All the nominations, all the votes: The Tennessean Student of the Week is returning

The Tennessean's Student of the Week initiative is set to return this week with a new look.

Last year, the newspaper began experimenting with categories within the Student of the Week program. We asked high schools from across Middle Tennessee for student nominations within their drama department, band program and more, and the results were overwhelmingly positive.

We saw more schools send in student nominees.

We saw more votes being cast.

We saw more engagement across social media platforms.

And we are hoping for more of the same this year, which is why we plan to continue to ask our schools to provide us with students who excel in certain areas week to week. One poll might feature students who are very active in the ROTC. Another might feature students with the most school spirit. You never know?

But, because we knew that week one was probably chaotic at school, with everyone just coming back and getting into the swing of things across our Middle Tennessee districts, we decided to play it cool and ask for an outstanding student submission this time around.

As of the writing of this story, we had six students submitted for the week one poll.

We hope to be able to grow that number going forward.

And that's where you come in, dear reader. The Student of the Week initiative requires school participation. We are seeking the nominations for our weekly polls directly from the schools, so we can make this as fair as possible. It is also a big honor for the students who are chosen.

If you're reading this, and your school isn't participating, please say something. Let them know we want to hear from them. We want to recognize their amazing students. We've collected more than 150 names and email addresses of staffers from schools across Middle Tennessee. These are the people we've been told to reach out to, but we could have a wrong name or address for a school. It happens from time to time.

High schools can reach out directly to me. My email address is nyoung@tennessean.com. I'd be happy to hear from them, and I'd be even happier to include their students in our initiative.

In the meantime, be sure to check out and vote in our week one poll this week. It will go live on tennessean.com first thing Monday morning.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: All the nominations, all the votes: The Tennessean Student of the Week is returning