•November 4, 2015•

Matt Schoaff is a principal of action. That is one reason every student at Okaw Valley High School toured major businesses and industry in the area on October 30.

Schoaff explained that four busloads of high school students left Bethany heading to places such as Mid-State Tank, Agri-Fab and Hydro-Gear in Sullivan, to MasterBrand Cabinets in Arthur and to TCCI in Decatur.

“We had kids in welding internships for the first time at Agri-Fab last year,” Schoaff said of Okaw Valley’s commitment to training.  “Our major goal is to graduate kids to be productive citizens.”

“Not another school is doing this,” he emphasized.

Doing things is what Schoaff is good at.

Last year he noticed that many of the schools in the area have common issues relating to curriculum. So a professional learning group became his goal to let educators in different districts share successful teaching curricula in five different subjects.

Arthur, Shelbyville, Oakland and Windsor joined Okaw Valley to explore curriculum issues with math courses in August.

That experience went well so Schoaff stepped it up this year, inviting more schools and setting aside a weeklong curricula series.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.