Mead Students Get Some Hands-On Business Experience

Today, Mead High School. Tomorrow … Wall Street?

Could be, if you’re talking about international marketing students.

In that class students spend the school year dreaming up, then carrying out projects. Teacher Brock Taylor has designed his class so that students get the experience of working in a business-like environment.

“Everyone’s interested in business,” student Gina Sperrazzo said. “Mr. Taylor gives us a chance to run the events ourselves like it was a business. He gives us an idea and we run with it.”

One idea turned into inviting wellknown hypnotist Jim Wand from Illinois to do a show at 7 p.m., Thursday, April 13, in the Mead High School gym. Admission is $5 and open to the public.

Senior Gwen Singleton, who is in charge of the show, said Wand will hypnotize 40 people at the evening show. Last year, when Wand performed at Mead, he had the hypnotized people acting as though they were riding a roller coaster, sitting on a beach and even waddling and quacking like ducks, she said.

Where else but in this class, Singleton asked, would she have the opportunity to organize a big event like this?

Other events such as a fall fashion show and a Valentine’s Day flower sale were student run.

Taylor requires students to schedule their responsibilities in daily planners. He tries to make the class as true to work life as possible. Instead of taking roll, Taylor has a board on which students indicate whether they are in class or out.

From the outside, international marketing doesn’t look anything like a traditional high school class, students say.

“If you just look in this class it doesn’t look like anything is going on because everyone is running around and not seeming to do anything,” student Pat Wise said. “But over a period of time, you see that we get big things done.”

Wise said students like Herb Dierks, who graduated from Mead last spring, get time to work on their own ideas. Dierks developed a computer program for student-run stores during two years in Taylor’s class. Now he is beginning to market the program, which documents sales in the format that school district’s require for student stores. Already he’s sold the program to Mead and to another school district in the Seattle area.

Many students say Taylor’s class is giving them the base knowledge of business that they need to start their own businesses one day.

Celebrating first prize

Lydia Newell, a sixth grader at Trinity Catholic School, won the Spokane County Health Department poster contest. The theme of the contest was “Celebrating a Smoke Free Spokane.”

The contest prize is a trip for Newell and one of her parents to Disneyland. Newell’s parents and younger brother plan to turn it into a vacation for the whole family.

Newell’s drawing of Riverfront Park beat 600 entries from 37 schools. Her poster will be made into a billboard and the original will be displayed in the Garland Dollar Theater.

Newell is not only an artist but also a highly accomplished musician. She is the first violinist in the Spokane Junior Symphony. She also plays the piano by ear.

“Last year Lydia played music for a whole Mass,” Trinity principal Mike Trudeau said. “Her mother was supposed to do it, but at the last minute couldn’t. So Lydia played all the musical parts and the kids sang along with her.”

Riverside saving energy

The U.S. Department of Energy recognized the Riverside School District as one of the nation’s five most successful school districts in energy conservation.

Since 1982, Riverside has saved $1,328,000 because it has made its buildings energy efficient. Annually the energy saving steps save $232,000 for the district of 2,050 students.

Rogers receives grant

Rogers High School received a Community Based Curriculum Development Grant from the state.

Rogers was the only Eastern Washington school to receive the grant out of 27 grants given.

The money will pay for four staff people and 90 Rogers freshman to study the neighborhood impacts of the proposed North-South freeway through the area.

Teacher visits capital

Colbert Elementary third-grade teacher Debbie Rose met with U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt and other congressional leaders last week to talk about federal funding for families, students and teachers.

She encouraged Nethercutt to resist budget cuts to programs that help children.

Rose is one of 75 National Education Association members from across the country to visit with members of Congress this month.

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