Cerullo, Quinn Elected Head Monitors; Students Question Speech Conduct
By Rhys Adams ’26 and HT Xue ’26
On Thursday, April 16, Milton’s upper school piled into the ACC to carry out one of the few duties that falls on all 712 students at once: considering the speeches of all candidates for head monitor who made it past the primary round. Nine candidates from the Class of 2027 threw their names in the hat, but only six—Dennis Zhou ’27, Phoebe Quinn ’27, Jon Cerullo ’27, Jocelyn Riordan ’27, Rowan Collins ’27, and Al Ptaszek ’27, all from Greater Boston—made it to the final round. After three-minute speeches from each candidate and four rounds of questioning by departing Head Monitors Patrycja Pogorzelska ’26 and Nehemiah Sanon ’26, students entered their preferences via the MyMilton online platform, where votes were digitally tallied through a ranked-choice system. At 8:03am on Friday, April 17, Sanon and Pogorzelska announced via an all-school email that Cerullo and Quinn will succeed them as next year’s Head Monitors.
The candidates approached preparing for Thursday’s elections differently. Quinn, for example, “spoke with students across different grades and classes to better understand what they felt could be improved at Milton.” Similarly, Riordan recalls “talking to [her] friends and people in other grades.” For both candidates, this input shaped their approach during the election on Thursday. Meanwhile, Collins, who “pride[s] [her]self on being a kind, approachable face to everybody,” spent the bulk of her preparation “brainstorming what [she] wanted [her] overall message to be,” ultimately opting to prioritize making her speech “feel[s] less like a lecture and more like a friendly introduction.” Riordan, who ran for the position because she “had such an incredible time at Milton…and want[s] to help Milton be an environment where everyone can feel the same connection,” centered her speech around a promise to help students “make their own Milton experience” as well as specific policy changes, such as reforming the oft-problematized PE credit. Notably, Zhou created @denniszhouheadmonitor ahead of Thursday’s speeches, an Instagram account posting short-form reels advocating for his campaign, which centered on the promise of allowing Milton students to “take off their masks” and be their authentic selves. Zhou’s strategy this year represents a deviation from the historic norm of Head Monitor elections,for which Milton strongly discourages candidates from campaigning beyond the structured election speeches.
Reflecting on the election, Ben Nass ’29, found that many of the candidates, while seeming “passionate about getting this position,” presented “similar tones of communication,” each emphasizing wanting to “shar[e] a voice and be one with the students.” Anisa Mukhtar ’26, meanwhile, chafed at the audience’s disruptiveness, stating that “we as a community need to do much better at showing respect.” Mukhtar found it “telling” to hear her peers “laughing and mocking certain candidates while showering others with over the top applause,” arguing that this disparity in demonstrated respect “showed that many members of this community already made up their minds about who[m] they wanted to elect before giving the other candidates a chance.” Echoing this sentiment, Nass thought that “the elections were partially…a popularity contest.”
During the Q&A portion of the elections, Sanon and Pogorzelska posed the question, “How do you plan on making Milton a more anti-racist and inclusive community?” To Mukhtar, the candidates’ answers to this question demonstrated that they were “too nervous to share their true thoughts.” Mukhtar found that “many stated the need…for ‘difficult conversations’” but “not a single candidate even mentioned a single example of what [these conversations would be about] nor did they explain how they intend to make our community better-equipped to handle said conversations.” Quinn, who won the election, corroborated that while “there were lots of strong candidates…the pool didn’t fully reflect the diversity of the student body.”
Quinn’s own answer to the aforementioned question included a remark that “blatant racism does not exist at Milton,” to which some audience members audibly gasped and others laughed. Mukhtar, herself a Black student, found this response “invalidating.” Quinn regrets the wording of her answer, clarifying that prior to the panel, she “asked Milton students of color about what racism they experience…and the underlying theme was microaggressions and subtle jokes.” Quinn claims that the existence ofthis subtle manifestation of racism was “what [she] was trying to convey,” and that “as Head Monitor [she] will be 100% committed to…mak[ing] Milton an anti-racist community.”
Reflecting on his own tenure as Head Monitor, Sanon thought that “we had a very diverse SGA with so many different perspectives that I truly feel represented the student body.” On the other hand, Sanon, echoing Quinn, found this year’s group to be “less racially diverse,” wondering if fewer overall people self-nominated for the election because “there are less people in this junior class that are engaged with the community.” Despite this lack of diversity, Sanon believes that “some of the candidates took a good approach,” such as Cerullo, who “acknowledged his privilege.”
Looking ahead, Siri Chung ’28 is “excited” for an “optimistic and energetic year” with Cerullo and Quinn as Head Monitors, believing them to be “good choices.” Quinn herself looks to “set up consistent systems for student input…and turn feedback into clear, achievable steps.” Cerullo, meanwhile, hopes to support the Boarding Monitors in implementing “a lot more events and activities for boarders.” He also plans to “build more knowledge on what the SGA actually does as…a good amount of students don’t actually know what it is.” Overall, Cerullo’s goal is to build on initiatives started by this year’s SGA and “continue to make Milton the Milton that the students and faculty want it to be.” On Monday, April 27, after farewell speeches from Sanon and Pogorzelska, Cerullo and Quinn assumed the co-head-monitorship, naming Collins as the SGA’s secretary.