This school year, a new club has formed on campus: The Cougar Link Crew. While this club may be new to the students of Sahuaro, it has been established with proven results across the country. Mrs. Bradley, the MTSS coordinator and club sponsor, describes it as “a mentor program for freshmen to help them acclimate to high school.”
Mrs. Bradley started the club because, “…both of my kids went through WEB, and experienced WEB, and then were WEB leaders and then experienced Link Crew as freshmen, and were Link Crew leaders. And I saw how their transitions from elementary to middle, then middle to high, were very smooth. They got very connected quickly to the school, and I just felt it was something that if I could find funding, would be awesome to bring to Sahuaro as a way for us to help our students connect and grow and become…you know ‘Cougar Pride!’, which is what we talk about all the time here at Sahuaro.” WEB is another club, similar to Link Crew that can be found in middle schools.
Principal Estrella supported this idea and sought funding to send Mrs. Bradley to California for training so our school could officially incorporate the program. She gained more funding through the Cougar Foundation for T-shirts for club members. After becoming an official club, Bradley started to ask teachers and staff for, “…kids who are not your typical leaders, but are leaders at this school…doesn’t have to be a straight A student, doesn’t have to be anything like that, they just have to be outgoing, and like to communicate, and like to work with others.” She looked for a wide range of students involved in all areas around Sahuaro.
Mrs. Bradley ended up with 40 members. The officers are Cynthia Davis—social media, Jacob Lopez—president, Marie Jennings—vice president, Jillian Stachowski—secretary, Haylee Au—treasurer, and Alex Loya—junior class rep.
During the summer, these students gave up 3 days of their July to train and run a freshmen orientation. The two training days on the 22nd and 23rd included activities such as learning various ice-breaker games, how to run orientation, how to be team leaders, and of course, pizza! Training took place from 9 am-12 pm. Mrs. Bradley said, “It was rocky, I’ve never done it before, so you know I definitely learned some things that I’ll probably do differently next summer…I was very impressed with everybody willing to give up two days of their summer vacation to come, and everybody came and was loyal and dedicated, and was on time and stayed the whole time...the dedication was definitely there.”
Mrs. Bradley asked Ms. Amy Armenta to help run the club. Coming from an AVID school, she was excited to join because, “…all the stuff I loved about the AVID program are the same things that the Link Crew is asking of the kids also, so I right away wanted to jump in because they’re so coincided with each other.”
“I was very impressed with our student body. Not that I’m never impressed, but I think I was even more impressed because it showed the dedication that the students have to Sahuaro, the dedication that they have to being upperclassmen, to being leaders, and then during the two-day workshops that the students participated in.” She said that during those days before the orientation, “…they were 100% involved. There was no outside world. It was all being present.”
The orientation on the 25th welcomed incoming freshmen into Sahuaro. The Link Crew Leaders took them on a campus tour, connected them with other freshmen, and led each group with games and discussion.
Mrs. Bradley’s long-term goal for the club is to have a Link Crew class similar to Student Council where they can plan more events and connect more. This would also include the students going into a freshman class once a quarter to teach a pre-planned lesson. But for this year, she wants to have more social events between the freshmen and leaders, and between the leaders themselves, find more ways to connect with Student Council, and grow the club.
“I’m just really excited about it. I think when it’s going to be awesome is when the group of freshmen that just had the freshman orientation are now old enough to be link crew leaders. I think that’s when this program is going to be the biggest impact and have the biggest bang for our buck, because they experienced it as freshmen, and now they’re going to be leaders,” Mrs. Bradley said.
Bradley said her biggest takeaway was, “…we have some amazing leaders on campus. Like some amazing dedicated kids who really bought into the program.” She recalled hearing a football player say that something he took away from the experience was meeting people he never talked to before. She thought that was, “…very impactful because I think even as leaders, while you may be involved in school, you’re very involved in your niche…I think this group, and moving forward groups to come can accomplish a lot of things on this campus.”
