Jay Parker, gcLi Quarterly Executive Editor and gcLi Scholar ‘17 Director of Student Life, Calvert School
At the Gardner Carney Leadership Institute, we often discuss creating a “culture of student leadership,” but what does this actually look like? At the foundation lies a group of teachers and administrators who care deeply about student growth. They not only share a common purpose in empowering young people but recognize that the process is as important as the goal. Failure is acceptable—and often essential—in the learning experience. It is this belief in the process of leadership work that allows a group of adults to collectively and consistently ask each other, “how do we give this to the students?”
At Calvert School, a culture of student leadership is flourishing. This is no easy feat in a school with 600 students—one of the ten largest K-8 schools in NAIS. After years of intentional work to put students first, our seventh and eighth graders have demonstrated the confidence to lean into discomfort, share their vision, and welcome challenges.
One year ago at the Middle School Leadership Summit hosted at Calvert, a team of seventh grade girls developed a goal to support the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS). Teachers and administrators partnered with them to make this vision a reality. Now as eighth graders, the students created a team to run in the 2016 BARCStoberfest 5K race in downtown Baltimore. This signaled a strategy to be win-win-win-win: supporting a local charity, building community, promoting healthy living, and modeling student leadership. Over 120 team members participated in the race, and Calvert was the event’s top fundraising team. It was an incredible success!
This article is an opportunity to discover strategies of how to build a culture of student leadership in your school, which is best told by our student leaders, who reflected on this experience.
When Calvert hosted a leadership summit last year, we did not think of ourselves as leaders and had no idea what to expect. But when given the opportunity to come up with an idea for our school, we wanted to build something that would last, a tradition before we moved on. We wanted to be leaders as eighth graders and set an example for other students. We knew that this had the potential to be a great activity and spread joy throughout our community. – Emma F.
Last year at the leadership summit we recognized that there were no meaningful community outreach projects for eighth graders. We were trying to think of different projects that would strengthen Calvert and have our community work as a team to make a difference. But how do we make it successful? What does success look like? We wanted our whole grade to participate, maybe even the whole school. We realized that we wanted more than just a dress down day or drive—we wanted to really connect with the Baltimore community. – Anna H.
Getting teachers involved was a key part of starting the Calvert team. Mr. Parker is the Director of Student Life, and we knew that if we got him on board, he could make our idea become a reality. Our strategy for getting Mr. Parker involved was to bother him for the next few months. I mean really bother him! We wanted him to know we were really passionate. Once he realized that we were serious, he became a part of our team and was eager to help. It was in a meeting with him and our headmaster, Mr. Holmgren, that we realized “wow this event is actually going to happen.” Having their support gave us confidence to be bold. – Charlotte B.
Throughout the process, adults around the school were always supporting us and helping us stay on task. Which we needed at times. Our headmaster supported our idea from the start. Ms. Vogelsang and Ms. Rochfort, in the communications department, helped us spread our message and design our campaign. Seeing the direct correlation between personal connections and donations was amazing too. Whether we were handing out fliers to parents at carpool or having conversations with teachers, we realized that people wanted to help. This event was important to me because it taught me to have confidence in others to support me and a final goal. – Cynthia S.
I’ll never forget being at Patterson Park getting ready for the race and taking in everything that we had all worked so hard for. We had the biggest team and won multiple awards categories. Plus Mr. Holmgren even ran his first 5k! All the smiles and the energy going through us at the race really made up for the hard work. But what was equally amazing was how many people have asked us to tell our story—the process and the outcome. Mr. Parker did not simply give us a high five and let us move on. He is helping us continue to write our story by inspiring our fellow students. We have also presented at an AIMS Leadership conference to motivate other students to help their community. – Emily B.
Bees for BARCS will now be an annual event, representing the Calvert School Mighty Bees, and the girls will be back to coach the next leaders in years to come. The leadership these eighth graders demonstrated is outstanding. I sit back in amazement when I hear them talk eloquently and confidently to groups of parents, teachers, and peers about the leadership process. They are the real inspiration to our community.
This is the story of Emily, Charlotte, Anna, Emma, and Cynthia. Now that they have told their story, students are more likely to stop me in the hallway and tell me about their idea. It happens to me constantly. It happens to the girls constantly. Students want to be heard. They want to lead. They want to write their own story. Student leadership reaches its pinnacle when students themselves inspire other students, and these girls have shown them the way.
Jay Parker is Executive Editor of gcLi Quarterly and the Director of Student Life at the Calvert School in Baltimore. He attended the summer leadership lab in 2011, and is returning this June to serve as a gcLi Scholar. Jay is the founder of Mountain Element, a summer adventure program that teaches outdoor leadership to students on expeditions in Colorado, Wyoming, and New England. He holds a master’s in School Counseling from Loyola University Maryland.