As co-presidents of their respective classes, the Swinth sisters are truly a powerful pair. Senior Emily and sophomore Kira’s parallel roles in the school make for a perfect shared platform, one used for impacting positive change and bringing the members of their grade together. However, their connection runs far deeper than just their positions of leadership. Together, they have forged an unbreakable bond of sisterhood.

Kira has known she wanted to pursue a position of leadership at Cleveland since middle school, where she served on student government for two years. According to Emily, this was one of the reasons she decided to take part in student government.

“I saw that that was making a really meaningful impact at her school, and so that inspired me to join leadership and to become a more active member in that sort of thing,” said Emily. “I wanted to be the voice of a student group, interacting with members of my class and working with them on projects that are meaningful.”

In this case, the sisters certainly take after one another. Kira said, “That’s pretty much my drive in life, is trying to make a difference and to impact people’s lives; maybe in a small way or maybe in a large way. I think student government can be an outlet for that.”

Each sister shares the title and responsibility of class president with one other student from their grade, senior Adam Nayak with Emily and sophomore Stephanie Singh with Kira. According to Kira, she loves working in a partnership because it allows her to reflect her thoughts off someone else. “I have the craziest ideas in the world, and having them heard and run them through is so awesome because sometimes I want to bite off a little more than I can chew. — [Singh] can evaluate if it’s realistic,” she said.

In many ways, this dynamic is similar to that of Kira and Emily. According to both sisters, the other serves as a support system at home.

“We’re super close, so we talk about everything, we share everything. We talk about what we’re doing in our respective class cabinets so we can bounce ideas off of each other. It’s almost like we get to do this secret communication at home. [Emily is] very creative and insanely logical. She thinks of good ideas,” said Kira.

Not only is having access to someone at home like this helpful for their roles as class presidents, but it’s a way for them to grow closer and share ideas. According to Kira, it was Emily who introduced her to some of the other extracurriculars and sports she is involved in, including lacrosse and cross country. “We’ve been playing sports together our whole life, so when Emily started playing [cross-country and lacrosse] when she got to highschool, I was definitely interested. I don’t think I would be playing either if it wasn’t for Emily.”

In Emily’s opinion, leadership is a skill useful in almost any position later on in life. She says she’ll take the knowledge she’s gained from these experiences with her when she leaves Cleveland at the end of the school year. “You’re always going to have to be able to solve problems and work collaboratively with people. These skills that I build right now are going to carry me through anything.”

Even though it’s an exciting prospect, Emily’s graduation will be difficult. “She is my rock, and not having her there next year will be be really hard at first — It’s scary, but also I’m extremely excited for her. Our partnership will continue, despite us not being together,” said Kira.