Empower Youth Leadership

In the fall of 2020, Kathy Batty, HCS School Counselor, and Mary Muroski, HCS 5th grade Teacher, received a $25,000 SEL in Action grant from the NoVo Foundation and Education First for their Empower Youth Leadership Project. The Project is focused on the creation of SEL Leaders in the district’s middle schools. With this funding, they have been working to coordinate student Empower Youth Leaders meetings and have hosted two school-based Empower Youth Leadership Conferences.

Throughout the year, middle-level students from each of the CVSD sending schools and VLA have met weekly. The focus of these Empower Youth Leaders meetings has changed over the course of the year. Initially, the students worked to create a unified vision and logo. Then, they worked on community service projects in the Winter. This Spring, the students developed SEL lesson plans and provided leadership classes in K-2 classes. This effort was very successful - despite the fact that the instruction was all done virtually, using Google Meets.

Recently, Mary and Kathy hosted Empower Youth Leadership Conferences for all 6th graders at Hinesburg Community School and Charlotte Central School. The conference started with students discovering what they all had in common and identifying their hopes and dreams for a better world. Then, the students were engaged with students in Uganda in a live conversation on Google Meet. Based on student feedback this was one of the highlights of the day. HCS students heard from students in Uganda about their daily life and aspects of their culture. In both schools, sixth graders asked the students in Uganda about the effect that COVID has had on them. We learned that the students there have struggled to have enough food to eat and are still not back in school. The conference also included three workshops aimed at teaching the personal leadership skills of effective communication, financial literacy, and goal-setting. The day ended with students learning how to practice and express gratitude as a way to bring abundance and positivity into their lives.

In her letter of support for the project, Superintendent Elaine Pinckney wrote, “The Empower Youth Project complements our district’s commitment to meeting the social and emotional learning needs of all our students. The vision of CVSD is to help all students develop skills to understand and manage their emotions, show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions needed in order to be successful for school and life”. 

For more information, please feel free to contact Mary (mmuroski@cvsdvt.org) and Kathy (kbatty@cvsdvt.org). Please visit www.ourclp.org to learn more about the Children’s Legacy Partnership Foundation.

Photos of Empower Youth Leaders teaching in K-2 classrooms: