Basic Trope: A high school's Student Council has significant authority over the management of the school that it would not have in Real Life.
- Straight: The Tropeville High Student Council has authority over such things as student discipline, extracurricular activities, what the cafeteria serves for lunch, etc.
- Exaggerated:
- The Tropeville High Student Council has absolute power over every school around the district/country/world/galaxy etc. The staff answers to them, and they have an S.S-like safety patrol
- Tropeville High Student Council is an Ancient Conspiracy and the shadow government of at least three countries.
- The school is the only remaining structure in the world/region, for some reason. As such, the elected government of the students (the student council) not only is in control of the school, but also have a fully functioning military based around conscription of delinquents, taxes the classes that perform poorly, and arranges the classes to act as families.
- The school faculty, the fascist student faction, the anarcho-communist hippie student faction, and the janitors are in active warfare for control of the school. Each individual clique forms a platoon.
- The Student Council's power extends to the whole of Tropeville, even influencing the mayoral elections.
- Downplayed: The Student Council can decide things like methods of discipline, but all ideas must go through the School Board before being put into effect.
- Justified:
- The teachers and staff are bumbling incompetents, so someone has to step in and take control of the situation.
- It is a special or alternative institution and the greater power is actually a way of teaching responsibility.
- What we see is the heightened reality of the school as experienced by the students — the faculty themselves are unquestionable Powers That Be, so the student council is the closest thing there is to accountable government.
- The student council officially has no real power, but because the council itself consists of Alice, Bruce, Charles and Danielle, they effectively run the school anyway.
- It's a public college in Mexico or Sweden.
- The student council is powerful, but they’re secretly evil and they increase their power and influence though unethical means like lying, bullying, bribing, blackmail, or by using their connections, wealth and good reputation to bypass the rules and do as they please.
- Inverted:
- The Tropeville High School Student Council is run by pawns of the staff and governors in order to keep the students powerless. Not that that's ever happened.
- The Tropeville High School Student Council has no real power of any kind in the first place, even less than a normal student council usually would have.
- The Student council consists of two or three students. Even if they did have any authority, they barely have the manpower to do so much as pass out and collect forms, and they're too busy and exhausted to do much of anything. They haven't even appointed any positions beside "President" yet!
- Not only are student council members randomly appointed rather than elected, they are so rarely asked to do any work related to it that next month, no student, including themselves, can't remember who was appointed.
- Subverted: When the Council confronts the principal on something unpopular he did, he firmly explains that they in fact have no actual authority.
- Double Subverted: ...and promptly receives a terrified phone call from the Board of Governors instructing him to do whatever the Council says if he values his job.
- The council responds to this by arranging a school-wide strike, and then delivers an ultimatum; either reverse the unpopular decision, or see what happens when the entire school refuses to take their standardized tests.
- Parodied:
- The Tropeville High School Student Council is regularly followed around by security guards and the press. The staff cower before them.
- It's pretty clear that the council doesn't actually have any power, but the students believe they do and the staff humour them, so the harmless fiction that it does is never openly subverted — only the viewers know better.
- God tries to divinely intervene in the life of a student. The Student Council vetos his providence. He listens.
- Zig Zagged: The Tropeville High School Student Council's power varies greatly depending on the plot. It starts out a joke, ends up inexplicably becoming powerful enough to oust the principal, then drifting down to just influential before becoming a puppet of the administration again.
- Averted: The Tropeville High School Student Council is just an ordinary student council - they present students' grievances to appropriate authorities but have no real power themselves.
- Enforced: The authors are writing a primarily for a teenage audience and know that the idea of giving students authority would appeal to them
- Lampshaded: "Aren't you guys a little young to have this much power?" (Yes. Yes they are.)
- Invoked: The school's resident Magnificent Bastard successfully runs for student council, only to discover they're powerless. He grimly resolves to change that, with a platform of whipping up student protests and petitioning the PTA and local media to put pressure on the principal, and then offering to solve his problems if he invests a little more power in the student council...
- Exploited: The student council has no actual power, but bluffs the students by acting as if they do.
- Defied: The principal makes sure that the student council isn't a threat to his authority, and that he still has power over the school.
- Discussed: "Unlike what you've seen on TV, we don't actually have the power to set the budget for student groups."
- Conversed: "The Student Council is always the supreme authority in these high school movies."
- Deconstructed:
- Absolute power corrupts all: the Student Council Members have a power struggle when a split occurs between moderate and extremist members.
- The students claim too much power and realize they have no idea how to handle the logistics of a large school.
- Tropeville's La Résistance won. Workers control the factories, Students control the colleges.
- Reconstructed: ...But the main characters back the one member that can be redeemed, who ultimately concedes some of the council's more extreme powers in order to negotiate real improvements in school management, showing the value of well-intentioned student representation.
- Played For Drama:
- The Student Council clash with more mature "rivals", like the School Board and the PTA, over legitimate student grievances regarding the running of the school. The question of how much official power it is appropriate for the students to have over their school - and how much they can realistically bring to bear with collective action - is sympathetically explored.
- The New Student Council President is Number Two because overshadowed by the previous president. Because of many past incidents happen in Troperville High School, the New Student Council President trying the best for the school's reputation.
- The Student Council President is accused of sexual assault and refuses to cooperate with the ensuing investigation.
- Played For Laughs: The Student Council occasionally have to be reminded of the limits of their power: "For the last time, you are not authorized to fire teachers!"
- Implied: A student seems to be more afraid of angering the Student Council than the the teachers.
- Plotted A Good Waste: The Student Council is set up to be the big, antagonistic force against Lovable Jock Clay, who seeks to not let them get away with all of their misdeeds.
"Go back to Absurdly Powerful Student Council, or I'll write you up for insubordination! And no, going to the principal won't help you!"note
