? Host a contest to update and refresh it.
School Cheer Creation: Make your school cheer catchy so that years from now, it will still pop into alums’ heads and remind them of the good times they had at your school.
Senior Spotlights: Celebrate your seniors by broadcasting highlights of their greatest accomplishments on social media. Create a standard page and adjust it for each senior. This makes a great annual tradition that builds school pride and stronger neighborhood-school ties.
Spirit Shirt Design Contest: Challenge students to design a spirit shirt for your school. Feature all entries on a bulletin board in a common area or web page so that everyone can view the entries.
Welcome Packets: Challenge the student council to create a welcome packet that can be given to new students and families.
School History Project: Start up a school history project to build school pride. Have students research and present the history of their school and local community, possibly in collaboration with other member schools.
Sidewalk Chalk Art: Turn your sidewalk into a celebration of school spirit by having student council members decorate it with sidewalk chalk.
Door-Decorating Contests: Looking for student council contest ideas? Host door-decorating contests with themes such as holidays, homecoming, spirit days, or making the world a better place. Reveal the winning classroom over morning announcements and award the winners with prizes like pizza or an ice cream party. As part of spirit week, have a Wacky Sock Day!

Acts of Kindness and Community Building

Kindness Rocks Project: Inspire positivity and kindness around your school community with a Kindness Rocks Project.
Kindness Wall: Create a Kindness Wall where students can add sticky notes or cards.
Kindness Committee: This committee stands out at the car line on student council meeting mornings and greets parents and students with happy posters, songs, cheers, and general positivity.
Unity Wall: Make all students feel welcome in your school with a unity wall that highlights what makes them unique and the characteristics they share. To create a unity wall, invite individuals to contribute personalized pieces, such as drawings, photos, or written reflections, that showcase their unique traits and shared values.
Multicultural Night: Celebrate the diversity in your school with a multicultural night. Students can plan and organize booths for parents and teachers who want to share their culture with the school community. Invite families to share food, traditions, and stories from around the world.
Letters to a Sister School: Find a school in another state, or even overseas, and collectively write letters to that school. Send your news and school highlights.
Kindness Gram Fundraiser: Pair the campaign with a “Kindness Gram” fundraiser where students send notes, lollipops, or Smencils to friends.
Kindness Squad: EVERYONE is on the Kindness Squad, and it’s a mega favorite!
Reading Buddies: Reading buddies are a great way to connect classes across grade levels and build older students’ fluency.
Postcard Exchanges: Postcard exchanges are a fun way for students to improve writing skills and develop knowledge about other parts of the world.
Motivational School Theme: Collaborate with your principal to create a motivational school theme for the year, like “teamwork” or “respect.” Integrate the theme into as many aspects of your school as possible throughout the year. For example, introduce the theme at your back-to-school night and incorporate it into your school newsletters throughout the year.

