Moving Forward

Four St. Landry Parish schools will participate during the coming school year in a pilot program designed to help students recognize and develop leadership skills.

The Leader in Me program will be underwritten by the St. Landry-Evangeline United Way and the United Way of Acadiana. The four St. Landry Parish Schools selected from nine applicants are Grolee Elementary and North Elementary in Opelousas, Lawtell Elementary, and Highland Elementary in Eunice. Susie Fisher of the St. Landry-Evangeline United Way is project coordinator.

Funding for the next five years will be provided by Keith and Ginger Myers through the Myers Family Foundation and the C. Schumacher Family Foundation, according to Ginger LeCompte, executive director of the St. Landry-Evangeline United Way.

Keith and Ginger Myers were recipients of the 2013 Leaders in Philanthropy Award for St. Landry Parish, given by the Community 

Foundation of Acadiana. The Schumacher foundation has been involved in a number of area projects in recent years.

“What ‘The Leader in Me’ does is teach children to empower themselves, to manage their learning, to manage their futures — to learn how to be good husbands and wives and employees, and ultimately good citizens of the community,” according to Dr. William “Kip” Schumacher.

The program is designed to teach leadership and life skills to students and to create a culture in which every child learns that he or she can be a leader. Among its focuses are developing student skills in leadership, responsibility, accountability, problem solving, adaptability, communication, initiative and self-direction, creativity, working in other cultures, and teamwork.

Principles from “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” the motivational book first published in 1989 by Stephen Covey, are a key component of the Leader in Me process. Area schools participating in Leader in Me have seen “significant improvements in the areas of academic achievement, attendance, and behavior,” according to data developed by the Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

The regional development organization One Acadiana has recently included The Leader in Me as part of its workforce development strategy, and St. Landry Parish Economic Development has made improvement of education at every level one of its highest priorities.

Investment in The Leader in Me by the philanthropists “will make a substantial, scalable, long-term impact in addressing the soft skills issue that concerns so many business 

leaders in our region,” according to One Acadiana CEO Jason El Koubi.

“The goal of St. Landry Economic Developmen6t is to see that every student at every level is able to receive the best education possible. Programs such as this that help students recognize their potential and develop their sense of self-worth at a young age will pay incalculable dividends,” according to Bill Rodier, St. Landry economic development leader. “The lessons learned in this program will open avenues for students for the rest of their educational career and for the rest of their lives.”

North Elementary and Highland Elementary teach students from the pre-kindergarten through the fourth grade, Grolee Elementary teaches pre-kindergarten through the sixth grade, and Lawtell Elementary runs through the eighth grade.