Posted by Kevin Dudley on 4/22/2024
April 22 – 26 is National Student Leadership Week. We visited the leadership class at Shadle Park High School recently to see student leaders in action and how the leadership class has evolved.
In the leadership class at Shadle Park High School, 50 students spread out over two classrooms, in the school and across Spokane’s north side.
The hustle and bustle of the leadership class never stops. Some students are visiting feeder pattern elementary schools to mentor kids and spend time with them at recess. Others are in the gym practicing for the school’s upcoming spring sports pep con. Others are in the classroom creating materials for the upcoming talent show and the staff vs. students kickball match.
Student leadership classes in SPS high schools have evolved over the last few decades. In the past, seats at Shadle were limited to about 25 students who had to be juniors or seniors—generally those who were heavily involved in school activities.
Now, schools are opening more seats for students to be involved in school leadership. At Shadle, that meant getting a second teacher involved.
Scott Harmon and Brooke Meyer were both heavily involved in student leadership in their days as students at Shadle Park. Now teachers, they partnered three years ago to team up and advise the class, which allowed them to raise the total number of students to 50. They also opened it up to sophomores.
“We’re trying not to be exclusive,” Harmon said. “We are trying to get it so we are more inclusive by having a more broader swath of students, and not just those who are involved in other school activities.”
The traditional high school leadership class involved tons of activities – from pep cons to spirit games to school dances and other events. That hasn’t gone away, though it waxes and wanes each school year. Harmon and Meyer are interested in providing more lessons on leadership for their students.
“We’re looking at doing College in the Classroom next year in leadership, so that should ramp it up to teaching more leadership skills and not just activities. We need to teach within those activities,” Meyer said.
“There is a business leadership model, a military leadership model, and athletics and coaching leadership model – there are lots of different models, so we try and demonstrate those through actions,” Harmon added.
Harmon and Meyer have invited speakers to talk to the class about leadership and the skills necessary to be a good leader.
The class isn’t as predictable as, say, a history class with defined units throughout each semester. With so many activities and events happening in high school, leadership students are needed in a variety of ways.
“We’ve team taught for three years and have known each other for 30 years, and yet every day is something new,” Harmon said. “We never sit down and think, ‘What should we do today?’ You can’t do that in this class.”
The activities managed by the leadership class still offer valuable lessons that students will take with them after graduation.
“Leadership has been mislabeled an easy A, but the class has different levels of stress for different projects,” Harmon said. “We talk about stress for a final exam. Well, planning Groovy Shoes is a final exam in a major way. Or a school dance, or an event for our DI (Designed Instruction) program. It’s more of a life lesson on how you deal with adversity, how you deal with pressure, how you deal with communications, all those things.”
Harmon and Meyer learned those lessons at Shadle when they were in high school. Now, they’re teaching the same lessons and passing the baton to our future leaders.