Supporting the School and Community

Community Service Day: Inspire a sense of school spirit and generosity by bringing students together to do good work in your community.
Yard Work Assistance: Find out who in your community needs help with their yard work, and plan a day where students can sign up to rake lawns and bag the leaves.
School Clean-Up Day: Encourage responsibility and pride with a school-wide clean-up. Have kids collect trash and recyclables, weed the gardens, and clean off sidewalks and garden areas.
Eco-Friendly Initiatives: Launch eco-friendly initiatives like a recycling drive or a campaign to reduce plastic use. Encourage environmental responsibility within the school community by putting students in charge.
Book Donation Drop Box: Not everyone has access to Wi-Fi or e-books, and getting to the library can be challenging. Create a drop box at your school where classmates can donate books. Then, using a survey tool like Survey Monkey or Google Forms, reach out to families to find out who wants books and where to deliver them.
Morning Welcome Committee: Students on the morning welcome committee are responsible for setting a positive tone every day. They greet students in the hallway each morning with positive affirmations and high-fives. The same students also take care of important morning duties, like raising the flag or bringing in the sidewalk cones. These students are also responsible for the morning announcements.
New Student Welcome Committee: Changing schools in the middle of the year can be intimidating, but having a new student welcome committee can help.
Philanthropy and Fundraising Committee: Another committee can be responsible for all philanthropy and fundraising needs. Bake sales, collection drives (food, clothing, books), walk-a-thons, and more all need students to promote and pump up participation.
Clothing or School Supply Drive: Another way for student council to do good for the community around your school is by conducting a clothing or school supply drive. Partner with a local organization to collect clothes (prom dresses, baby clothes, coats, etc.) or school supplies.
Care Packages: Another way to give back to the community is by creating care packages.
Bags for Cancer Patients: If you have a cancer infusion center nearby you can make bags for the patients. Include a snack, a drink, chapstick, small sanitizer, and try to get a hat or scarf. The kids decorate the bags or put uplifting messages in them.
Advocate for Seniors: Seniors finally get to park in the front row! Advocate for seniors to get designated prime parking spots and work with your school administration to allow custom decoration.
Teacher Appreciation: Plan a day to honor the support staff in your school. Put students in charge of Teacher Appreciation Week. Draft personalized letters to teachers and school staff to thank them for being a part of your school community. This student leads a committee of students who plan monthly acts of teacher appreciation.
Student of the Week or Star Student: Put student council in charge of Star Student or Student of the Week.
School Improvement Campaign: Inspire future community organizers with a school improvement campaign to make your school even better. Students identify a problem, like the quality of school lunches or aging playground equipment. Build students’ public speaking skills by preparing a presentation to the school board.
Welcome New Students: Have student council create a Never Been Absent campaign. What would motivate students to attend your school specifically?
Morning Announcements: Student council can plan and provide the morning announcements for the school. Our student council does morning announcements. They alternate between someone leading the school in the pledge and school motto, announcing the lunch for the day and wishing Happy birthdays.

Creative and Unique Ideas

Mask Design Contest: Challenge classmates to come up with a design for a mask that celebrates school spirit. Then, pick your three favorites. Create a video where you interview each classmate and ask them about their design and how it represents your school.
Spirit Can: Jointly sponsor a spirit can in partnership with the cheer team. During school events and game time-outs, student council members or cheerleaders lift the lid on the spirit can, signaling for the crowd to cheer. The higher the lid is lifted, the louder the crowd cheers. As the lid is lowered to the can, the crowd becomes softer.
Spirit Stick Creation: Use your creativity to make a spirit stick with your school colors. Use an empty gallon water bottle, a broomstick, beads, and ribbon.
Decades of Color Hallways: Brighten up your school’s hallways with decades of color! Assign an era to each grade level.
Photo Frame Creation: Design your own “frame” with your school mascot or colors and let students line up for photos.
School Scavenger Hunt: Looking for memorable student council ideas? Check this one out. It’s got lots of potential for getting lots of students involved. Students go on a scavenger hunt around the school, completing certain tasks.
Paint Throwing Canvas: During a stressful time for students like state testing or finals week, set up a large blank canvas in the common area along with paints in your school colors. Encourage students to “throw” paint against the canvas using paintbrushes and sponges.
Face Painting: Recruit art students to showcase their talents by painting their peers’ faces with school colors.
Spirit Posters: Have different homerooms, school clubs, or teams make their best spirit posters to display in the halls.
Get Fired Up Assembly: Get the whole school community together to get “fired up” for the school year.
Movie Night: Spread a king-size sheet or painter’s tarp on the side of the school to project a movie, and invite students and their families to bring lawn chairs or blankets.
Cafeteria Staff Appreciation: Write kind notes to your cafeteria staff and give them to students who are standing in line for lunch, along with directions to pass the note to a cafeteria staff member.
Senior Breakfast: In the last week of school, host a senior breakfast to celebrate students’ graduation and give them a positive send-off.
Braided Paper Bracelets: Another fun DIY project! This tutorial will teach students how to make simple braided paper bracelets using school-colored paper.
Honorary School Diploma Program: Advocate to begin an honorary school diploma program, recognizing people in the community-living or historical-who have made outstanding contributions to the school or have noteworthy achievements that align with your school values.
Senior Walk: Graduating high school seniors walk the halls in their caps and gowns to inspire younger students to go the distance. If you have older students or a K-8 or K-12 school, have the older graduates walk the kindergarten grads through the school.
Inspiring Wall: Let students ham it up in front of an inspiring wall like a wall of hearts, butterfly wings, or being the I in Kindness.
Lost and Found Fashion Show: Challenge students to turn lost and found items into a school-spirited outfit.
Welcome Students: Build school spirit with school-related affirmations. Brainstorm a list of positive statements about the students in your school (for example, “You are a leader!
End-of-Year Awards Ceremony: Send students into summer with an end-of-year awards ceremony.

