Dear Community Member,

Derby Middle School is hosting the inaugural ‘Amazing Shake’ for our seventh-grade students on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. We are looking for 20 community members and business leaders who would like to be judges in this event.

What’s The Amazing Shake? The Amazing Shake is a national event that creates a lively and fun opportunity to teach our young people manners, discipline, respect, and how to conduct him or herself in a professional environment. The Amazing Shake is an exciting competition where leaders and role models from our school’s community will work together with our students to reinforce professional skills necessary for future success. Students will learn the mechanics of a proper handshake, eye contact, and other necessary soft skills that they will practice using in an obstacle course of case-scenario situations (“gauntlets”) staged around the Derby gymnasium.

Each student will go through this obstacle course consisting of ten “gauntlets”, spending about 1 minute interacting with each volunteer judge. When the student walks away, the judge scores the child based on handshake firmness, eye contact, confidence, common sense, etc.  Visit: www.theamazingshake.com   to learn more about the Amazing Shake and the Global Competition. Next year’s group will be registered for the competition.

We are so excited to offer this opportunity to our students. We would like to invite you to participate in this amazing event. This is a great opportunity to connect our students with our community members and business leaders. It is also a valuable introduction to the networks, roles, opportunities, and career paths that they may not have been exposed to before.

There will be a short tutorial meeting for judges beginning at 7:45 (coffee & bagels). The event will take place from 8:40AM – 12:05PM. Please click the following link if you are interested in judging or would like more information Amazing Shake -
Derby Middle School. Please feel free to reach out to either of us directly.

Warmest regards,

Nancy Johnson                     Kathy Westerlund
Community School Organizer                                           ELA Teacher, Career Education Coordinator
NJohnson@birmingham.k12.mi.us KWesterlund@birmingham.k12.mi.us