BHS Leadership Holds Annual Retreat
Before the start of the new school year, the Berkeley High School executive leadership team came together for a weekend-long retreat, with the goals of discussing the upcoming year, and cultivating a sense of community among the 2010-2011 student leaders.
The retreat, which is in its second year of existence, lasted from the morning of August 19th to the evening of August 22nd, and took place in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
“[The retreat] is a critical team-building and goals and values-setting experience for the ASB executive team,” said Chris Young, Director of Student Activities, who orchestrated the retreat last summer as well. “We do a variety of team-building activities, goals and values workshops and planning sessions that help the student leaders build trust with each other, focus their energies and talents towards meaningful causes, and get the ball rolling on early events such as Welcome Week, Spirit Week, and Holiday Meal.”
The activities at the retreat were planned and facilitated by Young, along with ASB President Raymok Ketema, Keahana Monroe, who served as last year’s vice president, and other student leaders.
BHS principal Pasquale Scuderi also came as a guest to the retreat, and led a dialogue with students about leadership and the equity gap at BHS.
The activities at the retreat were “both fun and serious,” according to Zoe Oppenheim, Commissioner of Multicultural Affairs. The former included activities like ‘Leadership Olympics’, trust exercises, games, and group sharing to help students get to know each other better. More serious activities included reflection and discussion about a range of issues involving the role of leaders in the school community and BHS student life.
“We worked a lot on discussing what kinds of leaders we want to be amongst the challenges that a big school like Berkeley High can present,” said Oppenheim. “Through formal meetings and playful skits we broke down some of these challenges and helped each other create strategies for successfully dealing with them.” Staff present at the retreat shared some logistics of leadership with the students regarding finances and technology. The leadership team also talked over group agreements and plans for the year, including the new student body constitution and election convention. “We added a lot of positions of leadership this year,” said Ketema. The new positions, established for the first time last year, were filled through the school-wide election in the spring or appointed through an application and interview process with Ketema and Vice President Tyrone Cherry. “This year, there is more diversity in the group of students on leadership,” said Ketema about the results of the Spring 2010 election. “I made it a priority to take different types of students to get a better representation of the school.”
However, in regard to the spring’s disputed election, the student leaders discussed how changes should be made in the upcoming year. “We have lots of good ideas for this year about how to fine-tune [the election process] and make it more fair,” Ketema said, “because we know that there were problems, because it was a first-time thing.” Only the executive members of leadership were present at the retreat, which does not include the ASB House of Representatives or the class leadership teams. According to Young, these groups will get to know each other and receive training as the school year begins.
On the executive retreat, Young stated, “The retreat has gone exceedingly well both years. The team comes away deeply bonded and inspired to not just put on fun and exciting events, but more importantly to lead the student body in fighting the achievement, equity, and opportunity gaps, uplifting those with hardships in the school and local community, and being activists towards causes that matter to them. It is such a worthwhile event because of these results. “Being such a diverse group, we have a large variety of leading and planning styles that help support one another,” said Oppenheim. “And we are lucky to reflect one of the most beautiful aspects of our school: diversity. We are proof that all students, if given the chance, can come together and learn from one another in ways that go beyond the classroom walls. That is the main thing that we want to help lead Berkeley High in doing this year.”
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