On November 11^th and 12^th, a group of students traveled to the Ohio School Boards Association’s (OSBA) Capital Conference. Their main goal: learning better ways to lead, and teaching others how to lead like Chardon.

Ms Grantham as well as the Student Council officers made the trip down to Columbus to attend this yearly event. The officers who went are President Erin Grantham, Vice President Courtney Kamm, secretary Katie Goodge, treasurer Lizz McNaughton, and our very own Chief Newspaper Editor, Jillian Cressman (Historian).  Our school representatives set up a booth at the conference and presented our very own Leadership Camp. Leadership camp includes traveling to Highbrook Lodge, which already took place in August this year. The girls shared their experiences with the camp, and how it helped them become greater leaders. They also talked about other ways that Leadership Camp improved their leading abilities. Instead of only focusing on Chardon’s leadership abilities, the officers also learned about other ways that other school’s leadership initiatives. Both Vice President Courtney and Secretary Katie agreed on the same thing: The Columbus conference is a great way for Student Council to share Chardon’s ideas, and learn new ways to lead and bring them back to CHS for our whole school to use.

Not all of the students stood behind a booth the entire time. They took turns circulating around the convention center to look at other organizations’ booths and asked questions. Displays ranged from a “Trash Bash” featuring completely reused and recycle clothing, to school-wide healthy eating programs. Most of the student groups also provided pleasant music during the duration of the conference. President of Student Council Erin Grantham said, “Meeting with leaders from other schools will help us improve our leadership skills as well as help us learn to delegate better.”

The group of students left during the end of the school day on the 11^th and attended the conference on the 12^th. In summary of the whole event, Jillian Cressman comments, “It was very interesting and inspiring to see other schools student driven programs that differed from ours but had the same goals behind it.”