On Thursday, March 1, select Student Government (SGA) officers will be attending the Hillsborough County Public School’s Leadership Conference at the University of South Florida (USF). The conference brings students from all over the county to listen to speakers and participate in breakout sessions to help them further their leadership skills.

Robinson’s Kristina Chowning will be speaking in the opening session, welcoming all of the students to the conference at 8:20 a.m. Some of the many speakers that will be there include Jeff Eakins, the HCPS Superintendent and Sally Harris, the HCPS School Board Chair.

“The goal is to empower student leaders with skills and strategies to better assess, harness, and maximize personal leadership,” Chowning said.

From 9 a.m. to 12:40 p.m., the SGA members will split and go into six different breakout sessions, where USF professors and faculty members will speak to them. Paul Atchley, the Senior Associate Vice President and Dean of Undergraduate Studies will be leading one session while Amani Taha, USF SG Senate, will be leading another.

During some breakout sessions there will be motivational speakers, including Adam Sherman with his To Be Kind movement. There will also be a vendor fair at the conference, where each vendor has something relevant to high schools, like special event planning for prom or for nonprofit organizations like Relay for Life.

“We all come together to learn leadership skills and how to make our student government and school better,” said SGA President Lane Johansen (’18). “I’m really excited to go and learn.”

Yaimilly Ayala (’18), SGA Chief of Staff, and other student leaders will be having lunch with HCPS school board member Cindy Stewart and other significant people in the community.

“The whole point is to create unity and also teach us how to be better leaders,” Ayala said.

The conference is meant to help equip students to come back and lead in their high schools, taking the initiative to make their high school better than before.

“[I] like figuiring out what works at other schools and seeing if we can implement those things here at Robinson,” Johansen said.