Latest news with #HCHS
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Hancock County High School graduates 120
HAWESVILLE — Hancock County High School said goodbye to its Class of 2025 on Friday night during a graduation ceremony in the school's gymnasium, which was packed to the rafters with family, friends and well-wishers. Principal Ginger Estes said the class of 120 students is filled with 'incredible individuals.' 'They're go getters; they have lots of grit, and they're going to go places,' said Estes, who cited the class' academic work as one of the aspects that made it stand out. 'We have almost 100% transition ready. They either met benchmark for academics or they met benchmark for career. So they've either been certified in some kind of pathway or they met their ACT benchmark, so we're really very proud of that.' Alex Madden, class president, was the graduate speaker and spoke of the memories the class made and how they have bright futures. He also reflected about the importance of living in the moment. 'It was great, and there is no place I would rather be,' said Madden of HCHS. 'One thing that stands out is how Hancock County is the place I love, and I think what makes it so special is all the people. Anytime there is a tough time, everyone shows up. I think it's a great tight-knit community. I made a lot of friends, made a lot of memories. It's been fun.' Thirty-three members of the class were recognized for academic excellence: Summa Cum Laude: Hayden Decker, Ayvah Dixon, Baylee Estes, Addison Ferry, Raylee Higdon, Samuel Huff, Sarah Huff, William Kessinger, Katie Kruger, Lily Lindauer, Samantha McManaway, Zachary Mucker, Lawes Payne, Maddox Simpson, Brenton Smith and Shane Wedding. Magna Cum Laude: Jaden Drone, Wyatt Emmick, William Haycraft, Declan Lewko, Landon Mooneyham, Keegan Powers and Christopher Zablocki. Cum Laude: Carson Clark, Ealum Colbert, Ethan Compton, Kyla Duncan, Savannah Gilliland, Presley King, Haylee Lanum, Dylan Roberts and Samuel Sanders. Baylee Estes, class secretary, was trying to come to terms with her high school career ending. 'It's kind of crazy, because it feels like I just started high school yesterday,' she said. 'To be at this point right now is crazy. I can't even believe it right now.' Estes said it felt like the year flew by. 'There was a lot of different activities going on through my senior year, so I feel like I was on the go all the time with either banquets or senior awards or softball,' she said. 'All of the things just kept coming.' Estes said she is going to miss the support she has received from classmates and staff. 'I just feel like everyone in this community is so together,' she said. 'The bond everyone shares is kind of like everyone is for each other.' Estes plans to play softball at Centre College and study the pre-physical therapy track. Sarah Huff said she couldn't believe how fast the years went by. 'It's so surreal, actually,' she said. 'I've been here for four years, and it's really insane to graduate, because ever since we were little, in kindergarten, they told us 2025 is going to be here before you know it, and it really is, to be honest. 'It's just kind of insane to be graduating with all of these people that I've known for basically my entire life now.' Huff said spending time with her friends in marching band was a highlight of her senior year. Huff plans to attend the University of Louisville-Owensboro for its nursing program. 'I wanted to be a doctor, but med school is just not where I want to be at this point in my life, so nursing it is,' she said. 'I've always had the passion to help others, and being around these people made me want to be a nurse because I want to be a better person and make a change in this world.' Wyatt Emmick said reaching the end of high school 'doesn't really feel real.' But he's glad to see the finish line. 'You have to go through this for 12 years, and it's not very easy, and it's not very fun,' he said. 'But when you're done, you really miss it, I guess. That's what I've heard.'
