Home Works! leadership students take charge

The Home Works! parent partnership program's leadership class wrapped up the year with a class party and some last-minute planning of the program's May 26 Spring Spotlight Performance.

The leadership class is divided into five different clubs Newspaper, Announcements, Field Day, Spotlight and Birthday Brigade.

According to Susan Brown, who teaches the leadership class, this was the first year Home Works! offered this type of class to students. At the beginning of spring quarter, Brown said students laid out the framework and set objectives of "what they wanted their clubs to be."

The Field Day and Spotlight clubs plan some of the school's end of the trimester events, including its upcoming field day celebration and the Spring Spotlight event.

"The events are planned by us and teachers approve them," Caelyn Foster, one of the Field Day Club members, said. "It's a lot of fun and you get lots of responsibility."

"Every kid has a job to do," Daniel Ross, another member, added. "(Right now) we're getting these events to where we want them to be."

The Newspaper Club publishes a newspaper with articles that tell what is happening in Home Works! The Announcements Club makes daily announcements and the Birthday Brigade creates cards and gives balloons to students for their birthdays.

Jeanne Marshall, a member of both the Announcement Club and Birthday Brigade, said the gifts "make students feel more included."

Brown said the leadership class stemmed from Stephen Covey's book "The Leader in Me" and students learn about seven habits that are taught from the book:

• "Being proactive";

• "Begin with the end in mind" - having a plan;

● "Putting first things first" - prioritizing, making and following a plan;

● "Think win-win" - balancing courage for accomplishing goals with consideration for others;

● "Seek first to understand, then to be understood" - listening to other people's ideas and feelings;

● "Synergize" - working well within groups and

●"Sharpen the saw" - taking care of their bodies, spending time with families and helping others.

"By learning the seven habits, students have learned how to balance their lives, share and listen with their eyes, heart and soul," Brown said.

Brown said students have also taken the skills they learned and applied them in other classes, mostly when it comes to approaching a new problem and solving it. She added that the leadership class has also built a "positive culture" at the school.

"It's also creating one (a positive culture) at home," Brown said. "Students are taking the skills and translating them outside of school."

Brown said she will continue teaching the leadership class and include the student-led clubs next year.

"It's a great addition to our classrooms and it lends well to this setting," she added.

Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].