Junior Achievement Returns To Lakeview Middle School
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Jackie Gorski-jgorski@timesuniononline.com
After a decade of not having Junior Achievement programming at Lakeview Middle School, Friday was the first day of its return.
It was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce.
Ashley Bruner, of Junior Achievement of Northern Indiana, said Junior Achievement has been in Kosciusko County for decades. Junior Achievement hasn’t been at Lakeview Middle School for over a decade, but the relationship with Junior Achievement has been reestablished. Junior Achievement leaves it up to the school administration on whether they want the programming in their curriculum.
“We just made a really strong effort to reestablish the relationship here at Lakeview Middle School,” she said.
Over the summer, Junior Achievement met with Principal Todd Braddock and Assistant Principal Michele White to reestablish that relationship.
“Because really we want to touch every single student in seventh grade. We want to touch every student K-12, but this is a great start for us to get back in and moving.”
Warsaw, Wawasee and Tippecanoe Valley school corporations have Junior Achievement for their seventh-graders. In the 2021-22 school year, Junior Achievement reached over 5,300 pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade students in Kosciusko County, she said.
All the seventh-graders at Lakeview, as well as all the seventh-graders at Edgewood Middle School, will receive Junior Achievement programming called Economics for Success. It’s real-life lessons that students may not get in school traditionally, she said.
The programming, which kicked off Friday, has volunteers from Lake City Bank go into the school on Fridays for a five-week program. The volunteers will meet with all seventh-grade classes, meeting 256 students.
Bruner said the hope is students get a little bit of the understanding of budgeting, how interest work and how decisions as a student in middle school will reflect on them as they get older.
Hunter Reed, seventh- and eighth-grade history teacher at Lakeview, said he thinks Junior Achievement is a great program for the school. It gets community members in the school and shows students what life may be like when they leave school and teachs students valueable life lessons.
Brandon Murphy, seventh- and eighth-grade history teacher, said Junior Achievement gives students practical lessons that they’ll get to use for the rest of their lives.
Ellie Harlon, seventh-grade world history teacher, said it’s great to have friends in the community come into the classroom, as well as hearing students talk about what they want to be in the future and a lot of practical things they need to be thinking about.
Austin Bair, senior community reinvestment officer for Lake City Bank, said the bank is happy to provide the volunteers and the education the students are getting with Junior Achievement. Middle school and high school is a key time in students’ lives as they’re figuring out their careers when they get out of school.
