Grace’s New President: An Interview With Eduardo Padro
Media Provided by Sally P. ’26
On Thursday, May 22nd, 2025, Eduardo Padro won Grace’s student body presidential election and assumed the position of leading the school for the next year. The election had five other candidates from the junior grade, including Jack C. ‘26 and Micah W. ‘26, both student council members representing the Class of 2026. Throughout the campaign, candidates focused their message on issues of transparency and a perceived disconnect between the student body and the administration. Shortly after his win late last month, I sat down with Mr. Padro to discuss his initial decision to run for student body leader, his campaign policy positions, and his goals for the new school year. Below is a lightly edited transcript of our interview.
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1) Before running for student body leader, how were you involved with the Grace community?
Eduardo: Freshman year, I joined Hola, the Latino affinity group, as well as MOCA [the Men of Color Alliance], which was started, I think, that year. I’ve been in that organization my entire time at Grace, as well as Rock Band. I also joined Robotics [in my] freshman year, which started junior year in 2024.
I didn’t really have any experience in student government, to be honest. I ran for student president because I wanted to see if something like this would be a good career in the future. I know in the future I want to be able to help people in some way, and this role is a good way of seeing whether more government-based positions are something for me long term.
2) When did you decide to run for Student Body Leader? Did your peers encourage you?
Eduardo: It started earlier this year when I thought that one of my friends was jokingly saying that I should run. It started originally as a joke. It became more serious in late February or March. I started thinking more seriously. I started to feel I could try to make a good change at Grace, and so I decided to try to run.
Magnus [B. ‘27] was my campaign manager and really helped a lot, as did Midas [T. ‘28] with the freshmen class, helping me get their ideas.
3) As you began your campaign and drafted your speech, how did you decide which policy proposals were the most important ones facing the school?
Eduardo: My initial approach was to try to get as much feedback from the students as possible to see what they personally want to change. My goals as student body leader is to get ideas for change from the students directly, to hear their voices, rather than having my own personal ideas. Getting the change that students want will ultimately be better for everyone.
People definitely wanted to change Yondr pouch policy. I want to work on that because, at the end of the day, there’s going to be some phone policies. Rationally, we need some control. But I think the Yondr pouch policy is definitely very negative overall.
4) What policies should we expect to see in the first weeks of your tenure?
Eduardo: Basically, every two weeks, there will be announcements from both the student government and also from the clubs, who want to make announcements. I’m bringing these back. That is going to allow anyone to put forward any idea they want for the school, no matter how radical and no matter how small at the start of the year.
Immediately, you start working on those ideas, seeing what they have in common with the big things that need to be fixed. I want to immediately try to talk to Ms. Perry about the phone policies.
5) Every student body president’s speech at the community meeting emphasized transparency and a general discontent with the administration as major tenets of their campaign. Why do you believe these have become such crucial issues to the student body, and how do you specifically hope to address them?
Eduardo: I feel that sometimes the administration comes into school more like a business, rather than a school, and there are a lot of secrets when they do stuff. For example, when they made the pouch policy, they didn’t really consult the students before doing it.
In the future, when the administration does something big, I want them to have to consult with the student body and to make a general consensus before they enact action. The administration sometimes feels very secretive. Take Yondr pouches again, as well as other things that they have done in the past; they don’t exactly elaborate.
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For Eduardo, issues of administrative transparency, regular newsletters to strengthen government-student relations, and the Yondr pouch policy are top of his fall agenda. As Grace approaches three months of summer vacation, Eduardo plans to hit the ground running as Grace’s student body leader.
Wilson Urist ‘27, the author, is a staff writer for The Grace Gazette.