PASC News Inside This Issue News & Notes............................2 • District Newsletters and Updates Available • Deadline to Apply for Junior State Board of Education Position Horatio Alger Names 51 PA State Scholars ............................2 Summer Workshop Video Online and District Scholarships Available.......................................2 Interboro High School Conducts Mid-Year Eval...............................3 PASC to Host Activity Advisor Workshop....................................3 2014 Summer Leadership Workshop Dates...................................4 Staff Applications Now Available for Workshops............................4 PASC Heads to Orlando for 2013 Conference.......................5 Present at NASC National Conference..........................................5 2014 PASC District/Regional Conferences................................6 National Council of Excellence Applications Due........................6 Introducing Our 2014 Middle Level Representatives................7 Spread the Word with Social Media............................................7 Exciting Set of Speakers Slated for 78th PASC Conference......8 State Conference Hosts Select State Charity ..............................8 Wishes for HS Leaders.............9 Wishes for Middle School Leaders and Advisors.........................10 Thoughts for Advisors..............11 Getting W.E.I.R.D. with Leadership...................................12
Volume 38 Issue 6 February 2014
Reminisces on a PASC Career By Jim Finnemeyer, PASC Executive Director As the final days pass in my role as PASC Executive Director, it has been certainly a time of transition, planning for the future, and remembrance. Serving 37 years in this role and being an historian by background, causes me to do a great deal of thinking about the history of PASC, the changes that have occurred over the years and how blessed I have been to have worked with so many outstanding student leaders and incredible advisors. As a college graduate with a degree in education, I would never have dreamed of the opportunities that have been afforded me since I accepted the position as student council advisor at Pennfield Junior High School in the North Penn School District in 1967. As a high school and college student, I was never involved in student council or class government, although I had many friends who were. My interests were concentrated in band, theater, literary magazine, and yearbook. When I started my teaching career at Pennfield, the student council advisor position was vacant and it sounded like fun to me as a 21 year-old. It was the neatest
thing ever and I ended up never teaching a day in my 35-year career without being a student council advisor or later director of student activities at North Penn HS.
PASC Executive Director Jim Finnemeyer retires March 1 after serving in the position for 37 years.
I know that I received the monthly PASC newsletter from Executive Secretary, Paul Landes, but never really did anything with it for two years, although we were a member school. From my first year on, I did take my officers to Philadelphia Suburban oneday middle level conferences, which were excellent for both them and for me. In the fall of 1968, I went to a meeting with my principal and state council president in Reading sponsored by PASC and I learned more about what PASC had to offer. Then in October 1969, I took two students (all that each school was allowed) to my first state conference at Gettysburg HS. My junior high kids wanted to host one of these conferences when they were in high school and I was hooked. In the fall of 1971, I transferred to the new North Penn HS with the goal of reorganizing the student council into an
SGA to become the umbrella organization for all high school organizations in an era of student activism. We bid for the 1972 state conference and lost; I was selected to become the new District Director for the four Philadelphia suburban counties and thus began to serve on the PASC Executive Board. This was a time of change for PASC and student leadership in general. I had opportunity to work with students to draft a Student Bill of Rights for Pennsylvania, which was adopted by the PA Department of Education, and with PASC leaders to design the regional representative system still in use today. North Penn High School became the host of the 1973 state conference and the door was opened to me to attend national student council conferences and become exposed to outstanding speakers like Dr. Earl Reum of Colorado. continued on page 12