"I think the model that exists now is very top-down, where teachers are responsible for everything," said Erzen, a graduate of California Polytechnic State University who has taught seventh-grade math. "There is an untapped resource in the schools, and that's the students. They're not challenged to take ownership of their schools."
He said Dean had drawn on work by various researchers and shaped a curriculum for middle schoolers.
"It's bits and pieces from different places," Erzen said. "It's all instructionally sound."
And the skills covered in the sessions - team-building, influencing others, delegating responsibility, running meetings, communicating expectations, and implementing action plans - have applications far beyond the classroom.
"They can use these forever," Erzen said.
After a successful tryout during the last academic year at a charter school in New Orleans, Dean and Erzen, both 25, brought their Student Leadership Project to the Philadelphia area.
The two have been working with students at KIPP West Philadelphia Charter School and Freedom Academy Charter School in Camden since September.
Seventh and eighth graders at Freedom Academy completed conflict-mediation training to help reduce tensions in their school.
And sixth and seventh graders at KIPP West Philadelphia helped improve the schoolwide homework completion rate by 15 percent by phoning students who had not been completing assignments. They organized pizza lunches to recognize classmates who now were turning in work.
"I think this program is great," said Lavon Edwards, 12, a seventh grader at KIPP. "This is a good school, but there are some things . . . that need improvement. I'm in this group so I can help to improve the school."
