McNeal Elementary becomes Leader in Me Lighthouse School

Sheila Waid, the principal at Gilbert W. McNeal Elementary School, beamed with pride as she saw students run the school’s Leadership Day.

Two students served as the master of ceremonies as others went on to describe the leadership projects they worked on, initiatives they led and personal accomplishments they had throughout the year.

Photo by Liz Ramos

Waid surprised students, staff, volunteers and parents April 24 with the news that McNeal Elementary has become the first traditional school in Manatee County to become a Leader in Me Lighthouse School, showing their hard work to implement and incorporate the character development program into various aspects of the school day paid off.

Leader in Me is an evidence-based, comprehensive educational leadership and school improvement model. It empowers students to lead in their own learning as they learn the seven habits of highly effective people.

The habits are to be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek first to understand and then be understood, synergize, and seek continuous improvement and renewal.

There are 173 schools in Florida that are Leader in Me schools. Of those, only 41 schools are Leader in Me Lighthouse Schools.

McNeal began implementing the program five years ago. Ashlie Fulmer, the school’s student support specialist and a Lighthouse coordinator, said the program is woven through curriculum, instructional standards and assessments.

“You’re creating kids who will be successful in whatever they choose,” Fulmer said.

She said every student has a leadership notebook to help them set goals, determine leadership opportunities and celebrate their accomplishments.

Every month, the school focuses on one of the seven habits, and every quarter, the school gives leadership awards to the students who have exhibited those habits the most.

Fulmer said the school has “leader-ized” everything the school does.

“We noticed before, we didn’t have enough opportunities for our students to shine,” she said. “When you give them the chance to shine, they love it, they embrace it and they want to be here.”

Instead of having classroom jobs, each class has classroom leaders or rather than having clubs, there are leadership clubs.

“We’ve changed everything to have that focus on leadership,” she said.

For example, students wanted to help their classmates with math, so they created Math Mania, a group of students who put grade appropriate math problems around the school for students to submit their answers. They choose winners and award prizes.

Fulmer said the leadership projects in every grade and class are student-led. Stacy Freeman’s third grade class chose to collect supplies to send to a refugee camp this year.