Last year Parsons Middle School offered students a chance to participate in a new Leadership group that worked cooperatively with Student Council.
Given all the positives that came of it, administration decided this year to offer Leadership as a semester elective class under the guidance of Debbie Shaffer.
Monday afternoon the students gathered around the small Statue of Liberty in front of the school to help plant flowers and ornamental grasses.
“The class of ‘58 has decided not to do this anymore, so they have given it to us to do. That’s what we’re doing here today,” Shaffer said.
“We are passing the torch,” Liz Spriggs said, as she stood watching the students. “Our class, particularly my husband and I and one other person, have been taking care of it. We're thinking we should pass it on. We’re kind of getting older. … Tyler told us about the Leadership Class and hopefully somebody will keep passing it on.”
The class had all the tuckpointing done on the brick, repaired damaged concrete, did some patch work and sod work in recent years.
“We’ve got it up to where we can pass it on,” Mrs. Spriggs said. Along with passing on the care, they are passing on the little bit of remaining funds they had in their class account to help the Leadership class with the care.
“It meant a lot to us because we went to school here and had a lot of pictures. We sat around it and did lots of fun things,” Spriggs said. “We wanted to see it be here for quite a while.”
Shaffer said they are happy to be entrusted with the job. It is among many the Leadership Class will tackle each semester.
“We have a lot we do each week,” she said.
The students pick up any trash they find around their school and grounds
Shaffer has created Traveling Tuesdays, Workday Wednesdays, and Thinking Thursdays.
Traveling Tuesdays, with the exception of the first Tuesday of the month, the Leadership students go to the elementary schools and tutor reading or math in different classrooms. The first Tuesday of the month, however, is reserved for the students to visit the high school to learn about classes there, like career and technical education classes. They will also use those days to travel to volunteer in the community, such as helping at the Care Cupboard Hygiene Pantry or Stella Wells.
Workday Wednesdays the students cleaning on the building and around the campus.
Thinking Thursday students will decide on some projects, work on projects, and also participate in course work, like learning Parliamentary procedure.
Monday’s and Fridays, students still fit a little work in as needed but that time is mostly reserved for lessons in leadership, and for special guest speakers to come visit about their leadership roles in the community.
All seventh and eighth grade students with passing grades are eligible to take the class.
Eight students signed up this first semester, but word is quickly spreading to others about all the opportunities the class has to offer, so next semester there may be no empty seats.
“I took this class because I noticed they would do a lot and help out with the school a lot and I want to be a part of that group,” Kayleigh Leon said.
While the year is really just getting underway, Malaysia Dunn said that her favorite thing about the class so far is when they get to travel to different places, see what is going on, and learn about other opportunities.
Jayda Ford-Ellis said she enjoys helping and learning ways to be a leader. For instance, they came up with the ideas for Spirit Week and created the posters and put them up. They are sponsoring Veterans’ Appreciation Game week Oct. 7-11 and helping another group this month with Breast Cancer Awareness.
The students will be conducting fundraisers to help them accomplish some of their goals as the program grows. Students have a variety of goals they want to focus on and are taking the class seriously.
“I think the thing that I want to accomplish most is I want to help the school out more, and make it an environment where people want to come to school,” Ashlee Linnebur said.
Students are already learning that when they are doing something good for their school or the community, others will follow suit. For example, when they went to Ace Hardware to purchase the plants to put around the statue, Ace Hardware donated some of the plants to their project.
The students hope their actions have the same impact on other students’ actions at school.
Leon said she really looks forward to them leading by example, encouraging other students to take the class and help out at the school and in the community.
“We do want more community involvement,” Shaffer said. “We want to get involved in the community and we want the community to come here.” 