Fundraising Ideas for Student Council

Paper Pom-Poms: This is one of many fun moneymaking student council ideas. Make and sell paper pom-poms before your student athletic events to fill your gym with school spirit.
Car Wash: A car wash is a classic way for students to work together and raise money. Boost profits by pairing the car wash with candy bar or lollipop sales while drivers wait.
Cookie Dough Sales: Some councils fund these prizes through cookie dough sales, which can raise thousands in just a few weeks. Councils often fund these improvements with cookie dough or holiday catalog sales. Kick off the program with a welcome breakfast or pizza night funded by a cookie dough or popcorn fundraiser.
Reusable Tote Sales: Kick it off with a fundraiser that fits the theme-like reusable tote sales.
Midland Candles or Tote Bags: Multicultural events are the perfect time to sell Midland candles or tote bags as take-home items.
Midland Fundraising: Need funds to support your next big idea? Midland Fundraising makes it easy.
Spirit Wear Sales: Create spirit wear like t-shirts, hoodies, hats, or water bottles. Pair merch sales with Midland tote bags so families can bundle purchases.
Holiday Wishes Catalog Fundraiser: One senior class funded a new water fountain through a Midland Holiday Wishes Catalog Fundraiser.
Holiday Catalog Sales: Councils often fund these improvements with cookie dough or holiday catalog sales.
Fun Run: A positive school environment celebrates everyone’s talents. If you’re looking for student council fundraising ideas, try a fun run that combines fitness and school spirit. Student council members can get the word out on social media and with posters and flyers. Encourage students to participate individually or as part of a team.
Popcorn and Peanuts: A middle school funded gloves, bags, and supplies for their clean-up day by selling Midland popcorn and peanuts at lunchtime the week before.

Academic and Personal Growth Initiatives

Recruit Tutors: Recruit classmates who are willing to tutor other students.
Sensory Room: Research the features of a sensory room, plan a room for your school, and fundraise for the materials.
Never Been Absent Campaign: Have student council create a Never Been Absent campaign. What would motivate students to attend your school specifically?
Positive Affirmations: Build school spirit with school-related affirmations. Brainstorm a list of positive statements about the students in your school (for example, “You are a leader!
Icebreakers: Students are more invested in their school community when they have a genuine connection with other students. Encourage students to broaden their social circles with icebreakers.
Student Council Newsletter: Whether your school sends a newsletter weekly, biweekly, monthly, or quarterly, students LOVE to help! This committee can be responsible for the entire newsletter or just a section of it. They can also digitally design the newsletter and deliver paper copies to each classroom.
Student Council Social Media: Be sure to follow your school’s social media policy for this one. Student council can identify an event or aspect of your school to showcase on social media. Take photos, plan the language, and post the event.
Posters of Encouragement: Our student leadership students research and vote on an encouraging quote each month. They make posters of the quotes and hang them around the school.

