If students could design how they learn, what would they come up with up? Forty West Geauga high school students will come up with five ideas they believe are implementable during a new special one-day program called Spark.
Proposed and sponsored by WEDGE, the West Geauga Educational Foundation, Spark brings together ten students each from grades nine through twelve with ten teachers. Working through a series of exercises, brainstorming and breakout groups, the participants will develop and present their improvement ideas.
Spark came about from discussions among Principal David Toth, WEDGE President Jerry Pignolet, Superintendent Tom Diringer and Dione DeMitro is Lakeland Community College’s Director of College Readiness and Student Success, who will facilitate the sessions. A former teacher, DeMitro has conducted similar sessions for students and non-profit organizations.
“WEDGE is a non-profit that pays for innovative programs in the West Geauga District through privately-raised funds,” said Pignolet. “While students have applied for and received WEDGE funding in the past, we wanted to provide a focused and hopefully annual opportunity for them to make recommendations on how their schools could and should work.”
Principal Toth will attend the sessions, including the presentation of ideas at the session conclusion. Board members have been invited and may also attend. Student representatives will be encouraged to present their findings to the board at its next meeting.
“Our hope is that there will be ideas that can be adopted,” said Pignolet. “The students will certainly have an opportunity to be heard.”
A second goal for the session is for students to experience and learn from working with others in what is basically a one-day task force. The featured guest speaker, Carole Richards of North Coast Education Services will be speaking on self-leadership using the theme of identifying ad overcoming the “Elephants in the Room”.
