One way Bethany contributes to the life of the church and the world is in developing leadership skills in young people. Bethany has strengthened its leadership development by implementing a process that will provide goals, teaching tools, and evaluation of skills for those in leadership roles. Select seniors will also be recognized at graduation for excelling in developing their leadership skills during high school.

The crux of the process will continue to be faculty members who teach leadership skills and mentor student leaders in many settings-both inside and outside the classroom-and a key tool for them to use as they work with students will be a newly-designed rubric, or leadership skills assessment. Teachers will use the assessment tool to explain the set of skills and the assessment process to students. Teachers will supervise student leaders in their identified roles using an action-reflection model to discuss performance: what went well, what did not, identify areas and ways to improve. This leadership skills assessment includes six areas: vision and passion (big picture), public communication and administration (basic skills), and integrity and relational skills (personal attributes).

This new process resulted from Bethany's board recognizing that developing student leadership skills has been a strength at Bethany and its vision to strengthen this contribution to the church and world by creating a process for teachers to work more intentionally at developing and nurturing student leaders. Thus, during second semester of 2006-07 a committee consisting of representatives from administration, teaching faculty, parents, and pastors worked at designing such a process by defining student leadership at Bethany, identifying student leadership roles, and creating the rubric for teachers to assess leadership skills as they mentor student leaders.

The committee defined a Bethany student leader as one who "mobilizes others in ways that enrich our Bethany community." To help define what student roles would fit into this leadership program, the committee considered two criteria: 1) the role needs to be specific and concrete and 2) the role should include a significant time commitment ranging from several months to the entire year. Based on these criteria the committee suggested such roles as class officers, athletic team captains, fish heads, and school yearbook/newspaper-but did not compile an exhaustive list.

At the end of an event and/or role, teachers will complete an assessment form for the Student Life Cluster to use in determining which seniors should be recognized-students can participate in leadership roles in any or all four years of high school, but recognition of students who have demonstrated significant leadership skills will occur at graduation.