Connections within the classroom

Positive relationships with teachers help students grow

Veda Thangudu thangved000@hsestudents.org

With a student body of 3,642 and staff of 209, the community of FHS allows for student-staff relationships to go beyond teaching. A number of FHS staff members have a strong impact on students they interact with. Staff members not only fulfill their responsibility, but also help students grow as individuals. Out of multiple students who were positively affected by FHS staff, junior Lane Kemper had a special connection with Jennifer Pope, her resource teacher.

“Mrs. Pope has been in my life for a long time,” Kemper said. “My dad used to work here, so I knew her then. But she became my resource teacher freshman year, and I’ve been with her ever since. She means hope to me. She has helped me through the ups and downs of high school.”

Junior Faith Brothers is an International Baccalaureate (IB) student who transferred from a different school. She was put in contact with Jennifer Gabbard, the IB coordinator at FHS, to smoothly transfer while still being enrolled in the IB program.

“I met with her for the first time the literal day before school to actually set my next two years in motion as far as my schedule and pre-requisites I needed to graduate,” Brothers said. “I am so grateful that Mrs. Gabbard helped me with my courses. It was nice to know that I had support in a new environment.”

On the other side of the spectrum, students with older siblings might have a different experience. Junior Emma

Beehler’s French teacher is Alyssa Ginter. Her brother, Garrett Beehler also had her as his French teacher when he was in high school, making it exciting for Emma to meet and have her as a teacher. She also mentioned that Ginter was the reason she is taking French in high school, since she and her family knew Ginter was going to be her teacher.

“I first met her freshman year on Zoom in my French 2 class, but I had heard a lot about her from my brother who had her as a teacher for two years before,” Beehler said. “She is amazing, I was excited to finally meet her after my brother had talked so highly of her. Right away, I could see why my brother loved her. She was extremely personable and started talking to me as soon as I joined the [call], which was great and much needed because I was so nervous to start high school.”

For freshman Lylah Martzall, Summer Noyes impacted her from a career standpoint. Noyes teaches biology, medical interventions and microbiology. Martzall is Noyes’ biology student.

“I’ve always wanted to be a veterinarian or something similar,” Martzall said. “She is part of the reason why I know for a fact that I want to be a veterinarian or do something [related to] biology.”

Along with making the class enjoyable, Martzall mentions how Noyes is one of the sweetest people she has ever met.

“She has always made sure that we’re all on the right track and not messing around,” Martzall said. “She also gives us enough time to talk with our friends.”

Kemper knew Pope before her freshman year, but their bond became closer and stronger ever since Kemper became Pope’s student.

“It was the preview day before freshman year, and it was really weird because I had no clue where I was,” Kemper said. “She helped show me around where I was supposed to go and she was just very excited to see and get to know me. She just has always been a very positive person.”

One aspect that brings students and staff closer within the school community is creating a safe space for students. Gabbard has been a go-to person for Brothers since she was a transfer student, new to FHS .

“Simply meeting Mrs. Gabbard made me feel reassured that I had someone in my corner to help [me] navigate my first year of public high school,” Brothers said. “She is such a people person, so it felt as if I was already acquainted with her.

Similarly, for sophomore

Lyndsey Schoeff, her employability teacher Renee Isom helped her adjust to the high school environment.

“Mrs. Isom was always an inviting teacher and made the library and herself as a safe environment, so I always felt comfortable with her,” Schoeff said. “She has always been a teacher I could go to for anything. She’s understanding, supporting, respectful, kind and loving. This allowed me to feel more welcome coming in as a scared freshman.”

Students also reflect on how their teachers aided in further developing and refining some of their skills, helping them not just in that specific class but their life in general.

“I was a huge perfectionist before this year but incredibly unorganized,” Brothers said. “Gabbard taught me that simplicity is best and it’s important to always give yourself grace. It definitely changed the game of my highschool experience, allowing me to be more care-free and sociable.”

Sophomore Ayanna Bodake’s AP computer science teacher, Brigham French, is also one of those teachers who helps develop life skills, according to Bodake.

“He’s always had a positive outlook in class and that spread to me and the other students,” Bodake said. “He makes the class fun and makes sure to connect with everyone during attendance everyday, and I appreciate that a lot.”

Beehler not only looks up to Ginter as a person, but likes her way of teaching as well. She also believes that it is easy to observe and come to a conclusion that Ginter loves her job of teaching French.

