Leadership Day brings UCS students together to strengthen their skills

By Press release submission

Oct 17, 2021

Utica Community Schools issued the following announcement on Oct 12.

Leaders from across Eisenhower High School were brought together by Eisenhower’s Student Council for Leadership Day.

“We have a bunch of clubs and different sports here,” said Miranda Smith, Eisenhower senior and Student Council Vice President. “We just want to make sure that everyone who is a leader in those organizations get better skills and realize that they’re important in their own role as a leader.”

In their seventh year hosting the event, Eisenhower Activities Director and Student Council Advisor, Amber Bronson, said the day is all about goal setting, problem solving and trying to think outside the box.

“The goal is to get them involved, to help them find their path,” Bronson said.

Students were invited to participate in Leadership Day by being a team captain or an organizations’ executive board member. Eisenhower teachers were also asked to recommend classroom leaders who weren’t already involved in an organization to join in on Leadership Day.

“Some of these students didn’t even know they were being picked,” said Bronson. “Coming here and being told that they were nominated - that a teacher saw their leadership skills - you could see kids stand a little taller knowing that someone saw that in them.”

The Student Council-led Leadership Day featured numerous activity stations for the students to learn from while meeting different student leaders from across the school and guest speaker Kevin Ozar, an eighth grade teacher at Farmington STEAM Academy, who spoke to leadership being contagious.

“Everything you learn you can take away and take it back to yourself and the classroom,” Smith said. “Leadership is not just one thing, there’s different presentations and different ways to your own success.”

Coming off the pandemic, Bronson explained, this year’s Leadership Day was extra important for Eisenhower students.

“Sometimes it gets lost that there are 20 some clubs and organizations that are active in the building,” said Bronson. “I think it’s good for students to know that there is a place for them.”

“As many times that we can get the students together to work on these skills, they’ll go out and model those same talents and characteristics for other kids in their classes.”

Original source can be found here.