Selecting a Student Leadership Team

Big Walnut Middle School leaders began 2015-16 with a desire to increase student voice and choice through Student Leadership. After organizing the various student organizations within the school, we needed to reflect on our process of selecting students to serve on our leadership council. Here are some priorities and criteria to consider:



BWMS Average Eagle

1. Diversity
It is very important that leadership teams reflect your population. We must ensure that all students have representation on leadership organization. Athletes, Musicians, Artists, Skater-Dudes and Brainiacs. One of the best ways to make sure you are spreading selection around to all social groups within your school is to walk the lunch room. If you notice a lot of your students sample is sitting together, you need to go back to the drawing board. At BWMS, we had representatives from three different organizations (student council, athletic council, and the SOAR PBIS committee) provide the foundation of our team. We then added some at large representatives to further balance our team. Take a look at the BWMS Average Eagle that our staff created this year to help us think about personalization in the classroom.  Your leadership team should reflect your school population.

2. Grade Distribution 

This was a tough one for us. We knew we wanted to start with more 8th grade students than 7th grade students but did not have a perfect formula for the percentages. Here is where 7/8 buildings may struggle because we have a full year of experiences with the 8th grade class yet limited experiences with our new 7th grade faces.   In the future we hope to get some additional feedback from our Intermediate School but MS vs IS can be considerably different.  My recommendation is that schools should wait to get some feedback from their teachers once the 7th grade teachers get to know their students a little more.  It was for this reason that we started out our leadership council with just the 8th grade students and then added 7th grade students mid-way through the 1st quarter so that we had 75% of our students from 8th grade and 25% of our students from 7th grade on our student leadership council.
3. Size
If your school is like mine, you will have a tough time keeping the number of students on your Leadership Council less than 25.  I guess it is a great problem that we have so many great students that it is supper difficult to limit this group.  I hate saying no to any student in this regard but you have to keep the group manageable so that everyone stays involved.  You school will have to make your own decisions but BWMS decided to error on the side of adding more students than keeping the team too small.  Personal preference as well as our desire to give more opportunities to more students.
4. Teacher Feedback
Before making the final decisions and sharing the great news with your students and their parents, get some other teacher leaders within your school to double check the list.  It is best to get other perspectives and making sure that the final team is reflective of your desires for Student Leadership within your School.

Selection of your Student Leadership Team is essential.  Staff and school leaderships should expend just as much effort and thought into the selection of their school student leaders as a head coach may put into the captains of their team.  The group dynamic, focus and vision of student leadership within your school will lay the foundation for much success in student voice and choice within our schools!

Student Leadership - Where to begin?



So your school is interested in starting some programs and activities with student leaders, where do you begin?  Is there a "right" way to get started? We hope that BWMS can share some of their experiences with this process and help you avoid some pitfalls.

Our journey began in the summer of 2015 as a few teacher leaders with Student Voice & Choice as a passion gathered in an off campus setting to discuss how we could increase Student Leadership in the follow school year.  This was a brainstorming session as to how to structure student leadership opportunities beginning in August.  We started by reading and discussing The Disenfranchised Changemakers by Zak Malamed (leader in #StuVoice).  Great conversations followed as our team dreamed about how we could further support student leadership at Big Walnut Middle School.   Questions to consider during this process:

1. How should the school structure student leadership within the school?
2. How do we organize the adult responsibilities to keep everyone involved?
3. How do we balance 7th & 8th grade leadership in our 7/8 building? 
4. How can we instill processes to obtain a diverse group of students for leadership?
5. How can our structures support the ongoing development of students at BWMS?
6. How can we define the mission of each sub group, student make up and selection and primary activities? (see chart below)

We left this day with a clear understanding of the organization of Leadership at BWMS with primary adults identified to support each organization.  We have high trust in our students and know that when the Adults release some of our power to Students in schools...Great Things Will Happen!  Schools must capitalized on the high value of Social Justice in MS students, we must capture and harness the energy from our youth, a fresh look at the big world.  Check out our statements below:

Big Walnut Middle School will empower students with the Student Council, SOAR Committee, and Athletic Council synergizing efforts to organize and plan a wide variety of events for all students this year.  With representatives from each team on the Leadership Council, all leadership development initiatives at BWMS will continue to support the whole student and encourage student engagement and student voice.  Overall, student choice and student voice are at the core of the climate of inclusiveness that support all students at Big Walnut Middle School.

Student Leadership at Big Walnut Middle School

 

 

Student Leadership

 

Increasing Student Choice & Student Voice through Student Leadership

As the calendar year adds another number and bitter cold winds enter the great Buckeye State, student and school leaders look to continue our focus on student choice and student voice in 2016.  Research shows that a strong link between giving students choices and their intrinsic motivation for doing a task, their overall performance on the task, and their willingness to accept challenging tasks (Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008).  Classroom teachers continue to work in collaboration to chase after personalization within the classroom.  

 In addition, Big Walnut Middle School values student voices in 2016.  Research from the Qualia Institute suggest that less than half of students in secondary education in America feel that they have a voice in decision making in their schools (Summary Report 2012).  When students feel they have a voice, they are more likely to feel invested and engaged in their schools; when students believe teachers are listening to their voices, mutual trust and respect are likely to flourish; when students’ voices are heard and acted upon in schools, the schools stand to become more relevant to the students’ lives and are more likely to be seen as serving their needs.  Big Walnut Middle School continues to empower students with the Leadership Council, Athletic Counsel, Student Counsel and SOAR Committee organizing and planning a wide variety of events for all students this year.  These student leadership development initiatives will continue to support the whole student at BWMS and encourage student engagement and student voice.  For example, the Student Leadership Committee is deep in the planning process of working with community partners in the organization of the first BWMS Service Day.  Overall, student choice and student voice are at the core of the climate of inclusiveness and support for all students at Big Walnut Middle School.

Keep checking back as we continue to share more specific examples about increasing student voice and choice at Big Walnut Middle School through Student Leadership in the creation of a Whole School Service Day!