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The aim of this descriptive study is to determine high school students' perceptions of efficacy level of school student councils. The population of the study includes 11th grade high school students in Diyarbakır city center in 2008-2009 academic year. The sample includes 12 high schools chosen randomly. The schools were grouped as General, Anatolian and Vocational Technical High schools. There are four schools in each group. Data were collected by using a 20-item five-point Likert-style scale. Totally 1185 students were administered the scale. Cronbach alpha value of the scale was measured to be 0.92, Kaiser-Meyer Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy of the scale was measured to be 0.94 and Bartlett's test was calculated to be 3690,402 (p<0.05). There are five factors in the scale named electing and being elected, democratic culture, participation, respect and communication. Data were analyzed in terms of gender and school type variables. Anova, t test, KWH, MWU and LSD tests were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that school student councils helped students realize importance of electing and being elected, developed their decision making skill and gave them opportunity of learning their rights in school. Students' views on building communication differed in terms of gender and school type variables. Male students could have the chance of building communication more than female students. Students of vocational high schools found school students more effective than the students of general and Anatolian high schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]