The spring semester Alpha Wolf ceremony is coming up, and students are totally psyched to find out who they collectively crowned as having the best character in their grade.
Mr Doyle, the creator of the AW11 system, and the students in the leadership council put in the effort to make the ceremony go as smoothly as possible. To make sure that this happens, the process to choose a winner and create the ceremony must be made with distinct precision and new ideas that aim to bring in as many votes as possible.
The nomination process ultimately starts with the students, all 1100 of them. It’s a lengthy process, even causing the class schedule for the day to make time for it. At the beginning of third hour, students are sent an email with a link to a google form that will provide you a space to name and recognize two students in your grade, and one peer from another. “As a school, we all participate together at the same time, during third hour,” Doyle said. “It’s a collaborative effort on everyone’s part. It’s not a ‘okay, let’s maybe do it or maybe not do it’, we all do it.”
The students are aided in their voting process by a teacher script that details the values that make up a true Alpha Wolf 11, along with past winners so that votes are not repeated. There is also a space on the given google form that allows you to explain how and why you chose that specific scholar. Students are given sentence starters, in the case they feel lost on how to recognize the subject of their nomination. The explanations given about the chosen winner at the very end of the process, are gathered and put into a complete narrative that is read prior to the announcement in the winners name. “We really want to hear student voice.” Doyle explained. “When your narrative is read at the assembly, we’re just not making that stuff up, these are all of the things that students have said about you.”
Once students finish their respective google forms, they are given an AW11 ticket by their teacher to write their name on. The ticket is then collected once again by the teacher to give to Mr. Doyle so that he can create a bag of goodies with items enough for the amount of tickets in each class, and therefore students that voted. “It’s kind of an incentive as to say, thank you for participating, and here’s a little raffle, have some fun with it.” Doyle said “We usually pass that out two or three weeks after the student nomination process.”
After the student votes are collected, it comes time for Mr. Doyle to calculate the top ten students with the most votes to their name for each grade. At a staff meeting, all teachers are given these rankings and discuss the outcomes for the grade or grades that they teach. As a group, each grade of teachers decides on two final winners from the group of top ten that they think exhibit the values of AW11 the most. “We use the students’ perspective, and then we kind of solidify it with the staff perspective,” Doyle said. “When these two things come together, we have the right winners.”
Over the entirety of the semester though, the AW11 leadership council works hard to plan and prepare the assembly. They decide the theme, the decorations, the events, and everything in between while Mr. Doyle prepares the needed supplies accordingly. “I’m like a Shawn Gurk.” Doyle explained. “I just kind of conduct, if you [students] don’t plan, if you don’t organize, if you don’t come up with ideas, then we look and sound like crap.”
The process evolves each year with the coming and going of students, always changing up the assemblies and the voting process. For example, this year’s assembly is going to be a big change. “This coming celebration is gonna look 100% different from any celebration we have ever done.” Doyle said. “The reason we are changing is because we wanna keep the celebration alive, and to do that, you have to do different things.”
This semester’s AW11 celebration is on May 2, so be sure to attend so that we can celebrate our AW11 values as a school by recognizing those with character.