The MCHS 2026-2027 election season is now

Photo of the posters for each of candidates for ASB leadership covering the MCHS entrance (Esmond Hoang / The Puma Prensa)

By Esmond Hoang, staff writer

As Maria Carrillo High School’s 2026 year comes to a close, the current freshman will look forward to becoming sophomores and will be greeted by the freshly appointed class President.

Here is the information on the election for MCHS. 

Every student has the ability to vote for a class candidate to represent their year. The positions usually are President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. However, the Associated Student Body (ASB) positions can be voted on by all students in MCHS.  

This election season, we had more of our pumas running for ASB positions than most other years. The ASB’s positions are responsible for the whole school, so everyone has the ability to vote for each candidate. 

To gain votes, all candidates will all present a video trying to convince people to vote for them.  Junior class President candidate, Kenn Salinger says “An effective video is honestly being kinda cringe.” 

They will often fundraise school-wide events and work as an extension of leadership. The ASB candidates are Gabe Goodrich and Savannah Houts for President, while those running for Vice President are Lucas Famini, Ricky Oseguera, and Kate Kearney. 

The two uncontested candidates are Sydney Buonaccorsi for ASB Secretary and Alexa Trillo for ASB Multi-Media Commissioner. Emma Lenzi and Aren Prichard are both competing with each other to become ASB Treasurer. 

For the next senior class; Siena Deneault, Carlo Cuniberti, Rylee Paris, and each are unopposed for their positions.  

For our junior candidates, they are Yihe Wang, Kenn Salinger, Chloe Griffin-Holm, Kalea Wilson, and Tava Carrillo. Yihe Wang and Kenn Salinger both ran last year for president and are running against each other again. 

Last but not least, the sophomore candidates are Sungbin Kim, William Atieh, Stone Gosar, and Niko Hopfer. Each is unopposed, like the senior class.

Compared to last year, our seasonal elections were much more rushed. The information on each candidate was released one day before elections instead of giving students a week to read information. Similarly the videos for each candidate were shown on Carrillo live late.

As MCHS faces increasingly tougher budget cuts, a common theme of the candidates is to stay organized and to fundraise to protect the school. Although this may seem daunting, anyone can run for positions for their class, and competition is healthy. The current sophomore candidates, Yihe Wang and Kenn Salinger, both agree on the advice for future students is to “put yourself out there.”