Shelby County’s Student Leadership Conference cultivating future leaders
This month, students from across Shelby County will come to Valleydale Community Church. The hope? That they leave as student leaders.
This marks the fifth year of the Shelby County Student Leadership Conference, which started in the fall of 2013 after a few Oak Mountain High School students attended a student leadership conference in Auburn.
The conference is set for Sept. 14, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and hundreds of Shelby County students between eighth and 12th grade will attend. The idea of the conference started with eight students who wanted more people to get to attend a student leadership conference.
“It was just a really cool experience for them,” said OMHS teacher John Milton, regarding the January 2013 conference at Auburn. “They were really inspired and excited about coming back and having an impact in our community.”
Once they got back to school, the students and Milton, who is the sponsor of OMHS’s Student Government Association and director of the student leadership conference, talked about what they could do in their community.
“One of the things that kept coming up is, ‘This would be great if we could have more students from our student government come to this conference,’” Milton said. The trouble with that, however, was cost.
It cost about $1,000 to send eight kids, including the cost of the bus and hotel, to the Auburn conference, so taking a bigger group to Auburn was not feasible. The conversation turned to finding something closer to their school, but they ran into a limitation — most conferences only take eight to 10 students per school. They wanted to send 30 or more students.
The solution? Organize a conference. Milton and the students researched what the cost might be — for a venue, food and a keynote speaker — and realized it would cost around $10,000. The fundraising started.
“Within a matter of about a month … we had raised $10,000 in cash donations or sponsors,” Milton said, adding that the support came from mainly Oak Mountain-area businesses.
The student leadership conference was on.
The first year had about 240 students attend, and the most recent conference brought in 700. Every year they have held the conference, it has been free to attend, Milton said.
“We did not want there to be any kind of price barrier for kids to get in,” Milton said. “A lot of kids aren’t going to be able to afford to pay, even if you charge 30/40 bucks, which is about the minimum of what these leadership conferences charge.”
Allowing the opportunity for more students to attend also means it will reach more than just the “top” students. “We really want to try to reach kids that have leadership potential, but that spark hasn’t gone off with them just yet,” Milton said.
This year’s conference will be similar to past conferences — it will last most of the day, include a keynote speaker and hopefully leave students with newfound lessons in leadership and a desire to change their communities.
The keynote speaker is Mark Miller, vice president of organizational effectiveness at Chick-fil-a.
“The three components of the program are inspire, instruct and impact,” Milton said. “… There needs to be some sort of defining moment where kids have the idea or thought that they can lead or want to lead, that leadership is a cool thing and it’s not just for the 1 percent [at the top of the class].”
After the conference, schools are encouraged to take on an “impact project” which helps with their school or community. Most schools will send along photos and stories once their projects are complete, Milton said.
And while the conference is geared toward students, teachers won’t leave empty handed. Teachers receive curriculum packets that help carry leadership concepts throughout the school year.
About 30 kids from each high school in the Shelby County School District and 30 eighth graders from each middle school in the district will be invited to attend. It will be the first year eighth graders will attend, and the first time the school district is fully funding the conference.
Milton said he thanks Dr. Leah Anne Wood, coordinator of strategic planning and leadership development, and Dr. Kristi Sayers, principal of OMHS, for their help in growing and financing the conference.
“From a financial standpoint, they have both been instrumental in making this something that is fully funded by the county,” Milton said.
It’s also exciting, Milton said, to know the school district recognizes the conference as a worthwhile experience for students.
Shelby County Student Leadership Conference
WHEN: Sept. 14, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
WHERE: Oak Mountain High School
WHO: The keynote speaker will be Mark Miller, vice president of organizational effectiveness at Chick-fil-A