Hortonville High School’s New School Store

By UW-Sam Gehl

Hortonville High School is pleased to announce that a school store has opened.  “We started working on the idea of a school store last January, and have been working on getting it up and running,” says Tim Rietveld, a Business Education teacher at HHS.

The store is a 17’ by 8’ space that sells drinks and healthy snacks, as well as school supplies for students to purchase. “In the future, we would also like to be able to sell school apparel,” Rietveld adds.

Not only is the store a place for students to buy things from, it will also provide educational value. “Students are running a store working interdependently with one another to make money,” says Bob McIntosh, HHS Principal. The store gives HHS Special Education students as well as Marketing students real-world experience in running a store, as they are in charge of handling the money and stocking items.

The store will also help set up financing for field trips that these students could go on. Possible field trips include going to the Timber Rattlers Stadium, Lambeau Field, retail stores and other businesses to speak to their PR or sales personnel.

To help the school store to be a positive venture for the students, school, and community, the store is working with community businesses in a manner to help one another and not compete against each other.

The school store is located in the HHS commons, and is open one hour before school and one hour after school, during lunch hours, as well as during some school events in the evenings. 

For more information, contact Bob McIntosh, Tim Rietveld, or Chris Dirkes. View the school store’s webpage!

Pre-Engineering Course - a Big Hit at the High School
Article by Jeff LeBeck, HHS Technology Education Teacher

The Manufacturing, Engineering and Technology Department introduced a pre-engineering course this school year called “Introduction to Engineering Design”, which is part of the national pre-engineering curriculum called Project Lead the Way (www.pltw.org).  PLTW is a national, non-profit organization established in cooperation with business/industry, post-secondary institutions, and public schools, with the purpose of developing opportunities for students while increasing the number of quality engineers. 

With the course never being offered – teachers and administration didn’t know how students would receive the new course.  It wasn’t long before they knew.  Currently there are 90 students enrolled in the course and we are teaching 4 sections of it.  “I was surprised that we got that many students with it never being offered before”, said Jeff Lebeck, an instructor that is teaching 3 of the 4 sections.  “The kids love it and are constantly asking me what is next.” 

When students were asked what they liked best about the class, freshman Alyssa Schroth said, “We get to do hands-on activities and we get to learn by doing – not just sitting around and listening.”  Senior Andrew Gmeiner said, “We get to take ownership of our projects and we are allowed to be creative.  We are given just enough information to get us started and then it is totally our own design.”  “You get a lot out of each project because of the way the class is taught” said Junior Riley Rosenfeldt.  “We are being taught every day skills, which will help me after I graduate.”

With the success of the first course, we are set to offer the next course which is “Principles of Engineering”.  It is designed for 10th or 11th grade students and will expose the students to major concepts they’ll encounter in a post-secondary engineering course of study. Topics include mechanisms, energy, statics, materials, and kinematics. They develop problem-solving skills and apply their knowledge of research and design to create solutions to various challenges, document their work and communicate solutions.

“With 78 out of the current 90 students enrolled in IED being underclassman, we are expecting a large number of them to take this next course” says Luke Koehler, the other instructor who is trained to teach this course.  “Our biggest challenge right now if to make sure we have enough space to teach what the students want and to try to keep up to date with the equipment that they will be using when they leave here.” 

If you would like more information about Project Lead the Way, please visit their website or contact Jeff Lebeck at 779-7900 ext. 12154 or via email.

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