“She’s always been supportive, encouraging and understanding with matters in and out of the classroom,” Beehler said.

“What I’ve always admired about Madame from the second I joined her first Zoom is her ability to connect with all of her students. She’s shown me how to include everyone, from the shy students to the loud students. Overall, I just want to say that Madame has made learning French the past three years so incredible.”

Both Beehler and Kemper had the opportunity to have classes with Ginter and Pope for three consecutive years, further strengthening bonds between each other. Within a student’s course of three years, they change and grow a lot as individuals, and Beehler reflected on how Ginter was a constant throughout Beehler’s developments.

“[Ginter has] been like the safety net with each new year,” Beehler said. “I’ll really miss not having her next year. She’s watched me go from a shy and awkward freshman to a less shy and slightly less awkward junior.”

As seniors, students do not have the option to take a resource period, so Kemper will not have Pope as a teacher the upcoming school year. She expresses disappointment due to not having the chance to see Pope as often, but also is grateful for the impact Pope had on her.

“I’m really thankful for everything she’s got me through,” Kemper said. “She helped me a lot through a lot of rough spots, with just school work in general, working on my grades and with my mental health, anxiety, and just dealing with that and learning how to work with it in school. It’s always been really amazing, and I’m so thankful to have her [in my life].” the

At the Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA)

International Career Development Conference FHS is being represented by eight competitors who worked hard to be able to make it to this level of competition. Despite DECA being a relatively new addition to FHS, there were ten competitors at this competition last year.

DECA is a team that helps students learn skills related to business in order to compete in numerous events at the state and international level. These events include business management and administration, entrepreneurship, finance, hospitality and tourism, marketing and personal financial literacy. Senior Srilekha Davuluri has watched the club grow as she was vice president her sophomore year and president her junior and senior years.

“My freshman year we didn’t have DECA, and I had seen other schools, like HSE and Carmel, have really big programs, around 100-200 students and I started really wondering why Fishers didn’t have one,” Davuluri said. “So, I joined my sophomore year, and I think everyone had the same line of thought because our first year we had around 100 students, which is crazy, going from really no program to 100 students.”

This unprecedented growth

Madelyn Lerew lerewmad000@hsestudents.org

the club.

“I did it freshman year and it was all online,” junior Jack Butler said. “I was still in the club, but I didn’t feel too involved. Over the years the leadership has really gotten better and they’ve really tried to start getting people more involved in the club. The leadership has done a good job of building community through the club.”

Davuluri feels that the club has grown due to the unique levels of involvement that students can choose. Full participation is not required, instead, students can pick and choose how involved they become.

“My involvement in DECA has always been really heavy so growing the club was kind of natural because of the resources Fishers High School already had and the support we got from our administration and the advisors, on top of that from other students as well,” Davuluri said. “It’s been you choose your involvement [in the club] because many students can only come to the chapter meetings, but they can still participate in their service projects or careerbuilding workshops.”

Business teacher and football coach Braden Tribolet recently became the sole sponsor of DECA. With this position, he envisions expanding the role of student leaders within the club.

“What I plan on doing as a sponsor is coaching, leading and giving a little bit of the basic administration work to some leading the members of DECA. Then from there, [I would] provide them opportunities to actually practice, be coached and give them opportunities where they can improve upon the skills that they need to move on in competitions.”

Tribolet also highly recommends DECA as an activity that is beneficial for a students’ future. His reasons range from the new opportunities they will be presented with as well as it looking fantastic on future resumes.

“[DECA] looks fantastic on college resumes or scholarships and there’s a bunch of opportunities and businesses that you can meet,” Tribolet said.

“In my opinion, I think it’s a really great way of getting into or exploring opportunities that you don’t normally have in high school. I thought one really good opportunity was all the kids that went to state this past year, they got to spend two days away from school and ultimately it’s [for] competitions based on business problems. I do some stuff like that in class with my students, but I think it’s just a unique way for students to gain skills that they’re gonna need.”

DECA call out meeting on May 17 from 7:30 a.m. to 8:15 a.m.

Members of the Tiger Dynasty robotics team gather to take a group picture after capturing their first state title in program history at Anderson University on Sat. April 8. With their win, the group accepted an invitation to the FIRST world championships. Photo used with permission of Austin Lika.