Starting in November, Mills Leadership’s Kindness Committee began to do student, athlete, and teacher of the month recognitions. For Student of the Month, one student from each grade is awarded with the title, Athletes of the Month are selected for each sport, and Teacher of the Month is chosen by department.
The idea of recognizing students, athletes, and teachers had been something that the Kindness Committee had wanted to do for a few years now, but never got the chance to implement until this last November.
Leadership advisor Alexandra Dove said, “Our Kindness Committee [is] all about recognizing our students for their achievements, for their experiences, and our community, but this has been the first year that we’ve been able to implement it in any tangible fashion.”
One of the ideas that came up during their brainstorming process but was never used was giving spotlighted students gift cards.
Leadership’s Kindness Committee member Alexis Ivankov (12) recalled, “We started with the idea that we give people gift cards and that wasn’t a good way to represent everyone and show them off. We decided that we needed to make something bigger that everyone could see.”
With the idea of giving out gift cards not being sustainable, the Kindness Committee pivoted their ideas and decided to have monthly students, athletes, and teachers spotlighted on a poster board. This was another way Mills members could be seen by the whole school and the community. The idea of having them featured was what Ivankov described as “a collective decision.”
Dove explained, “I think it’s really important that we are acknowledging our students, and this is just another way to highlight our student experiences.” She continued, saying, “So it’s something that we’re trying to continue to embed into our programs and into our activities.” The way that Student of the Month works is that leadership sends emails to teachers for them to fill out a survey nominating one student per grade. The student with the most votes for that grade would win. Athletes of the Month are nominated by their coaches for their respective sport. For Teacher of the Month, Leadership first chooses a department and students vote on the teacher they think deserves to be spotlighted.
The students and teachers that get highlighted for that month get free boba while athletes get a certificate and are posted on the Mills Vikings Instagram account. All of the month’s winners are also posted on the board in the math hall.
“Because I didn’t want to just nominate people and people don’t recognize them so I chose to use that board instead,” leadership student Katerina Tilis (11) explained on the decision to transform the empty board in math hall.
We hope that all students, athletes, and teachers feel proud of their hard work and cherish this special moment of getting featured at school.
Ivankov commented, “It’s significant because it shows appreciation for all of our athletes, students, teachers and all the work that they put in. It really motivates people to want to be on the board so they want to be better.”
