V-S education students nat'l winners

Theis PHOENIX — Vanguard-Sentinel Career and Technology Center students again are bringing home national titles. Over the weekend, six Sentinel careers in education students attended the National Educators Rising Championships in Phoenix. Two earned gold medals and all placed in the top 10 in their categories. Lauren Theis, who will be a senior at New Riegel High School, placed first in exploring student services. Theis shadowed a special language pathologist for eight hours, conducted an interview and put together a presentation of her shadowing experience. "I am very happy," she said. "I was shocked but super-excited to see that all my hard work paid off." Theis plans to attend Bowling Green State University to study inclusive early childhood education. "I like the rewarding feeling knowing you made an impact on students," she said. Also coming home with a gold medal is Brittany DuMonte, a senior from Columbian High School. For her contest, DuMonte had to choose a topic from the Ohio Department of Education and write a lesson plan. She said she chose health insurance. DuMonte said she chose the topic due to her personal finance class and said she felt it would be the most helpful to students. "It feels really good," she said of her first-place win. "I put a lot of hours into this." DuMonte is attending Grand Rapids Community College, pursuing a degree in early childhood education. Other students who competed include Victoria Vache and Beca Kimmet of Columbian High School and Nicole Zimmerman of Seneca East High School, sixth place in Ethical Dilemma; Katelyn Gillig and DuMonte of Columbian, fifth place in Inside Our Schools; Gillig, fifth place in Lesson Planning-STEM; Zimmerman, seventh place in Lesson Planning-Humanities; Kimmet, eighth place in Creative Lecture; and Vache, fourth place in Educators Rising Moment. "I'm so proud of all of them," said Greg Edinger, V-S superintendent. "I have had so much fun with them out here. They all did an awesome job and are very respectful kids to be around." "The future will be bright" with them in education, he said.