In July of 2015, Muriel Summers---the founder of the nationally-acclaimed Leader in Me program---introduced the program to faculty and staff at the Allen County Intermediate Center (ACIC). Last week, Summers returned to the school to spend a day with the school’s faculty and a second day with the ACIC Leader in Me Leadership team to launch the second year of the program.
First, Summers praised the school for their hours and hours of dedicated work to implement Leader in Me during the 2015-16 school year.
“I am so proud of this school,” Summers said. “To see how far they have come in one year’s time is amazing. I don’t know if I have been in a school where I have felt such success in such a short period of time. From the beauty you see from the moment you walk into the building to the conservations I have been having with the teachers to their (the students) increased test scores to the things they (the teachers) have shared with me about the differences they have seen in students because every child is seen as a leader, and the system and strategies they have in place to navigate through the seven habits is just extraordinary.”
This year, Summers presented the teachers with an overview of the guidelines for the “aligning academics” steps the school will be taking in year two.
“The first year was about creating the culture and teaching children the language and helping them understand their role as leaders in this school,” Summers added. “This year, we are looking about how we are going to get results. We are discussing the four disciplines of execution which is the strategy that businesses put into place to get high performance. This school is learning those same strategies and techniques. We then will set back and watch what will happen at this school a year from now as they achieve their goals.
Last year, ACIC teachers used phases like “best PD ever” and “inspiring” to describe the initial round of training with Summers. ACIC educator Derick Marr foreshadowing what the 2015-16 school year would bring.
“This is going to be a game-changer for our kids,” Marr noted in July of 2015 “I believe we are going to see some great changes in our school system and our community.”
Positive changes have occurred in multiple ways across the school. Physical changes include new and exciting paint schemes and wording reflecting Leader in Me principals. Mindset changes are evident in students and teachers as both groups learn to incorporate Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People into their daily life.
Leader in Me was created almost 18 years ago at A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Summers was the principal at the time and recognized that change was needed. Having attended a seminar for Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Summers believed those concepts could be adapted in a makeover program for her school.
“We were a low-performing school and need to reinvent ourselves,” Summers said. “I felt like if we could teach the habits to young children how different their lives mightriel Summer be. We looked to his work to redesigning our school. We started teaching be proactive and beginning with the end in mind. We started to give children leadership responsibilities. We started to believe that every child processed unique gifts and abilities and we worked hard to find out what children were interested in. We started to cultivate that. The results were astounding.”
By 2006, A.B. Combs had gone from a school with its back against the wall seven years earlier to national academic prominence. Their success was shared with others and today The Leader in Me program extends around the globe.
Summers spent two days at ACIC but the professional development on Leader in Me continued. Thursday, Leadership Team teachers shared their new-found knowledge with the entire faculty in order to help guide their colleagues as the next steps begin with the start of school on Thursday, August 4.