IVROP shaping students to be the leaders of tomorrow

The Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program selected students from around the county to train them to be the leaders of tomorrow in their inaugural Chapter Officer Leadership Training.

One of those students is Malei Tipton, the president of the Future Farmers of America El Centro chapter.

Tipton hopes the training she receives will help her bond with her group and grow as a team. “Today is about getting to know my teammates and getting to know the other officer teams through my school. And getting to figure out how we can use each other’s strengths to work together as a cohesive unit,” said Tipton.

Tipton plans to use what she learns to be a positive influence on other students. Tipton said, “So I hope to learn whatever I learn here and implement it back at my school.”

The values students gain will have a lasting impact. IVROP Educational Service Manager, Jennifer Sutter said,” The students here today are the future of Imperial Valley. And so everything that it is that we do in career technical education and through IVROP, is really just helping to empower the student and succeed. So that when they go to future careers when they go out to the community, they are successful productive citizens.”

Learning leadership skills at a young age will give students an advantage in the real world. Cory Van Driessche, a teacher said, “If you don’t get them early, they develop bad habits and then you have to break those bad habits in order to teach them good habits. So if we can teach them the right way to do it now or a positive way in doing it, not necessarily the right way because there’s many ways to do the same thing. We’re giving them a headstart on their competition.”

IVROP hope to make their leadership training conference a bi-annual event so students can continue to grow and hone their skills as leaders.