JAG Program

               JAG is a program and it is short for Jobs for America’s Graduates, and it is a new class offered at TVHS. JAG is a national Non for profit organization that specializes keeping students in school until they graduate and helping them succeed throughout the school year. The program also prepares them transition into the work force. JAG is a student led organization within the class with a focus on community service. Each student has to have a minimum of 10 hours of community service.

 The program is funded through the state, by Mitch Daniels who awarded six million dollars to the Indiana state JAG programs. So far the program is very successful. JAG is led by Mrs. Duran, a new teacher this year; she is in charge of the program and making sure the students are doing well in school. So far the program has eighteen students participating; they are able to have a maximum of forty students.

 The students have already taken a field trip to Wawasee high school and are looking to visit colleges.  Right now the class is launching an anti-bullying campaign through videos and posters.  JAG can also be described as a careers class that helps with business etiquette, appropriate business attire, and the students will learn how to write a resume. The class also helps with employability skills, scholarships, college preparation, and career options. JAG is  a great program that will help students get prepared for the future. 

Internship at TVHS

Internship is a great program that Juniors and Seniors can participate in to help them get prepared for their future career. Students can experience their career choice deeper and then they can decide if it will be a successful choice for them in the future. Most internship sites do not pay but give the students a chance to gain experience. Most jobs need training before you can start and internship helps them get that training. This is the fourth year that internship has successfully been going on.  The program has students leaving for a few hours either in the morning or in the afternoon. Mr. Parker (Darren Parker) is in charge of all the interns and internship sites. He helps make it possible for all the interns to have the experience they do.  

There are twenty-five students from TVHS who are interning this year. There are usually around twenty to twenty-five students every year who are involved with the program. Students can experience different career fields such as the medical field, veterinary science, agriculture, business, IT, journalism, education, ministry, finance, law enforcement, and many more.  The internship sites range from all over our community. Students get to participate in local businesses that accept interns. Any business that wants to have interns is available to, that way it gives students the chance to have a larger choice in internship sites.

               I am in internship myself and I am interning with Mr. Parker, I am experiencing what it is like to write stories and newsletters like journalists do. Next semester I get the opportunity to intern at the hospital. Having these experiences help me find out if the career field I want to be in is best for me. Internship is a great program that more students should participate in!

New Class: Political Sciences-Part One

            Seniors at Tippecanoe Valley High School can now choose to take Political Sciences, a dual-credit course through Grace College.  The class combines three different subjects: U.S. Government, Economics, and Advanced English, allowing students to get a total of four high school credits by the end of their senior year.   But, students get an opportunity to do something no Valley class has had the chance to do: they are going to create their own businesses.

            The Young Entrepreneurs’ Academy (YEA) is a program which helps teach students in grades 6-12 how to launch and run their own real businesses. One of the exciting factors to the class: not only will the seniors be creating and developing their own business/invention for a project; they also have the chance to win a trip to New York City.  Since this class has only just started, more information will be available soon!

Distinguished Alumni Dinner

             Tippecanoe Valley High School hosted the Distinguished Alumni Dinner! For those of you who don’t know, the Distinguished Alumni Association is a group of outstanding graduates that have succeeded greatly in their life. They have great jobs and help out great in the community. They also come to our schools and promote and motivate kids to be successful by telling them their stories. They do great stuff for Students and the dinner is just one way we appreciate them!

 It was held on Thursday, September 12, at 6:30 pm at the Tippecanoe Valley Middle School.  

The dinner included many delectable foods including baked chicken breast, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans, salad, dinner roll, cheese cake, and a drink. After the dinner the Rita Price from the local radio station held interviews for all seven inductees.  The seven members they honored were Dr. Cameron Vanlaningham, Kenia Rosas, Chuck Howard, Orville Haney, Dr. Marilyn Kindig Stahl, Ron Newlin, and Brandon Miller. 

          Please come to further events we will have for our Distinguished Alumni! 

