Summerville Elementary 'Leads' District

The inaugural Leader in Me program, enacted at Summerville Elementary School last year, will now be used at Newington Elementary and Rollings Middle schools and at least one high school, district officials announced during a June 13 school board meeting.

The Leader in Me program is a national leadership development program.

"Hopefully we'll be the first district in America to be a Leader in Me district," Superintendent Joe Pye said.

Listing the many leadership opportunities afforded to students, rising fifth-grader Jackson Radcliffe said students were given jobs that "most teachers would do."

"The beauty of the model is taking time and elaborating on the things (the children) have to offer," Summerville Elementary Principal Lori Dibble said.

For parent Andrea Freeman, the program has spilled out beyond the schoolyard.

"Katie is more likely to try to come up with solutions and how to try to help me," she said about her daughter, a rising fifth-grader. "We're building better people."

Summerville Elementary will have a faculty training day on the program June 29.

"We're just going to keep growing leaders," Dibble said.