Photo by Erin Nelson.
Kym Prewitt, who oversees Youth Leadership Vestavia Hills, stands by a wall of RISE posters in her classroom.
The charge given to the Leadership Vestavia Hills class of 2003 was to create a program for youth in the school system. That effort to create what became Youth Leadership Vestavia Hills was led, in part, by Kym Prewitt.
Prewitt had previously taught at Vestavia Hills High School for eight years before stepping away when she had children.
“I was all in,” Prewitt said. “I loved it. I’ve always loved it. It’s home.”
In her 20 years away from teaching, Prewitt volunteered on PTO, served on the Vestavia Hills Board of Education and Vestavia Hills City Schools Foundation and did volunteer work for education around the state. She also began The Children’s Literacy Guild of Alabama, which works to get books in the hands of children.
So the idea of creating a younger version of Leadership Vestavia Hills was a natural fit for Prewitt. The goal was to give students a place to plug in, to help a large school feel small again and improve student connections, she said.
The program has grown considerably in the past 20 years, and while Prewitt didn’t come back to the school to teach until seven years ago, she’s been coordinating with teachers and other volunteers, helping the program grow from its inception. Now, following the 2022-23 school year, Prewitt has stepped away into retirement.
Over time, part of the program came to include the Youth Leadership Vestavia Hills class at VHHS, which was initially taught by Angie Richardson, Emily Erwood and Lauren Dressback. However, it was a struggle to find high school curriculum that worked for the class, Prewitt said.
So Prewitt re-upped her certification, passed the Praxis again and came back, initially thinking it would just be for one year to help develop the curriculum for the class. But then she was asked to add a second level to the curriculum. She ended up staying through the end of this past school year.
Youth Leadership Vestavia Hills includes Help the Hills coalition, which urges students to avoid drugs and alcohol; the RISE (Rebel Impact through Service and Engagement) philanthropic efforts; a New Student Committee, which helps new students acclimate to the school; the Sisterhood Project; and more, Prewitt said.
“Most of them are student ideas,” she said. “It creates lots of leadership opportunities for students.”
The tagline for the class is “be the difference.” That motto goes hand in hand with a letter Prewitt wrote seven years ago outlining what she wanted students to learn or take away from the class, which includes becoming better communicators, learning how to take initiative to meet a need, increasing their capacity for empathy and leaving the class with a better confidence in who they are and what they value.
“That’s the hope for my students,” she said.
Students learn those skills through serving others and putting those character traits to use, she said.
“Leadership is not about position,” Prewitt said. “It’s about relationships. It’s about how you treat other people.”
Prewitt said as students come into the class, perhaps looking to find their place, they end up making change on campus.
“In trying to help individual students find their way, they become change agents in this place,” she said.
And when a critical mass of change agents is reached, it changes the culture of the entire school, she said, making VHHS a place that prioritizes excellence, treating others with respect and finding common ground.
If the culture has changed at the high school, Prewitt doesn’t want to take the credit for it, she said.
“It’s really the kids who have created it,” she said. “They step up to the challenge.”
RISE brings hundreds of students together and has, over the past five years, raised $1 million for the adolescent and young adult oncology program of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB. Still, while the money is significant, it is just one way in which the class helps others, Prewitt said.
“I never want the money to overshadow the good things that are happening in that program,” she said.
Older students mentor younger ones and also share life lessons with them, Prewitt said. Juniors and seniors lead a freshman retreat, which serves as an introduction to the class.
As she steps away, Prewitt said she will miss the students the most, and all of the people at the high school.
“We have an excellent faculty,” she said. “Our students are special. These kids are wiser than you would expect. They have bigger hearts than you would expect. Our kids are going places. They will be the difference in the world.”
With a new grandchild, Prewitt is looking forward to a “different season” of life.
She hopes the class grows exponentially under the instruction of Morgan Jones and another yet-to-be-named teacher.
“I think it will, because it works,” Prewitt said. “The growth shows that it’s something that works.”
