Leadership develops skills, talent.

This is only the second year that Mr. Casey Towner has been in charge of Leadership, but he is a product of Armijo High School and has been teaching Math on the campus for years. He also served as Class adviser for the last four years.

As adviser to Leadership, Mr. Towner has to verify that the students qualify. That means that each participant has at least a 2.0 grade point average (GPA) and is in good standing with teachers, now and in the past. Leadership students can not have any behavior issues, either.

“COVID-19 is greatly affecting us,” said Mr. Towner. “A lot of our time is spent planning campus/community activities. It is a bit of a blessing in disguise because we have time for ‘self-growth’ and actual leadership lessons such as Defining leadership and public speaking.”

Another challenge created by COVID-19 has to do with class size. “Our recruiting for the freshmen class was also interrupted, so that class is very small!” Mr. Towner said. “We are looking for good leadership candidates for the freshmen class.”

Leadership meets at 7:15 on Mondays and Thursdays and at 7:45 the other days of the week. Their job, usually, is to plan campus events and community service opportunities, and to develop leadership skills through committee participation, but things are a little more challenging with distance learning.

Generally class officers lead meetings and committees with the students in their grade level twice a month. “We were planning on reframing this format this year… but COVID changed things,” said Mr. Towner. “We are trying to adapt and do some drive in/drive thru events… We are still concerned about the idea of students being in the same space and getting out of cars and whatnot so we are holding off… We are planning on making videos and hosting some virtual events such as karaoke night, lip sync battle, and student/staff trivia nights.”

Mr. Towner teaches Leadership from a position of experience. “I was in Leadership. I was vice president of my freshmen and sophomore classes and president as a junior. My senior year, I was ASB Vice President. Mr. B was my teacher and the class was a big reason why I became a teacher,” he said. The “Mr. B” he referenced is actually Assistant Principal Brad Burzynski, another Armijo alumnus.