Coalers medal at SkillsUSA competition

Rachel Hall has a busy summer ahead of her as she has qualified to compete in two national conference competitions—both focused on education.

Hall, a recent graduate of Coal City High School, was named the state champion in the early childhood education competition at this year’s SkillsUSA Leadership Conference. She was one of two Coalers to earn top honors in the field of education.

Hall and fellow classmate Marianna Hren enrolled in the Grundy Area Vocational Center’s [GAVC] foundations of teaching methods course and in turn participated in SkillsUSA, a career and technical educational organization.

Hall will travel to Atlanta, GA. in mid-June for the SkillsUSA National Leadership Conference and Competition where she will compete against students from across the United States.

Hall’s national qualifying event required her to write a preschool lesson plan and create a project to go along with that lesson.
Additionally, she had to read a story to a panel of judges, present the lesson plan and complete an interview focused on the teaching profession.

“Rachel worked really hard creating a plan for this competition. She was given the scenario of having 10 students in a preschool class that had one Spanish speaking student while creating a language arts lesson,” said Deb Eungard, Skills advisor and foundations of teaching methods instructor.

Hall based the components of her entry on a presentation she prepared for the statewide Educators Rising competition, and that earned her a first place finish and a spot in the national contest set to take place at the end of June in Orlando, FL.

For the Educators Rising contest, she wrote and illustrated a book on social/emotional skills for preschool students that she then presented to a panel of judges.

“For the Skills competition, she selected a book that dealt with social emotional issues, recreated a couple of her children’s literature pages dealing with her raindrop, had the students create a raindrop of feelings and had to write their name all while throwing in Spanish words such as rojo for red,” Eungard said.

Hall is the first state champion in the category since Eungard took over the center’s programming in 2008.

Along with her first place win, Hall finished second in the teaching and learning professional portfolio competition, a category won by her classmate.

Hren is the state champion having placed first in the category of teaching and learning professional portfolio.

“This competition is similar to the edTPA that teaching candidates must submit to receive their teaching licensure,” Eungard said.

In this contest, participants must take a 5 to 8 minute lesson and create a portfolio with four sections—planning/preparation, creating an environment for learning, teaching/learning and professional preparedness.

Eungard said that the contest judges shared with her that Hren and Hall prepared portfolios that would have passed the edTPA requirements.

“Very impressive for two high school seniors. It speaks volumes for their training, site dedication and work ethic,” Eungard said.
Since this is a state only competition, it does not qualify for the national contest.

Three additional Coal City High School seniors enrolled at GAVC placed at the state SkillsUSA competition.

Christopher Collins and David Torres finished second in television video production.

Both are students in the computer graphics and multimedia design course and have been assisting with the center’s livestreaming of athletic and other events this school year.

“A great accomplishment for these two students,” Eungard said.

Senior Peyton Polarek took third place in welding at this year’s contest.

Eungard said he was the final welder of the day at the contest and the center is, “very proud of his top three finish.”

GAVC offers courses in 14 subject areas serves students from six high schools—Coal City, Morris, Gardner-South Wilmington, Minooka, Wilmington and Reed-Custer.