Campolindo Leadership started a new initiative known as “student spotlighting” where students can nominate people they think deserve to be recognized. This initiative helps to bring awareness to the diverse student population and all their achievements.

“A group in 4th period leadership wanted to spotlight students that are doing amazing things…they’re going to attempt to do it every first and third week of a month and highlight someone they think is an unsung hero,” said leadership teacher, Lindsay Webb-Peploe.

Webb-Peploe sent out a Google form in the weekly-round up email, and Leadership students posted QR codes around the school to submit other students. Once they are nominated, “[Leadership] takes a picture of them and do a little write up,” Webb-Peploe added.

This effort has a specific goal to acknowledge high achieving Campolindo students. “It’s really to show how diverse and exciting the work is that’s going on here at Campo,” Webb-Peploe stated.

The reason this initiative has been started is because Leadership students have been noticing that, “Oftentimes, the same people get interviewed in The Claw, get featured in the yearbook, or seem to have a really public profile, but there are lots of students that are doing… work that don’t have a chance to have the spotlight shone on them,” said Webb-Peploe.

In order to solve this problem, Leadership students junior Madison Soun, senior Charlie Lopez, and sophomore Jesse Kelvin turned towards activities that they’ve observed at Stanley Middle school. “It actually rooted from Stanley where they had a “Wildcat of the Week,” said Soun.

Furthermore, they wanted to, “Freshen up ‘The Red C’,” according to Lopez. The Red C is Campolindo’s social media platform used for posting updates about the school. “‘The Red C’ is normally a bunch of different things like headlines or stuff done by a bunch of clubs. It’s never really about the actual kids that attend Campo,” Lopez added. “Student spotlighting” is a way to connect Campolindo students and strengthen the community. The Leadership program believes that appreciating each other here at school is essential to improving the connections around campus.

Another aspect of “student spotlighting” are parties. “We’re going to have a party with pizza and games,” Soun stated. Once all the nominations have come in there will be a party held by leadership for these Campolindo students.

This initiative is just hitting the ground which means as it grows and more people participate, the way it’s structured could change. “Right now we’re doing it every 2 or 3 weeks, but later it might be every week,” Soun said.

So far 3 students have been nominated to be highlighted. This effort has stemmed from an idea posted on the 4th period Leadership media board and they are, “hoping that since [the google form] went out to the whole school we’ll get more,” said Webb-Peploe.

This initiative also has some issues Leadership is planning to work through. “I feel like it will kind of be abused,” Lopez said while talking about the google form that students fill out. “We’ve already seen that some people are voting for people they don’t like… in the future we’re going to fix that,” he added. They believe that purposely nominating someone as a joke or a way to humiliate them works against the supportive culture teachers, staff, and students have worked tirelessly to create at Campo.

Overall, Leadership has a positive attitude towards the “spotlighting students” success. “I’m pretty excited about it and just being able to showcase people’s hard work,” Soun said. Also, Lopez shared, “We haven’t done anything like this, so I’m really excited to see what this brings.” Encouraging everyone at school to embrace this new form of fostering a comfortable, positive environment at school is what’s currently on Leadership’s agenda.