Lanier Leadership

August 2019-May 2020

Purpose for Guidance and Support Groups

            Lanier’s leadership program addresses the complex issue of teaching diversity, tolerance, understanding, character education and community service.  The student leaders are taught to nurture and encourage themselves and others in their GSGs (Guidance and Support Groups.) The program gives middle school students the necessary skills for decision making and goal setting, while creating positive relationships with their peers, teachers, families, and the community.  It is designed to foster critical thinking, self-awareness, personal responsibility, and self-advocacy. The program also incorporates current issues facing adolescents and provides strategies and models for effectively dealing with these issues.  The lessons taught in the GSGs are designed to teach students the attitudes and skills necessary for them to achieve to the best of their ability. In addition to learning lessons, the students also share their feelings, celebrate their victories, and talk about their problems.  They learn how to be positive peers to each other.  The leaders learn team-building activities, how to be a role-model, how to set goals, how to problem solve, and how to serve the school community. 

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            The goal of the program is to help the students become better connected to Lanier and the community.  The program establishes connections to the entire school population that allows barriers to break down between clusters/houses and teachers and students.  The program also teaches students how to become youth activists by allowing the students to participate in community service both locally and globally.  The leaders actively promote awareness of community problems as well as global issues.  Student leaders teach lessons involving drug and alcohol abuse, social disorders, and social problems relating to academic achievement.  They reach out to find resources to better environmental issues.  The students are taught to embrace diversity and to create an environment free of bias, truly celebrating the uniqueness of each other.

The role of the GSG Teacher:

            The role of the GSG teacher is essential to reaching the goals of this program.  The teacher’s role superficially may seemingly be defined as a facilitator of the activities, a disciplinarian, and a participant in the activities.  However, in actuality, the teacher’s role is to become and advisor, a mentor, and an advocate for every child in his/her GSG. The GSG teacher helps set the tone for the entire school year and the middle school experience from day one of classes.  All students report to their GSGs first thing in the morning on the first day to receive their schedules.  The relationships between the teacher and the students begin immediately as literally when they great each other at the classroom door. 

GSG Environment Everyday

            Each GSG group is specifically designed to reflect the school’s population. Every attempt is made to have an equal number of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in each GSG, two-thirds of which are in the vanguard program and one-third of which are in the Academic program.  Maintaining an equal number of males and females is also a goal.  The composition of a GSG may vary as students enroll, withdraw, or are promoted to a high school.  Each new student to Lanier is placed in a GSG randomly by an administrator while conserving the desired balances mentioned above. A student stays in the same GSG for the duration of his/her time at Lanier.

             Each GSG period is a 45 minute block of time before first period on Purple days where students meet for positive interactions with their peers and GSG teacher.  The leadership teacher/coordinator prepares and distributes a “Weekly Big Picture” or other planned activities in order to help integrate the necessary skills for positive decision making, goal setting, and create positive relationships with their peers, teachers, families, and the community. 

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Grading Policy:

• Homework (10%): Independent practice that is assigned to be completed outside of the classroom.

• Classwork (35%): An activity or task that allows teachers and students to identify the level of mastery of an objective.

• Quizzes (15%): Assessments that cover a part of a unit and provide information to teachers so they are able to adjust instruction and implement remediation or enrichment.

• Projects/Tests (40%): Assessments that cover a whole unit and determine a student’s mastery of all objectives in the unit.

• IB Grade (Scale of 0-8 and weighted at 0): As an IBMYP campus, teachers are required to report out student’s achievement level for each subject’s four assessment criterion. Each subject area will report student’s achievement level using the MYP achievement rubric scale of 0 to 8.

• Objective Testing (Weighted at 0): Assessments based on the district’s scope and sequence. These assessments are used as benchmarks to determine which objectives have been mastered and which objectives need more support.

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