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# Leadership learned through play
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/leadership-learned-through-play/
- Published: 2006-06-07T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T18:16:21.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Education, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

Who knew being a leader could be fun and games. For dozens of students at St. Monica Catholic Elementary School, last Friday was a day of fun while learning how to be leaders.

St. Monica Catholic Elementary School’s annual “Play Day” was about kids winding up their year having competitive fun. They raced carts, threw footballs through a rubber tire, scooted under limbo bars and showed their stuff in seven other games.

With scrambling feet, cocked arms and dancing hips, more than 200 kindergarten through seventh graders spent more than two hours last Friday on the school’s playground. Organizing and coaching them, and sometimes soothing ruffled feelings, were the school’s 29 eighth graders.

“Sometimes they can be a little out of control,” said student Amy Lyman, 14, as she packed a cooler with Auto Pops and orange soda. “But they listen to us.”

In the third grade cart derby, one girl fell behind the others when she had trouble getting her legs to work in sync. When the girl struggled to the finish line, eighth-grader Ricki Boulee, 15, with her clipboard propped under her arm, was there to give her reassuring pats on the back.

“The kids in the lower grades get to know the kids in the higher grades, and the eighth graders learn how to be leaders,” said Paola Sessarego, the eighth-grade home room teacher, from the sidelines.

Sessarego said socializing among younger and older students and building leadership in the higher grades is woven into what she calls “the school family” throughout the year.

All 10 of the school’s teachers are involved in the annual event, but they let the eighth graders and the rising seventh graders run the show from beginning to end.

“You get a feeling of accomplishment,” said student Gray Tolhurst.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 7, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/060706.pdf?ref=smdp.com)