They say North Penn High School is so big that you will go through your three years here and still meet people in your grade for the first time during your senior year, and may never even meet them at all. If there’s another thing students here graduate not knowing in regards to the school, it’s the difference between Class Cabinet and Student Government Association.

Let’s differentiate by structure first.

For Class Cabinet, there are four officer positions: President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. In SGA, there are five officer positions: President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and two Secretary positions with Corresponding and Recording. The Recording Secretary takes care of the meetings’ minutes and the Corresponding Secretary keeps track of attendance.

Following the officer positions, Class Cabinet has about 18-22 Cabinet members who also attend meetings to offer advice, help with various tasks, and advertise events. Those Cabinet members are chosen via interview process from the elected officers. SGA takes about 10-14 cabinet members and they are chosen for the same purpose and selected in the same way. That alone makes SGA seem smaller, but it also has an extended group in its structure, and that’s the Senate. The Senator is also an elected position and SGA takes ten members from each 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, making SGA’s Senate filled with 30 senators.

All officer positions are elected by the student body (With the exception of Seniors! They don’t get a vote mainly because they won’t be in the building the next school year). Except for Class Cabinet, only a specific grade can vote. For example, for Sophomore Cabinet elections, only sophomores can vote, the same for the junior and senior cabinets. Sophomore elections take place in September or October of that year, and then that same grade will vote for their future Junior Cabinet that same school year in April or May. Finally, that grade will vote for their Senior Cabinet during April/May of their Junior year. For SGA however, the entire student body gets to elect the five elected positions mentioned above and elections take place around the same time as Cabinet.

Only members of a specific grade can run for officer positions in Class Cabinet, but in SGA, Sophomores, and Juniors can run for the same position– thus allowing for the election process to be school-wide. And it is set up in such a way for a very specific reason.

That reason is, which also results in the biggest difference: Class Cabinet plans and executes events that are grade-specific, and SGA does events that cater to the entire school.

The Senior Cabinet is in charge of Prom, Junior Cabinet does Junior Prom, and the Sophomore Cabinet plans the Winter Ball. Although Winter Ball is not class-specific, it is given to them in hopes of preparing them for planning JProm and Prom. And all three class cabs are in charge of monitoring and fundraising for their Disney Trip constantly. The upcoming Trivia Night that is hosted by the Senior Cabinet is a prime example of a grade-specific event– only seniors can participate, thus the Senior Cabinet is in charge of it. If SGA were to do that same Trivia Night, it would be open to join for all Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.

As mentioned above, SGA does school-wide events. Spirit Weeks, Homecoming, Powderpuff, Wish Week, Volleyball Tournament, and the Talent Show. For all of those events, members from each grade at the high school can sign up and participate or attend.

That is the reason why for SGA, the officers are elected by the whole student body, and for Class Cabinet, officers are elected by their grade only– the decisions made by SGA will impact the school, and the decisions made by Class Cabinet will only affect their respective grades.

Now that you know the difference between Class Cabinet and SGA, you can finally stop asking SGA about Prom and Class Cabinet about Homecoming.