BY KARISSA MILLER
East Iredell Elementary School welcomed hundreds of parents and community members to the school’s highly anticipated annual Leadership Day on Friday.
“We are just so proud of our staff and students for all of their hard work. It’s a day for students to showcase their leadership skills and for parents to see all of the great things happening at our school,” said Principal Jennifer Ribbeck.
Lighthouse Leader in Me organizer and fifth-grade teacher Shaley Holmes agreed.
“We’ve almost doubled the amount of parents attending with almost 400 attending,” she said.
The event started before lunchtime with student ambassadors welcoming everyone to East.
“Not all of our families know how to speak or understand English,” explained fifth-grade student ambassador Caroline McGuire. “We translated the script beforehand so we could read it in both English and Spanish.”
McGuire said that being in the Dual Immersion Spanish program has given her an opportunity to learn another language while at the same time given her confidence to use it with strangers.
“I once helped someone at Food Lion who didn’t understand English. It made me feel pretty good,” she said.
Leadership Day showcased different stations by grade level. Guests cycled through performances and presentations. Students in kindergarten, first and second grades performed songs that incorporated the Seven Habits. Third-grade students displayed the Seven Habits through their wax museum, fourth- graders gave a presentation on what they want to be when they grow up, and fifth-graders gave a digital presentation.
The Seven Habits are:
• Be proactive,
• Begin with the end in mind,
• Put first things first,
• Think win-win,
• Seek first to understand, then be understood,
• Synergize, and
• Sharpen the saw.
Students in the Robotics Club and the Science Fair had their work on display.
About East Iredell Elementary
East Iredell Elementary has been a Stephen Covey Lighthouse School since 2017, a feat that only a couple of other Leader in Me schools in North Carolina have achieved.
The Leader in Me program is based on the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and is designed to empower students with the confidence, speaking skills and leadership skills to be successful.
Students set personal and academic goals while tracking their progress. They take on leadership roles to help improve the entire school through a number of student activities.
East Iredell Elementary is also a dual immersion magnet school where students start learning Spanish in kindergarten and progress through fifth grade.
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