Improving School Environment

School Mantra: Engage with your school principal to craft a mantra that reflects your unique school culture. Examples: We are Eagles. We are considerate. We are responsible.
Holiday Hallways: Welcome classmates back from winter or spring break with holiday hallways.
Anonymous Suggestion Box: Give students a voice by setting up an anonymous suggestion box in the cafeteria or media center. Add a digital version through a Google Form so everyone feels included-even those who may not drop a paper slip.
Upgrade Common Spaces: Upgrade common spaces with beanbags, reading corners, or phone charging stations.
Mural: Another school beautification idea is a mural. Student council can generate ideas, take a vote on the idea the student body likes the best, and paint the mural.
Snack and Drink Stations: During testing weeks, set up snack and drink stations with donated items. Paint and display encouraging posters around the halls. Organize fun activities and games during lunch and recess (for younger kids).
Hall Bulletin Boards: We have taken responsibility for all the main hall bulletin boards. We change them out monthly to fit with our school themes and events.

Addressing Important Issues

Screen-Free Day: Whether or not cell phones are a problem in your building, going screen-free for a day is never a bad idea.
Support Groups: Create groups for LGBTQ+ students, newcomers, or shared interests.

Student Council Structure and Roles

Inclusivity: Student council elections can sometimes become popularity contests, but there are several ways to avoid that. At our school, our student council is made up of students in grades 4-6. Anyone can join, but sixth graders hold campaigns for office positions and give speeches to the fourth and fifth graders. I’ve also seen schools do a combination of student and teacher votes. At one school, students complete applications, receive endorsements, and apply for specific committees on the student council. Then, their peers and teachers select the final council.
Variety of Committees: Having a variety of different committees is another way to be more inclusive. Our school has one teacher who is the “head’ of the student council, but several other teachers volunteer to help with committees. Students only serve on one committee per year, so this is a great way to allow more students to have the opportunity to serve on the student council.
Vice President: This student works very closely with the president to complete his or her duties.
Assembly Coordinator: Our school has monthly assemblies in support of our Responsive Classroom work. This student works with the leaders of the student council to plan a productive and engaging assembly for the whole school.
Head of Teacher Appreciation: This student leads a committee of students who plan monthly acts of teacher appreciation.
Morning Welcome Committee: Students on the morning welcome committee are responsible for setting a positive tone every day. They greet students in the hallway each morning with positive affirmations and high-fives. The same students also take care of important morning duties, like raising the flag or bringing in the sidewalk cones. These students are also responsible for the morning announcements.
New Student Welcome Committee: Changing schools in the middle of the year can be intimidating, but having a new student welcome committee can help.
Event Organization: Just think of how many school events occur each school year and all the work involved! Your student council members can help organize and advertise important events like back-to-school bash, Red Ribbon week, holiday events (trunk or treat, snowball dance, etc.), end-of-the-year picnics, and more. Our school spirit committee also makes encouraging signs for state testing week!
Philanthropy and Fundraising: Another committee can be responsible for all philanthropy and fundraising needs. Bake sales, collection drives (food, clothing, books), walk-a-thons, and more all need students to promote and pump up participation. This is a big job! They are in charge of creating posters for advertising the events, writing scripts to share about the fundraising events on the announcements, and “news flash” alerts in the newspaper.
School Newsletter: Whether your school sends a newsletter weekly, biweekly, monthly, or quarterly, students LOVE to help! This committee can be responsible for the entire newsletter or just a section of it. They can also digitally design the newsletter and deliver paper copies to each classroom. They are also responsible for taking pictures throughout the year and coming up with different sections of the paper (Student of the Semester, Kindness Corner, Nature News, etc.).
Kindness Committee: Everyone likes to feel appreciated, and it means even more when coming from students! We also added a kindness committee thanks to this post from Head Over Heels for Teaching. EVERYONE is on the Kindness Squad, and it’s a mega favorite! This committee stands out at the car line on student council meeting mornings and greets parents and students with happy posters, songs, cheers, and general positivity. It’s the perfect place to be inspired!