Young leaders program takes on new leadership

By Kelly Wilkinson

Tomorrow's Leaders Today (TLT), a leadership program for high school students in both Fremont Union and Santa Clara Unified school districts, celebrated its most recent crop of graduates Monday, May 17 at a ceremony in the Del Monte Building in Sunnyvale.

The 37-student group is a collective of sophomores and juniors from six local schools selected to participate in a nine-month program emphasizing leadership skills. Throughout the course, the students are exposed to the interworkings of local government, the criminal justice system, education, business and the arts.

Jeanine Stanek, TLT program director, says the project strives to draw out non-traditional leaders who may not be aware of their leadership capabilities rather than those who have already demonstrated abilities.

"We're looking for students who seem to be ready to step up and learn more about things outside of their narrow little world," Stanek said. "And those who seem to be wanting to learn more about their community."

Stanek, who has led TLT for the past seven years, also served on the original steering committee that emerged out of the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Sunnyvale Class in 1992. She said Donna Brown, another member of her leadership class, learned about a similar program for teens in Santa Rosa and suggested bringing it to Sunnyvale and Cupertino.

"[Brown] came back to our leadership group and said 'If I started this, would anyone be interested?', and a bunch of hands went up," Stanek said.

High schools in the Fremont and Santa Clara districts put out calls for applications from interested sophomores and juniors. And after a selection process that Stanek calls "the absolute hardest part," they whittle the application pool down to a class of less than 40 students.

Kelly Zimmerman, a junior at Homestead High School, said she got a note in one of her classes telling her that she had been recommended for the program.

"At first I thought it was one of those programs where they really think you're stupid but tell you that you're smart," she said. "But then I found out that my friend had recommended me."

Zimmerman trusted her friend's estimation of the course and after graduating last week called it "a really wonderful experience."

As president of one of her school's clubs, she said, "I was already in a position of leadership." She added, "But I knew some of the things I was doing weren't the best way."

Zimmerman said she has learned to become a more effective leader through the exposure to local leaders and TLT activities.

"One of the things we did was an exercise in groups where we had to come up with a consensus, and almost everyone thought differently. But we did, and it was great to see that it was possible."

While Zimmerman said she doesn't think students in the program "will go out and be like, 'Oh, I'm going to become a leader now,' " she said regardless of any future leadership positions, she thinks all of the participants will at least use the skills subconsciously.

Stanek says she and the other leaders of the program try to keep tabs on the students' progress after they graduate.

"At the end of the next year, we usually write a letter asking if the program helped them, because even from September to [their graduation], we wonder if they're getting it," she says. "But we don't have any measurable outcomes or any of those buzzwords. I wish we did, but when you're running this as volunteers, it's pretty hard."

This is the last year Stanek and the two other volunteer leaders will be running the program, and also the last year it will be run under the auspices of the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce. Next year it will move to Cupertino, where Carroll McNeill will carry the TLT torch.

McNeill says Leadership Cupertino asked her to do initial research for developing a program similar to Sunnyvale's when she first contacted Stanek.

"I quickly realized I didn't want to compete with their program, and [Stanek] took a look at me and said, 'Here's our exit strategy.' "

McNeill said that although plans are still in the earliest stages, she does expect to keep the program's emphasis on inspiring students to become more comfortable in leadership roles.

"It's my hope that we'll give them the self-confidence and tools so that hopefully somewhere down the road, they'll want to contribute something."

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