Giving Middle School Students A Voice

Today’s guest blogger is April Frazier, Middle School After School Product Manager at City Year New York. April supports our corps members in our six middle schools with the planning and implementation of their afterschool programs.

Last Tuesday, forty middle school students from across New York City visited the CYNY office for the first meeting of our City Year Middle School Leadership Council.  One boy and one girl from each grade, in the six middle schools that CYNY serves, were voted in by their peers to represent their school and community on this council. These students were selected because of their desire to be agents of social change and will participate in leadership trainings and have the opportunity to collaborate with students from other schools.

April prompts the Student Leadership Council with a number of questions that encourage students to think about what leadership is and how they can become better leaders.

The Leadership Council will meet once every other month with the goal of providing our students with the resources and skills needed to be leaders in their school and community.  The focus of this month’s meeting was to have our students work together to come up with strategies to increase retention and attendance in After School Programs.

The moment the students entered our office they were expected to be held to the “Obama Standard” which meant, “If you can’t see President Obama doing it, then you’re not going to do it.” That means your chin will be parallel to the ground, you will not look at the floor once, there’s no gum chewing, no slouching, and no disrespect of yourself or others.  They are the leaders of their school and with that comes high expectations for behavior, speech, and the way they present themselves.

To kick off these meeting the Council will recite the Student Council Pledge:

Everything I need to be a leader

I already have

Because it is within me

And because it is within me

No one can take it away

I have the power

To change my life

To change my school

To change my community

To change the world

I AM A LEADER

Following a group exercise, students completed a read aloud of Martin Luther King Jr’s “What is Your Life’s Blueprint,” a speech he made to a group of Junior High School students on pursuing their life’s purpose despite challenging circumstances. When asked how this related to their lives, one seventh grade student proudly proclaimed, “It is better to be alone and be a leader than to follow the negativity of a group. You have to be strong enough to stand on your own.” The voices of the CYNY young leaders were strong, inspiring, and motivational.

Young leaders of the council are held up to high expectations of attendance, behavior, and course work, with biweekly conference calls with City Year and their parents to discuss goal setting and leadership development. By providing students with the opportunities to advocate for themselves and their communities, after school programs can be a true source of change. It’s time that the voices of our students are heard and represented.

Students from Long Island Cityreally enjoy the first Student Leadership Council meeting and found a moment to share what they learned with IS 204 Team Leader, Yassi Davoodi

City Year New York is Thankful

The City Year New York corps and staff are certainly ready to spend time with family and friends (and take a big bite of pumpkin pie) for Thanksgiving, but before we head home, we want to share what we are thankful for! We spent some time over the past two days asking corps members from each zone and staff from every department what they’re most thankful for so check it out in the video below!

From our City Year family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

Holiday Cards For Sale

This year's Holiday Card was designed by Molly Robison, A corps member who served on the Alcoa Team at MS 424 in the South Bronx last year. Click the image to see full card.

With the holiday season just around the corner, it’s time to buy your holiday cards and get them in the mail!

By purchasing your holiday cards from the City Year New York Associate Board you can spread holiday cheer while supporting the work our corps members are doing everyday in some of New York’s most challenged schools.100% of the proceeds from these cards will go to City Year New York.

A pack of 10 cards costs $25 or you can purchase 2 packs for $40.

The purchase of a large sum of cards can also be arranged i.e. for a corporate office or other large group.

To Order:  Email your name, the number of cards you would like and where they should be mailed to Kim Gillman

The deadline to submit a holiday card order is December 3^rd, 2011!

PS/MS 57 Student Leadership Retreat

Today’s guest bloggers are Dixie DuRant and Suzy Lopatin, corps members on the Credit Suisse sponsored PS/MS 57 team in East Harlem. Below is a video created by the team that highlights students’ reactions to the PS/MS 57 Leadership Retreat.

On Friday, October 14^th, an eager group of  City Year corps and staff joined seventy students from the Leadership Academy at P.S./M.S. 57, plus their parents and boarded a bus to upstate New York for an unforgettable leadership retreat at Iroquois Springs camp. For many of our sixth graders, this trip was their first time camping or their first foray out of New York City.

Our students took the space and time to learn new skills, forge unexpected relationships with other students, and consider how to embody leadership qualities back at their school.  With this goal in mind, the 6^th graders created a full value contract to help keep each other and themselves accountable to their own high expectations of leadership.

Our team  shared  some of City Year’s founding stories and facilitated sessions around the themes of active listening, conflict resolution, and Ubuntu.  During  a community meeting the  6^th graders lit up the room with their thoughtful and articulate appreciations of each other, their dynamic principal and school staff, and their families.

Even weeks later, we still hear enthusiastic rumblings about learning PT moves at our morning unity rallies, playing sports in an open field, roasting marshmallows at the campfire, learning to trust each other on the ropes course, and devouring delicious food.  Through out the leadership retreat, our students sharpened their leadership qualities and collected life long memories.

In the name of excellent service, we are proud to be a part of our students’ lives as they grow into strong leaders.