Conference Addresses School Spirit
January 11, 2019
16 members of the Leadership class attended their 1st Tice Valley Leadership Conference at Dougherty Valley High School in San Ramon on January 7.
The conference brought together 17 leadership classes from different schools, including the those of the Acalanes District schools, as wall as Dougherty Valley and Livermore high schools. The goal of the conference was to develop strategies for raising school spirit.
Campolindo had the fewest representatives in attendance, likely due to the conference being held the week before final exams. According to ASB President senior Katie Clare, “[Roll call] was really awkward because we only had around 15 people from Campo while other classes had like 50. When we were called, it was so quiet compared to everyone else.”
Campolindo students who attended still appreciated the opportunity to socialize with their classmates. “For all the people who did go, we did bond. We were stuck on the bus together and we all hung out together at lunch,” said Clare.
“Because we only had 16, the freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors were all forced to hang out together. It was actually really nice to be the smallest school at the conference and have to go through it together,” said Leadership supervisor Lindsey Webb-Peploe.
The conference featured multiple “breakout sessions” where participants listened to guest speakers, including CEO of VSCO, a photo-sharing and editing app.
The leadership class also participated in “slam sessions” where participants offered up their own ideas.
Clare spoke at 1 of these slam sessions about the merits of the an annual canned food drive at Campolindo. She encouraged other schools to include it on their activity calendars.
“It was a great experience for me to speak, but I was so nervous,” said Clare. “Everyone backstage had notecards and stuff, but I had nothing since I didn’t really prepare that much.”
The conference also including a rally, with dance battles and “Minute to Win It” games. Prizes like Hydroflask water bottles were handed out the various winning teams. “It was intense, but we had a lot of fun,” said sophomore class treasurer Isabella Bartos.
Each attending school was required to create a short video before the event. The participating schools were all assigned different television shows to dictate the style and format of the mini trailers. Campolindo’s show was Gossip Girl.
“It was beneficial to get some new ideas,” said Clare. “All the other schools were super spirited and now I’m more motivated to bring more spirit to our school. We want to make our rallies a bigger deal and even maybe try an outdoor dance.”
