Greensboro Day School hosted its 2nd Annual Middle School leadership conference on November 18. Seventy students from Kernodle, B’Nai Shalom, Noble Academy, Mendenhall, Canterbury School, and New Garden Friends joined their GDS peers for a full-day program led by Upper School students from Greensboro Day School. They worked in groups to identify types of leadership, the values leaders need to represent, group dynamics in leadership, and the unique goals of student leaders in different schools.

The Learning 2 Lead Conference, created by GDS Middle School student council advisors Laurel Matsudaira, Angela Ballou and David Blake, is designed to build student leadership among our middle generation of school-age children. There were 39 Upper School students who facilitated small group sessions following intensive training from The Center for Creative Leadership.

Some of the broader outcomes of the day were:

* an understanding of both student and school values as a pathway to effective leadership.
* a solid community of middle schools all seeking to find avenues for student leadership development.
* a continued year-long collaboration among middle school students.