On Thursday after classes, the design room looked as though someone had tried to draw the entire school across one wall. A long sheet of brown paper hung at the front, and Mr. Raza had written five stages in thick marker:
APPLICATION → ELIGIBILITY → SHORTLIST → INTERVIEW → RESULT.
Below each stage were arrows, form names, and the people who could see them.
Mariam stood beside Kelvin and Asha. Ms. Halima was on the other side of the table with copies of the previous year’s process spread in front of her.
“The forum asked for a temporary solution,” Raza said, tapping the wall with the marker. “We are not writing a constitution today. We are building a pilot that can work without destroying the whole timetable.”
Kelvin folded his arms. “And without designing a rule that only looks good because Mariam is standing here.”
Mariam looked at him. “Thank you for the warm welcome.”
“That is my job.”
Asha said, “Your job is welfare representative, not professional irritation.”
“Roles overlap.”
Halima pointed them back to the process map. “Show me where informal influence can enter.”
Mariam stepped forward.
On the APPLICATION form, the candidate’s name sat at the top beside class, clubs, and referee. ELIGIBILITY carried attendance and discipline records. The SHORTLIST stage included a written statement explaining why the student wanted the role—but the candidate’s name remained visible.
“Why does the first statement need a name?” Mariam asked.
“So we know whose statement it is,” Raza replied.
“After scoring, yes. Before?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Kelvin picked up the marker and wrote C-01 beside the statement stage.
“Candidate code.”
Asha nodded. “And the parent relationship?”
Halima pointed to INTERVIEW. “We were thinking disclosure before interview.”
“Too late,” Mariam said. “If a selector sees the name during the written round, the blind is already gone.”
Raza exhaled. “Anonymous systems are not magic. People may recognize writing style, activities, even the problem a candidate describes.”
“I know. Blind does not mean perfect. It means someone has to explain why the blind was broken.”
Kelvin wrote that sentence in the margin.
“I am stealing that.”
“Add a citation.”
They began rebuilding the process.
Student affairs would receive applications and assign candidate codes. The first-round panel would see the welfare statement without the candidate’s name, parent role, donor relationship, or identifiable club title. Eligibility facts would be checked by separate staff. Only after the written score was locked would identities be opened for interview, and conflict declarations would then be read into the formal record.
Asha raised her hand as though she were still in class.
“Where is the appeal?”
“Candidates can ask about the result,” Raza said.
“That is not an appeal.”
“What do you want?”
“Twenty-four hours to point to a procedural error. Not ‘I hate my score.’ Something specific: a selector had a conflict that was not disclosed, totals were added incorrectly, a criterion changed after submission, or a blind statement was improperly identified.”
Kelvin frowned. “And if someone uses an appeal to delay the result?”
“Deadline. Evidence required.”
Mariam nodded. “That protects the process without turning every loss into a case.”
Halima wrote APPEAL WINDOW on a new arrow.
Then Kelvin began looking for loopholes with an enthusiasm that was almost irritating.
“What if a candidate writes, ‘As editor of the newspaper,’ and there is only one editor?”
“Instructions say no identifying titles,” Mariam answered.
“What if the candidate mentions a project everyone knows?”
“Redact before the panel,” Asha said.
“What if a parent committee member is not a selector but talks to a selector in the corridor?”
Raza answered, “Conflict declaration includes advisory contact. Selectors certify that they have not received private advocacy.”
Kelvin drew a tick.
“What if the headteacher knows the codes?”
Kaseke was not in the room, but Raza laughed. “He will not enjoy this question.”
“That is why it is a good question,” Mariam said.
They decided that the code key would be held by a student affairs administrator who did not score. Kaseke would not see identities until first-round scores had been locked.
For the first time since the screenshot appeared, Mariam felt the problem shrink from something wearing her mother’s face into a series of decisions that other people could test, challenge, and improve.
But there was a cost she did not want to pretend away.
Halima said, “An anonymous first round means the panel cannot give Mariam credit simply because they already know she has done newspaper and debate. Her statement has to communicate experience without identifying her.”
“Same for me,” Kelvin said.
“Yes. Recognition advantage falls for everyone.”
Mariam thought about the reputation she had spent years building. Some of it was unquestionably hers. Some of it had gained access through her mother. A blind process would not sort the good history from the complicated history. It would cover all of it first.
“Fine,” she said.
Asha looked at her. “Really fine?”
“Yes. If I want a rule that does not require people to trust my intentions, I have to accept that it may not help me either.”
Raza placed the draft on the table. “The pilot can start with the current selection, but every candidate must agree to restart the written stage.”
Kelvin said, “I agree.”
“That was fast.”
“I have confidence.”
“You have ego.”
“Also true.”
Asha laughed.
They reviewed the conflict form box by box: parent or guardian on school committee; staff relationship; donor liaison role; direct advocacy received; other relevant relationship.
The form did not ask how much money a family had donated. It did not mark a connected student as guilty. It identified who might need to step out of a decision.
Halima underlined one sentence.
“Recusal belongs to the decision-maker with the conflict. It is not automatic disqualification of the student.”
Mariam remembered the red line through her debate score.
“Put that in bold.”
Raza did.
An hour later, the wall was full of new arrows, yet the process itself was simpler than the argument that had created it. Raza photographed the map and said he would take the pilot to Kaseke for approval.
“And candidate forms?” Kelvin asked.
“If approval comes today, you submit tomorrow morning.”
Mariam took a blank statement form home.
That night, she drafted by hand first. She did not mention Wema. She did not mention the scandal. She wrote about commuter students who needed a reliable complaint channel, scholarship students who might fear speaking openly, and why a welfare representative should publish response times instead of asking students to trust private promises.
When she finished, she read it as if it had been written by a stranger.
It was good.
Not perfect.
But hers.
The next morning, Raza placed six envelopes on the desk. Each candidate received a submission receipt with a code. Nobody saw anyone else’s code. Mariam placed her statement inside, sealed the flap, and pushed it forward.
No Sengo name sat at the top.
No committee title.
No donor history.
Even Kelvin could not tell which envelope belonged to her after Raza shuffled them.
Mariam placed her form into the nameless envelope, and for the first time nobody at the table had permission to know it was hers.
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