Student spotlight
Sophomore Gabi Grisafi is a gymnast at Valparaiso High School, and has had huge success this season. Most recently, she placed second all-around at the Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) meet.
“My favorite part about gymnastics is that there is no limit or stopping point, you can always do something better,” Grisafi said. “There’s always another skill to learn or something to fix.”
Although gymnasts compete to benefit their team, they also compete as individuals. This year, the Valparaiso High School gymnastics team worked together to and were able to place three gymnasts in the top six for the all-around score and Grisafi named this as her greatest accomplishment of the season.
“The team had been working so hard and it just felt like such a big reward,” Grisafi said. “Considering we’ve lost to them in dual meets for the past four years, it felt good to finally have a win.”
Grisafi expressed this idea that gymnastics is also a team sport when she explained the reason that she enjoys being on a team.
“My favorite part about being on a team is knowing that everyone has my back,” Grisafi said. “No matter what I do, I know that my team will always support me.”
Teacher spotlight
Susan Hoffman is the English, Journalism, and Yearbook teacher at Valparaiso High School. Hoffman always has her students' best interests at heart, and has had many students express how appreciative they are of her.
“I love when students tell me that they learned a lot from my class, that they know how much I care about them, or that I've made a difference in their lives,” said Hoffman. “Those are the moments that make teaching worthwhile. For example, at the beginning of the year I received three boxes of tissues (yes, teachers get super excited to receive tissues) from a student that graduated last year with a note telling me how much I had helped them. That was such a nice moment.”
Hoffman expressed her love for working with the Yearbook class in particular. Hoffman worked on her junior and senior yearbooks when she was in high school. She has been a yearbook advisor for 14 out of her 17 years as a teacher.
“I fell in love with making yearbooks over 20 years ago, so it's great that I am doing something I love all these years later, and it's awesome to see my students fall in love with journalism just as I did,” Hoffman said. “I love the relationships that we are able to form since it's an atypical learning environment.
“Some of my favorite moments are when the students give out ‘Star Awards’ to each other and talk about why they are giving their awards to each person. It's really nice to see those moments where students affirm each other,” said Hoffman.
What happened
Seniors Serena Shughoury and Will Meyer, both board members of the Future Medical Professionals club at Valparaiso High School, recently applied for two grants. One of the grants was to get an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) for the school, and the other was for signage, to show where the AED is located and how to use it. Meyer discussed the process of making the grants.
“It was a lot of writing and research. We first had to come up with background information and go around the school to make sure we were educated on the placements of each AED and why more awareness was so important. We then had to establish our goals and objectives for our grant. Then we established a budget for all of our needs in order to accomplish our goals and objectives.”
Both grants have been accepted. The AED funding came from the Rotary Club in Valparaiso, and the funds for signage for the AED came from the Valparaiso Schools Foundation. The Rotary Club works closely with local businesses to support the Valparaiso community.
“After the writing of the actual grant was done we waited for it to be accepted. Now, we are implementing and trying to achieve the goals we made with the funding that we received from both the school and the Rotary club,” said Meyer.
The Future Medical Professionals club is working with the safety committee at Valparaiso High School to create a safety protocol sign for first aid response situations. The situations include: choking, bleeding, cardiac arrest, burns, seizures, and breathing issues. The club will also host a free class for AED and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training in the near future.