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.
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| BWMS Average Eagle |
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!
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!
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