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Even More: Induction ceremony builds momentum, February News Roundup

BPA advisor named Illinois Teacher of the Year, answers questions

Congratulations to Kevin Rutter, BPA advisor at Carl Schurz High School in Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Rutter has been named Illinois teacher of the year!

Mr. Rutter was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer The Wire's questions about his new title and his passion for teaching.

What classes do you teach, and what are your students like?

I teach in and coordinate a Business, Finance, and Careers Academy, a small learning community at Carl Schurz High School.  My classes are geared toward personal finance, service professional work skills, fundamental economic principles, and financial literacy.  The overall goal of the program is to prepare students for post-secondary education, expose them to professional service careers/opportunities and place them in job shadows/internships.

Carl Schurz is a neighborhood (non-magnet) school, comprised primarily of Hispanic students.  We do, however, have quite a mix of students which is why our school's motto is "a block long and a world wide."

What level of involvement do you have in BPA? Have you taken students to conferences? If so, which ones? Is BPA an important part of your teaching plan?

Funny you should ask, ...Click here for more.

Pierz Healy High sponsors toy drive

Cassie Seppelt, Minnesota

During the last week of November, 2009, our local BPA chapter from Pierz Healy High School participated in an annual community toy drive. Eight BPA members worked hard to plan and promote the drive. They distributed donation jars to local businesses. They also distributed jars to every first hour classroom in the high school and motivated students to donate by offering an incentive.

The incentive was fresh baked BPA cookies for the classroom with the most donations. The same class would pick three students to go shopping for presents and out to lunch with the BPA committee members.

After one week of collecting in the high school, the total amount donated was $802.82. The community portion was close to $300. With the donated money, the eight members and three selected students went shopping at Wal-Mart and local businesses for gifts targeted towards teenagers' interests.

The success of the toy drive helped 170+ children in the Pierz community have a happy Christmas.
...Click here for more.

West Las Vegas chapter welcomed home by parade

Brian Gurule, advisor

The West Las Vegas Middle School chapter of Business Professionals of America was a highly involved chapter this past school year, and had a great showing at both NLC and in Torch Awards. When they got home after NLC, they were welcomed by, literally, a parade of supporters. Below, advisor Brian Gurule chronicles their experience with the Torch Award program and NLC:

The torch award program is very rewarding for my students because they are doing community service.  We are a very small community and this is a way of giving back to our community who supports us tremendously. Look at this summer when we arrived home from Dallas: We arrrived to a car rally that was 4 miles long with police escorts, mayor, board members, superintendent, our priest, parents, family, friends, teachers, and community.  The Chief of police told me, "Look how proud the community is of your students."
 
The torch awards also teaches my students responsibility. It is important for middle school students to learn to be accountable.  I am very proud of my students because they give up vacation time, weekends, and after-school time to do this.
 
Students take pride in doing something positive ...Click here for more.

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