Three Tippecanoe Valley High School (TVHS) seniors were awarded scholarships at the TVHS Work Based Learning program banquet held on May 11 at the Akron Community Center.

Recipients of the scholarships are Laira Myers, Keegan Larimer and Noah Prater. Work Based Learning Coordinator and Classroom Instructor Aaron Engbrecht, along with Work Based Learning Coordinator Darren Parker, determine scholarship recipients based on a variety of factors such as grade point average, class rank and financial need, but they focus more closely on the number of business classes taken during high school and a student’s intent to pursue a business-related major in college.

A total of 24 students were honored for their participation in this year’s Work Based Learning Program. There were 23 community organizations that hosted a student during the 2016-2017 school year. Students enrolled in this program must meet a variety of requirements:

• The job placement must be career driven.
• The student must have completed (4) course credits within the job’s career pathway.
• The career field must require some sort of additional training or education following high school.
• The student must be in good academic standing.

Tippecanoe Valley’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses fall under the umbrella of the Warsaw Area Career Center (WACC).  Tippecanoe Valley provides the WACC with completion data and other information, while the WACC provides supervision and funding for various types of equipment in return.

CTE students were significantly more likely than their non-CTE counterparts to report developing problem-solving, project completion, research, math, college application, work-related, communication, time management and critical-thinking skills during high school, according to the National Research Center for CTE. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has identified employer demand for many of these skills.

Prater plans to attend Ivy Tech and then either IU-Kokomo or Purdue to study Information Technology. Larimer plans to attend Indiana University and study Finance. Myers plans to attend Purdue this fall and study Ag Economics.

Pictured left to right are Aaron Engbrecht, Laira Myers, Keegan Larimer, Noah Prater and Darren Parker.