BHS to add leadership course in the fall

BRAINERD — Some leaders are born, while others learn leadership along the way.

The latter scenario is what Jason Freed hopes to capture in a new elective course at Brainerd High School next fall.

Freed, a high school social studies teacher and head varsity football coach, presented his idea for a leadership class to the Brainerd School Board on Dec. 10.

“Leadership is not a boxed curriculum,” Freed said. “Everybody has their own path in leadership and how they become leaders.”

Goals of the course would include increasing student involvement in the community and growing skills like communication, confidence, public speaking, problem solving, mentorship, servant leadership and self-awareness. Freed said he wants students to take with them skills that will serve them once they leave Brainerd High School, whether that means going to college, entering the workforce or joining the military.

The course would be open to all high school students and the potential to work alongside the high school’s Career Pathways program.

“It could be a real bucket filler for some students every single day and to get a chance to get in there and have great discussions and build their leadership skills,” Freed said.

He presented two separate models for the class — one lasting a semester and one lasting an entire school year, with different breakdowns of how long students would spend on topics like teamwork, communication, relationships, citizenship, public speaking, group projects and servant leadership.

The class comes with an opportunity for community engagement, with Freed bringing in guest speakers from the community, district administrators or those from outside the region via technology like Zoom.

Jostens has a foundational leadership curriculum Freed said he could potentially pull from, and the free Lead4Change program, geared toward middle and high school students, comes with the opportunity for grant dollars to put toward servant leadership projects in the community.

Course assessments likely would not be the standard multiple-choice tests, Freed said, but rather reflective book studies, leadership presentations, collaborative and individual projects, servant leadership or mentor projects, and individual end-of-course reflection.

He expects costs for the course to include only one or two books a semester for students, while the rest of the course materials would be open-sourced.

School Board members unanimously agreed to Freed’s proposal.

“I think this is absolutely fantastic,” board member Randy Heidmann said. “Some people say leaders are born, but leaders also be learned.”

Freed agreed with that.

“I really think it’s something you can teach people to do,” Freed said, noting natural-born leaders can exist as well.

Board member John Ward said he was all for it as well.

“This was a passion of mine when I was an educator,” Ward said. “I did a class called service learning that put kids out in the community. And the one thing that I really, really would like to emphasize is community connection and group projects.”

With the board’s approval, the class is expected to begin in the fall of 2025.

THERESA BOURKE may be reached at [email protected] or 218-855-5860. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DispatchTheresa .