NEWPORT BEACH : Teen-Agers Get Tips on How to Lead

About 100 teen-agers who show leadership qualities attended Leadership Training Day, a program designed to show them how adults handle problems that confront people in charge.

The teen-agers chosen by their teachers for the Corona del Mar High School program Tuesday weren’t necessarily the presidents of school clubs or heads of their class committees, but they were students who show leadership potential and may have the ability to guide classmates on new ventures.

The program took these students on a half-day journey through the day of an adult leader, during which students learned how to handle problems that often confront the head of a group.

“It’s really good,” said Serena Kirby, a junior and one of about 100 students in grades eight through 11 who were chosen for the program.

Said Nitashia Sawhney, “We’re being given information . . . like how to deal with people.”

Kirby added that the students have opportunities, such as in special class periods and various school groups, to take on leadership roles. But, she said, they often feel they don’t know how to take charge once they are confronted with the conflicting personalities and problems that sometimes make up a group.

“It’s here to show the kids they can make a difference, any way they want in life,” said Peggy Hoyt, the career center counselor at Corona del Mar High School who helped organize the event. “These are life skills that many of us learned at 40. It would be good if some of them learned them at 14.”

The students participated in two groups. In one they learned how to brainstorm with other people. The other focused on various personality types that can often be found in a group--the pessimist, loudmouth, the shy one, for example--and how to work together.

The groups were led by well-known community leaders who discussed problems group leaders often confront, such as in a family situation or in a boardroom.

The highlight of the event held at the Costa Mesa Community Center was panel discussion in which prominent community members debated whether high schools should make community service a graduation requirement. Among the speakers were Newport Beach restaurateur Bill Hamilton and Share Our Selves Executive Director Barbara Considine.

“There’s no greater joy in life than to give something back to the community,” said Dr. Mitchell Cairo, who works with children with cancer at Children’s Hospital of Orange County and St. Joseph Hospital, discussing the many children who beat cancer and then return to hospitals as adults to do volunteer work with children.

Leadership “is essential to the future of this country and this community,” said Ellen Wilcox, a longtime community leader and volunteer in Newport Beach.

Cindy Hollern, a parent who organized the event for the school, hopes it will become a model for other schools in the district.

Hollern and the school’s PTA worked with the counseling staff at Laguna Hills High School, which first developed the conference idea at that school, and enlisted the support of community sponsors such as Hoag Hospital and area businesses to raise about $700 to put on the program.

Hollern added that taking the students away from the school for the day and treating them like adults attending a professional conference was part of a strategy to encourage them to start taking on leadership roles.