by Mavis Fodness, Rock County Star Herald
Bulletin boards at Luverne Elementary are filled with pictures of college mascots during March Madness as students celebrate local, regional, or nationally known colleges and universities. An NSU admissions director brought not only information about the university but also gave out NSU key chains, pens, and decals for the class. An NSU pennant hangs in Oechsle's classroom as a reminder of the visit.
Earlier this month, another visitor came with the idea that it's never too early to introduce students to postsecondary education options, according to Luverne Elementary Principal Stacy Gillette. Eli Radtke, Oechsle's former fourth-grade student who currently attends NSU, offered another perspective of college life. "He shared his education experience and received a lot of questions about his track and field experience while at college," Oechsle said. "He gave some advice to the students on school, college, and sports."
The classrooms of Madi Oye (kindergarten) and Peyten Elbers (fourth grade) play a game of friendly rivalry using their adopt-a-college mascot names, the Jackrabbits (kindergartners) and the Coyotes (fourth-graders).
Two teachers introduced a traditional rivalry between their chosen colleges. "The whole idea is to encourage an identity with a college with the hopes that students would start thinking about colleges and attending college one day," Gillette said. "They flew a plane down and hosted the class at the airport."
March 28 is Color Day at Luverne Elementary, where students are encouraged to dress in the colors of their college for a school-wide assembly to close out the March Madness focus. Like Oechsle, some teachers also chose to adopt alma maters, or they chose a college which their children attend. Some teachers selected a nationally known university such as Oregon or Notre Dame.
Connections with college personnel, either in person or virtually, were popular among the classrooms. Fourth-grade teacher Lori Oechsle chose her alma mater, Northern State University (NSU) in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and invited special visitors.
Powell introduced the idea for planting the idea to introduce postsecondary options in after-school programs he created. "In these programs, they would divide the kids into groups and each group was named for a college," Gillette said. A surprise show-and-tell occurred with Molly Carbonneau's fourth-grade class when instructors from Lake Area Technical College in Watertown, South Dakota, visited Luverne last fall.
"I believe our fifth-graders will be recording their college songs, which will be played at our assembly that afternoon," Gillette said.