There’s a quiet new initiative going on at Étude High School, thanks to the experience of one student and teacher last summer.

Senior Emileo Kuester and teacher Beckah DeYoung were chosen to join this year’s Changemaker Cohort, which is part of the Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center in Colorado.

“We did a bunch of team building and empathy work with each other, talking about things we want to improve in our school,” Kuester said.

And they came home with a list of things to do.

“We went out there with an aim and came out with a target,” DeYoung said. “There are no solutions … you go back to your schools and figure out what the actual problems are."

To put what they learned into practice, the student and teacher are in the process of interviewing every person at Étude High School and digging in to what changes the school needs.

And in December, they’ll go back to Eagle Rock to meet with the rest of their cohort and share the project ideas they’ve come up with. Their facilitator stays in touch with them and will visit Étude during the school year.

Kuester said the experience has already made some changes in him.

“It really helped me with my empathy,” he said. “I’m really empathetic, but in my head. I try to understand people, but I don’t let them know. This is all about talking about it, which is very difficult for me. That’s what I’m working on this school year."

DeYoung said Kuester was chosen because he has the potential to make the most of the experience.

“We were looking for a student who had leadership qualities,” she said. “(Someone) who was willing to take on a project and who had really good ideas and was able to, with help, make things happen. We wanted somebody who had the ability to talk to their fellow students, in way they understood and respected.”

The professional development and Changemaker Cohort are just part of Eagle Rock, which is primarily a residential school for students who are at risk of not graduating.

“The goal of our work out there was to build our working relationship so we can work together through this process through the course of the year,” DeYoung said.

In their “empathy interviews,” Kuester said they’re finding out what each person thee likes and doesn’t like, what the issues are and what people think could be improved.

Eventually they will form a committee to tackle the issues they’ve uncovered.

DeYoung said she has seen Kuester grow into the role of leader since the trip to Colorado in June.

“He’s always had that little bit of fire: ‘I want to do something about things,’” she said. “I’ve seen that grow.”