        

1-to-1 device

                Starting this year, Tippecanoe Valley High School is upgrading its technology department by purchasing Acer tablets for all high school students. The TVHS board has approved the high school to acquire $132K to buy the tablets. The school is going to be a 1-to-1 school starting this school year and lasting until the 2016-2017 school year. After that four year period the school corporation is able to choose to purchase the tablets or get rid of them. The students are very excited to receive the new tablets in September.

            For those people that want to know its design, it has silver aluminum finish with neatly curving edges. The tablet weighs less than the iPad 2. It has a good line-up of connections, including a micro HDMI, a micro USB (with a full-size one on the keyboard), a micro SD memory card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack that fits most headphones. Also there is two cameras, one eight-megapixel camera with an LED flash that is on the back, and a two-megapixel version on the front for video chat.

            “I can’t wait to get the new tablets this year; I think it will give the high school students a chance to have some responsibility. I think it will be cool to do homework at home without carrying big heavy books with me,” says senior Casey Laycock. Many students have that same outlook. Books are heavy, and having tablets makes it easier for students to bring their homework home. 

The tablets are planned to make students more enthused to do their homework and bring it outside of school. Students are fast at typing and don’t like to take notes so one advantage of the tablets will be for students to type notes out instead of writing them, this is expected to boost studying which will lead to improved grades.  The school is hoping the tablets bring everything they expect them to.

                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                            

Literacy at TVHS

 According to the Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation’s hedgehog concept, student success can be achieved through character education, leadership, and literacy.  However, what many parents don’t know is that at the high school, reading is coordinated into unique activities such as SSR and “Fill Death Valley with Books.”

 Every day, students read in a program called SSR (Silent Sustained Reading), where they can read a book they enjoy for twenty minutes.  Also, every year, students can participate in “Fill Death Valley with Books”, a yearly event where kids can log the number of pages they read for a chance to go to an end-of-the-year pizza/movie party; and if a student is a top reader, they receive a Barnes and Noble gift card.  Sophomore Emily Shepherd, who placed second in last year’s competition, said that “it’s fun and it’s great for people to get something else out of reading besides great stories.” 

 So, literacy is guaranteed to be used in every high school student’s day.  And some students, like Shepherd, are content with this.  “Honestly, some things in books help me in my English homework; they give me an idea of what people like to read.  Also, literacy helps me apply things in the real world.”

-Liz Shepherd

TVHS Class of 2014

Valley Fund Makes $2500 in Grants

Five community organizations took home presentation checks totalling $2500 from the inaugural grant-making session of the Valley Community Foundation at the Akron Community Center on May 7.

Forty-one Valley graduates who responded to an invitation to attend listened to presentations from the five charitable causes, then decided in small groups around five tables how to distribute the funds.

The recipients were the Boomerang Backpack Program, represented by Valley principal Kirk Doehrmann, $350;

Akron Youth League, represented by Lisa Fear, $440;

the Little Free Libraries project, represented by Kristin Horrell, $450;

the Helping Hands food bank, represented by Jerry Secrist, $550;

and the Pioneer Days/Prill School visits program pairing high school History classes with Akron and Mentone 4th graders, $710. The program was presented by faculty members Jeff Shriver and June Yazel, and students Mitch Randall and Kortney Mayorga (pictured above).

You can read full coverage of the event from the Warsaw Times Union here, or the Rochester Sentinel's page one coverage here.

The Valley Community Foundation is a fund within the Fulton County Community Foundation. Its first grants were made from early contributions made by a number of Valley alumni, many of whom no longer live in the community.

After awarding the grants, many participants in the meeting joined a Valley Community "Giving Circle," by which friends and graduates of the Valley communities make contributions of $120 a year, half of which will be re-granted each spring for similar educational and community-development projects, and the other half of which will begin to build a growing endowment fund, interest from which will add to the funds to be granted each year.

Make sure you are at next year's event! You can join the Giving Circle -- or make a tax-deductible gift of any amount -- by mailing a contribution to the Fulton County Community Foundation, 715 Main Street, Rochester IN 46975, or giving online here. Just identify "Valley Community Foundation" as the fund.