Student activities are an essential part of creating communities within schools. They provide opportunities for students to come together, have fun, and build connections with one another. To make those connections stronger, ASB leaders from seven high schools around the area recently came together to learn and grow. 

On Tuesday, September 12, Snohomish High School (SHS) hosted Glacier Peak High School (GPHS), Jackson High School, Mountlake Terrace High School, Shorecrest High School, Shorewood High School, and Stanwood High School ASB leadership students for a day of training from Envolve with speaker Scott Backovich. 

Envolve teaches student leadership and advisors how to create engaging student activities to build school culture. 

“Student activities exist to create phenomenal communities within schools,” said Backovich. “The more students participate in activities, the more at home they feel. The more at home they feel, the more successful they will become in school and life.” 

The training consisted of full-group lectures on the topic of leadership and students were also placed into small groups containing members from each of the participating schools and given tasks and activities to promote cross-sharing ideas, brainstorming, team building, and a lot of fun! The focus of Envolve training was on creating positive shared experiences. The ASB leadership students were taught how to make their school activities more engaging and how to increase participation in their schools with an emphasis on inclusivity.  

“Some students don’t like leaving their comfort zone, and that’s okay!” said an SHS student. “It's fun to learn new ways for ASB to appeal to students with different levels of interest so everyone can feel valued and recognized in our schools.” 

Areas of concentration for activities included: 

• Spirit weeks
• Lunchtime activities
• Service projects
• Dances
• Assemblies
• Spirit section 

ASB Leadership teachers Vince Ivelia from SHS and Teri Corwin from GPHS will use the information from the Envolve conference in their Advanced Leadership classes. 

“What Envolve teaches will set the stage for how we as ASB lead and serve our schools all year long,” said Ivelia. “We are so proud of all our district-wide ASB students and their dedication and innovation of student-led leadership. It was a fantastic day for our student leaders who grew stronger as individuals and as a team about how to develop positive school culture!”  

Learn more about Envolve at https://envolveschools.com/