Leadership Lessons at Root of New Junior School Gardens

Far more than a hundred pounds of cucumbers and a couple pounds of carrots sprouted from the new gardens at Lakota’s four junior schools. In fact, according to 7-12 gifted advisor Ron Henrich, at the root of the student-led philanthropy project for a local food pantry was leadership training.

“For a lot of the students I work with, all their lives they’re told they’re smart and truly exceptional, but are we training them to lead,” challenged Henrich, who leans into an annual project with his seventh-graders across all four junior schools to do just that. “Leadership skills need to be intentionally taught and experienced and once that happens, it’s ingrained,” he continued. 

Among many other things, Henrich’s work involves rotating visits to Lakota’s junior schools each week to meet with a roster of seventh grade students during their academic support time. Specifically, that roster includes a subgroup of students identified as gifted who have an IQ higher than 128 and/or have scored in the 95th percentile or higher on the nationally normed achievement tests for math, English language arts, science and social studies. 

For roughly the first half of the year, those weekly meetings focus on something Henrich calls “theoretical leadership” - or a lot of reflection on what leadership might look like through the lens of enhancing our community. The second half of the year is more practical and challenges students to put their ideas and theories into action. It’s during this phase, Henrich says, that the real magic happens. 

To hear his students at Liberty Junior talk about the project is, in fact, magical. They light up when walking through their process - from brainstorming and debating their project ideas to discussing the minutiae of what to plant, when to plant it and even how deep to dig their trenches. 

“The teamwork was the most amazing part,” said now eighth-grader Rylie Weinrich, reflecting on her seventh grade year into the summer months. She and her classmates created a summer maintenance schedule to keep their spring crops alive and well before harvesting for a local food pantry run out of Bethany United Methodist Church. “We had to discuss and evaluate all of our ideas and then divide up all the jobs.” 

Without any experienced gardeners in the group, another student, Avery Sanders, explained that the hardest part was researching intricacies like what grows best in the school’s soil and how much to plant within the boundaries of their $1,000 budget. For example, Liberty Junior’s group discovered that outlining their garden with marigolds keeps the rabbits away and helps beautify the space, while zigzagging string above their garden helps avoid damage from birds. 

Not a gardener himself, even Henrich modeled vulnerability and risk-taking, admitting his initial nervousness to tackle a project that he knew virtually nothing about. “Together, we learned things aren’t always perfect and you grow most when you take risks,” he reflected.

In the end, the 150 students hailing from all four schools collectively made a “bountiful” donation of cucumbers and carrots - a fantastic first year effort, said Bethany Church volunteer Bonnie Greenwood, who helped harvest the gardens over the summer.

“Considering the pantry relies on rescue food and individual donations, every pound is important in feeding more people,” Greenwood said. “Bethany Church is humbled and honored to be selected as the recipient of the charity gardens. Fresh means so much to our guests who come to us for food.” 

Greenwood added that she hopes the experience gives the students dignity that comes from volunteering and helping others. “It was so great to use the skills we’d learned to actually do something useful for our community,” said eighth-grader Camryn Kohler. 

For Weinrich, part of the excitement, she said, was simply “being part of a school community that wasn’t just a club or athletic team.”

At this comment, Henrich lit up too, later explaining that his leading goal is to give his students a sense of belonging and be a trusted adult they can rely on throughout their high school career. “I want to make sure they always have a place to land,” he said, explaining that he uses the seventh grade experience to really get to know his students before time with them becomes more limited into the upper grade levels. 

Beginning in eighth grade, his interaction with the approximately 750 students district-wide whom he serves is significantly less. But using what he’s learned about each one, he finds opportunities to pop into a class for a quick check-in, offer up an opportunity that might match their interests, or even partner with another teacher to appropriately challenge them in their classwork. 

As for this year’s seventh-graders, their project is still a work in progress. But according to Henrich, like every year before, “Whatever they decide to do, I’m all in.” Because that’s where the magic happens.