Community building - Alberta School Boards Association

The League of
Leadership!
(LOL’s)
Introductions
• A little bit about all of us…
What are the LOL’s?
• The original LOL group started in 2012-2013 with 8
grade 10 students. We began our journey by
attending the annual HASS event (Healthy Active
School Symposium) in our local community.
• We as a group had to come up with a school goal
that would make our school more “healthy”; our
goal was too bring positivity and school spirit our
school and also inspire local schools around us to
do the same.
Our Structure
• The LOL’s are not like other school councils.
• We don’t have a president, and we don’t vote to
make decisions.
• We all lead and take turns being the leader of the
leaders during activities.
• We make our decisions by discussing ideas and
coming to consensus on what we want to do.
We consider ourselves all equal as
leaders and every leader’s ideas count.
Some Projects we’ve
done!
• Do it for Terry! – Fundraiser event, raising Money for Terry
Fox Foundation.
• Spirit Weeks – Easter, Christmas, Halloween, St. Patrick’s
Day
• Nomad Olympics
• BYOB
• If You Really Knew Me
• Tyler Durman Presentation
• ASLC
• School Assemblies
• HASS
• Pillar of Positivity/ Positivity Wall
• Mighty Peace Day
Healthy Active School Symposium HASS
• The Student Union at our school wasn’t
succeeding at promoting a sense of
“community” in the school
• Before attending HASS, there was no LOL
group. We were all just ordinary students that
wanted to bring change.
• HASS gave us the platform to begin our
journey of positivity and exciting change.
• The LOL’s were recognized at
the 2014 symposium for leading
presentations and workshops
to engage students from area
schools in spirit and leadership.
Alberta Student Leadership Conference
(ASLC)
• The LOL’s had the
opportunity to attend
two ASLC conferences,
Edmonton and Drumheller.
• This conference really triggered our
enthusiasm and inspired us to want to
create change.
• We, as a group, learned that spreading
happiness, and positivity was what we
really wanted to do.
Teamwork for Terry!
• Fundraiser for the Terry Fox Foundation - a challenge
was put out to all classes to increase their
enthusiasm and commitment while fundraising
• Each class was to dress according to each spirit day
(Twin Day, PJ Day, etc.
• The week ended with an assembly where we lead
fun activities (Nomad Olympics)with the classes.
(Three-legged race, sponge in a bucket, etc.)
• All classes were assigned spirit group names(Bubbles,
Bazinga, Zap). Classes were evaluated on spirit,
sportsmanship, teamwork, funds raised and overall
placing in the activities with a pizza party for the
winning class.
Our Goal
The goal behind this was to use a great
cause like the Terry Fox Foundation and
change up the routine to encourage
students to think about the cause and to
better understand the impact of working
together and getting involved.
This is where lasting change comes from
Activity!
• Cheer
….We
Got Spirit!
Spirit Week!
• The goal of spirit week is exactly what you think!
• We have always wanted to increase school spirit
because we believe that by doing this, we can have a
more enthusiastic and positive atmosphere. We want
students to know that they belong at Peace High and
that school can be a friendly and welcoming
environment.
Spirit weeks are the perfect way to do that.
• We have activities planned out for every day of the
week(as mentioned in Teamwork for Terry) and we wrap
up the week with an assembly with class based
assemblies and recognizing people for their spirit.
B.Y.O.B
• It’s not what you think!
• It stands for Bring Your Own Banana! Students bring
a banana and we create banana split sundaes for
them.
• This event promotes Mental Health Awareness and
Addictions by offering an alternative way to have
fun with friends.
• Mental Health Awareness Weeks cannot be
forgotten because everyone’s mental
health matters and student awareness
is best raised by their peers.
If You Really Knew Me
• The purpose of this initiative was to give students a wakeup call as we felt that the word “bullying” had lost it’s
meaning to students.
• We believed that it was important to remind students
that bullying is real, it does happen and that it has
happened to us a some point in time.
• We believe bullying comes from not connecting to
others well.
SO…….
• We brought the whole school together and did activities
that helped us all to know more about each other, our
common struggles, our experiences. (Eg. Crossing the
Line)
• There were tears, and hugs, and
understanding. It was powerful!!
The Pillar of Positivity
• This project was inspired by Pink Day.
• We thought that instead of just saying how detrimental
bullying is, we would reverse the process and start a
chain of positive comments.
• We gathered the school and explained that each one
of us is amazing in our own way and that all students
and staff deserve sincere compliments.
• Often, people like something about someone and are
afraid to say it.
• This project gave everyone a chance to compliment
people anonymously.
The goal of this project was to increase positivity.
Activity
Banana song!
Tyler Durnam Presentation
• We as a group, first saw Tyler Durnam as a keynote
speaker at ASLC in Edmonton.
• We were all so moved by hat he said and how he
inspired us to become better and more active
leaders.
• When we returned back to our school, we as a
group and with the help of Project PEACE decided
to motivate students in our division and district by
inviting Tyler to come speak to us in the peace
region.
• ALL of the students in Peace River had to
opportunity to come to hear Tyler speak. Some
reached out to others for help for the first time after
hearing him – how amazing is that!!
School Assemblies
• We keep the school assemblies fun and exciting!
• We do on-your-feet activities with the school and
get them pumped!
• We get everyone to be silly for a moment because
school should be a place to let loose sometimes
The main goal behind this is to
keep everyone fresh and
energetically enthusiastic!
Mighty Peace Day
• Mighty Peace Day was a concert type event that we
attended this year.
• It was an amazing place where we learned ideas from
other schools and how they executed them.
• We also got to hear inspiring stories from some great
philanthropists that had many life lessons in them.
• Overall, it was a great learning experience and made us
want to continue to develop as leaders and help other
people around us.
• Through this we were inspired to raise funds for our
school community to support the healthy snack
program, and for the international community we raised
funds to purchase goats for families in economic need.
Activity
Grab and Run!
What is Change?
• We believe that change is always a
good thing especially when your heart
and intentions are in the right place
• We believe that change does not
always have to be big. It’s the small
little things that build to create huge
change.
• The change we sought out to create
was increased positivity and school
spirit.
Did WE bring Change??
• WE did!!
• WE because it was more than just the LOL’s (Linda,
Owens, staff, students).
• We have made kids in the school more involved,
positive, and enthusiastic. (Grade 9 options classes
positivity board and mural projects)
• We have a more spirited and involved schhool
community and students genuinely have pride in the
school activities and participate actively. Students are
always asking about when the next spirit days or BYOB is
happening.
Our Impact on the
Community
• We believe that we have positively
impacted the school community in that
we have increased participation and
pride in the school.
• We have also inspired other students
and schools to develop leadership
initiatives and create positivity based
projects like us.
• Younger students look forward for
coming to the high school just to be a
part of the LOL’s.
Impact on Us
• We have all been impacted positively by
getting involved in these kind of activities.
• We are all more outgoing, confident,
passionate and enthusiastic.
• Students, staff and other organizations ask us to
run events; HASS.
• We’ve become known through the community
for our fun events, and lively attitude.
• We get amazing opportunities such as this one!
• Helped us help and inspire others!
• Made us become better people and even
better leaders!
• And we all recognize that you don’t have to be
loud and lively to be a leader…….but it helps!!!
Questions?
A Huge Shout Out Too…
•
•
•
•
Alberta Education
Peace River School Division
Project PEACE
Peace River High School
And...
The Alberta School Board Association for inviting us to
tell you our story!