ASHWAUBENON – Parkview Middle School’s peer mentor program has entered a $200,000 national education contest, hoping for a chance at one of the 13 prizes that will be awarded to recognize the most unique and inventive K-12 program.
In addition to completing an online application for the annual Follett Challenge, Parkview also submitted a short video to promote its program.
Parkview Middle School’s peer mentor program has exploded in 4 short years, going from approximately 10 students to 120 students.
Its purpose is to train regular education students on how to assist students with special needs, both academically and socially, in and outside of the classroom.
Their video showcases how the program has positively affected students.
Ten of the prizes, valued at $8,000 each, to be given away are from the People’s Choice category and will solely be based on how many votes applicants have received for their videos from the public.
Video voting began Jan. 22.
Parkview’s video will be posted on the Follett Challenge website (www.follettchallenge.com) at the following link: follettchallenge.com/videos/1085 from Jan. 22 through 26.
After registering, users can cast one vote per day through Jan. 26, when voting ends.
Not only are the public’s votes significant in the video-voting portion of the contest, but they also will play a role in the overall rubric as 20 percent of each school’s final score is based on the number of votes generated for their video.
“We hope our community will support us by viewing our video and voting for our submission,” said Vanessa Talus, special education teacher. “Participating in the Follett Challenge recognizes our educators for the great job they are doing with the limited resources they have and, should we win, reward them with resources to do more. It also will give our educators here a platform to share their innovation with other schools across the country and throughout the world.”
The judges will be seeking applications that illustrate critical thinking, communication, creativity and collaboration between students and among teachers and other members of the school staff.
The 2018 Grand-Prize winner will be announced April 2.