Here at West Brunswick, educators including principal, Mr. Paschal, have introduced a new club called the leadership club. The leadership club has big goals to empower young students and encourage them to be leaders. 

“The main purpose is to pour into our students the purpose of their leadership skills or their influential opportunities,” said Paschal. “In other words, our main vision is to reach a large portion of our student body and give them some skills, motivation, and empowerment they need to take to their clubs and encourage others within their clubs”

Students of course are the concept of the club but what is it students will do in this club? Students will meet once a month for a group meeting to complete activities, discussions, and socialize with one another. Students will read a book to encourage their leadership skills in order to carry them on to their other clubs and activities. 

“Once a month in the media center, we will call members in and we have a book titled I choose by John Maxwell, he really wants to pour into the youth,” said Paschal. “He wants the youth to know they can be leaders, no matter what they are doing.”

The chosen book is very significant and will play a large role in students’ development to become a better leader. The book will have active assignments for students to complete during the meetings. 

“We are actually partnering with one of his coaches who lives in the area to help us organize speakers to come in to talk for maybe 10-15 minutes,” said Paschal. “We will go through the book that has fairly short discussions and activities”

Although it is expected that students join this club for educational purposes, Paschal finds this time to meet very important for a social aspect. Paschal believes that students who hardly see each other because of their different interests can all come together through this club and help one another bring leadership skills into each other’s clubs outside of the leadership club. 

“We always want to have some kind of food and some time to socialize with peers,” said Paschal. “We want students from multiple clubs like band, athletics, and chorus to talk to one another because they may not see each other, other than passing in the hallways.”

The leadership club is the only club that will take place within the school day. It is hard to make time for new clubs because there are already so many clubs, athletics, and extracurricular so the meetings have been scheduled for in school time.

“So the first meeting will begin during the 1st period, the second meeting during the second period, and so on,” said Paschal. “We want to focus on taking them out of class a little bit because that’s how important we think this is”

The overall goal of the leadership club is to empower the youth and encourage them to be the best leader possible regardless of any circumstances. Paschal hopes that through this club, students will begin a lifelong journey of leadership skills and that all students who participate will know they began their leadership here at West Brunswick. 

“We want it to be a culture builder, not just here in the west, but in each individual group,” said Paschal. “No matter what career they want to be one day, we want them to start their leadership here at west.”