Midland County Youth Leadership (MCYL) is a program that is run by adults and high schoolers for freshmen to help teach leadership skills. It’s a two day program that took place on the 15th and 16th of March. The students participating in the program for the first time will be exclusively freshmen from Bullock Creek, DHS, and MHS. The students leading the event are called steering team members, this being because they “steer the program.” During the event, 45 freshmen, 26 steering team members, and 12 adult mentors will be travelling around the city of Midland participating in leadership building activities. The steering team members have been planning this event since the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. During the early stages of planning the members meet around once a month, but as the event draws closer they tend to meet around once a week.

The program itself is exclusive for budgetary reasons, which explains why there are only 45 freshmen participating. To become a member of the steering team, students must participate in MCYL as a freshman, and the following year students can apply to the steering committee to participate in planning for the event the next year.

The activities that have been planned for the program are structured around building leadership skills for freshmen that they can use throughout the rest of their high school career. Such activities include personality portraits, high fives, goal setting, and listening to motivational speakers.

In addition to its main goal being to build leadership skills, the program also builds students decision making, team building exercises, communications skills, and helping plan for ones future.