CHANGE: Poly ASB members reflect on the annual RUSD Leadership Exchange and discuss the positive additions this year.
By Birdy Jones, Staff Writer
It’s a tradition that has been followed for ten years between five schools and nearly 200 students: the annual RUSD Leadership Exchange. Each year the location of this gathering rotates and is held at one of the five local high schools: Arlington, King, North, Poly or Ramona. At these gatherings, students and teachers discuss various topics including school dances, lunchtime activities and pep rallies; they also reflect on successes and failures of previous and current years. Over the past nine years, this event only involved members of each school’s student government, leaving other leadership programs out of loop. However, this year, after waiting five years to host the exchange again, Poly’s ASB decided to switch things up.
Poly ASB advisor, Vanessa Douty, is aware of the
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tradition that typically only students involved in student government are invited to the convention. Despite this, she proposed the idea of inviting the Multi-Cultural Council from North High School and the student recognition groups from both King High School and Arlington High School. Not only did diverse programs receive invitations, but new schools, such as the Riverside Virtual School, Lincoln and Raincross were invited as well. When asked why she proposed the idea of involving other programs other schools, Douty responded, “I decided to invite other groups from the comprehensive high schools because I recognize that leadership and effective programs come from many groups on campus. I wanted all of the schools to benefit from sharing the best practices in student and teacher recognition, campus unity and general ideas to improve school culture.” While it was her first year hosting the Leadership Exchange and each school’s first year experiencing these changes, Douty believes that the convention was a success and that Poly certainly benefitted from the inclusion.
Four-year ASB member and seasoned Leadership Exchange attendee, Paige Vaughan (12), feels that Poly did an excellent job at not only welcoming the other schools to the event, but also at getting them involved in each activity. Vaughan agrees that the changes made by Poly ASB were a positive addition to the gathering. “I think having anyone who is not in ASB and can give us fresh ideas and show us a different perspective is beneficial,” Vaughan stated, “There’s always room to grow and improve even if you think it’s not needed.”
Helen Krieger (10) states that she had a very pleasant experience and believes that everyone was happy to be there. In regards to inviting new programs and new schools, Krieger stated, “Including new people was certainly a good thing. It gave new groups of people the opportunity to learn more about school events.”
While it is clear that the additions to this year’s RUSD Leadership Exchange were well-liked, it is not guaranteed that this new tradition will be carried out by the other high schools involved in this event. Since the hosting group pays for the costs associated with the exchange, the additional 150 people did cost more. Despite this, Douty plans to continue to include other programs and schools: “As long as I’m the activities director at Poly, I will continue to invite the other groups and incur the additional costs.”