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
HCC honors HCHS staff member with 2025 awards
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – Henderson Community College (HCC) recognized a staff member with Henderson County High School (HCHS). HCC officials have announced Amanda Lacer, assistant principal of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Unit at HCHS, has been awarded two of HCC's highest honors: the 2025 Pathfinder Award and the HCC Board of Directors' Distinguished Service Award. HFD to break ground on new fire station Officials say the Pathfinder Award, established by the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS), is presented annually to one teacher or counselor in each of the state's 16 college service areas who has demonstrated 'exceptional commitment' to helping students identify career pathways and navigate postsecondary education. Lacer was honored during the HCHS CTE Banquet on May 1 with a commemorative award and prize package. Each KCTCS-affiliated recipient will be considered for the statewide Pathfinder of the Year award. 'Amanda Lacer has had a significant and lasting impact on technical education in Henderson County,' said Dr. Chad Phillips, HCC's Chief Student Affairs Officer. 'From developing apprenticeship programs to streamlining dual credit opportunities, she has continually broken down barriers between industry, HCHS, and HCC. Thanks to her leadership, HCHS graduates are equipped with the skills needed to succeed in today's workforce.' HCC says in addition to the Pathfinder Award, Lacer received the Board of Directors' Distinguished Service Award during HCC's May 9 commencement ceremony. The award recognizes an individual or organization whose leadership and service have had a 'profound and positive' influence on the college and its mission. Henderson Chamber kicking off new series to feel like summer 'As principal of the CTE Unit, Amanda has nurtured and strengthened a vital partnership between HCHS and HCC,' said Dorsey Ridley, HCC Board Chair. 'Through her leadership, CTE programs have expanded and evolved to prepare students for real-world success while enriching our community.' Officials note Lacer is set to retire at the end of the 2024–2025 academic year. 'Eyewitness News. Everywhere you are.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Local high school senior breaking barriers: welding her way forward
COLUMBUS, Ga. () — Welding isn't usually considered a job for teenagers, and it's even more rare to see a young woman in the role. One Harris County High School senior is defying expectations, thanks to a work-based learning program that combines classrooms and careers. Mary Rehrauer works in a male-dominated field, but she's not just holding her own, she's excelling. 'As soon as I got into the Metals class, I knew that was what I wanted to do, ' she said, 'So as soon as I got this job, I applied for the work based learning program and that has helped me tremendously because I would not be here where I am right now without the work-based learning. ' The program allows high schools students to leave campus and work part-time jobs in the field they're studying. For Mary, this was the perfect opportunity, after she had already completed all the welding and art classes offered by the high school. She said those were her only interests and she didn't want to take filler classes for the rest of high school. She admits there's judgement surrounding her interest, 'It's definitely been a wild road, getting over a lot of judgment with not only kids my age but adults. Especially here, [they] see that I'm a female worker and I fix their stuff and they're like, wow, you did that. A lot of people will take you for granted because you're just like you're a woman doing this.' Mary continued, 'I try to do my absolute best to prove everybody that has their doubts about me wrong. Most people have been very encouraging, including my family. They have been nothing but supportive.' Her determination hasn't gone unnoticed, Todd Sibert, co-owner of Sail Trailer, said her work ethic sets her apart. 'She lifts her share… just like the guys do,' Sibert said, 'She's polite, She does the work, she doesn't hesitate and I don't need to tell her anything twice, which is wonderful.' Across Harris County, the work-based learning program connects students with employers in trades like healthcare, construction, engineering, and welding. The goal is to prepare students for life after high school, whether that means college or a career. Georgia House Bill 402, gives employers a discount on workers' compensation premiums, making it easier to hire students like Mary. The program gives students a head start and helps employers find young, local talent. 'Students can explore careers, find out what they like and don't like,' said Gary Johannes, the HCHS work based learning coordinator. 'Moving into college whether that's two or four years, they can also save college debt because they can learn a trade early and not get into a career and come to find out they wanna switch later on. It allows them to learn soft skills, maybe work locally and just have a great work experience.' For Mary, welding is more than a class or a job; it's her passion. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Post
22-04-2025
- Science
- New York Post
A consideration of the complicated future of artificial intelligence at Hunter College High School from available tools to ethical usage
This article is one of the winning submissions from the New York Post Scholars Contest, presented by Command Education. It's 3:30 p.m., and a high school student sits at his desk, staring down the rubric for an essay due tomorrow that he hasn't started. He contemplates staying up all night to research, outline, write and edit the essay, risking a mediocre grade because he was in a rush. It occurs to him that, with ChatGPT, he could be done (or well on his way) in an hour. In 2025, students at Hunter College High School (HCHS), like high schools all over the country, confront this temptation every day. Just a few years ago, it would have been unimaginable for a high school student to use a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool to complete their homework. But with the advent of large-language models like ChatGPT in 2022, AI tools have become commonplace at HCHS. As of January 2025, 26% of US high school students use ChatGPT for their schoolwork, up 100% since December 2023, according to Pew Research. According to a survey of 47 middle and high schoolers, conducted by What's What, the student newspaper, more than double the national average—or 72.3% of survey respondents—say they had used ChatGPT at least once in the past month, with 36.1% having used it at least three times. The average HCHS student used AI approximately four times per month. Advertisement HCHS is an academically rigorous school in New York City with a high standard for assignments. Students often feel extreme pressures to succeed: in addition to a gruelling course load, many passionately pursue extracurriculars and internships. Using AI is appealing to students because it saves them time and energy. Many students are willing to risk the chance of getting caught under the school's zero-tolerance cheating policies if it means they can sleep more or spend more time on another assignment. Since its 2022 release, HCHS students have found myriad ways to use ChatGPT—both those allowed and those not—to make their lives easier. Some of the most common, permitted uses include finding primary sources, summarizing long documents, checking work, and asking AI to quiz them before tests. 'I think that's what it's good for, really, doing the little things that take unreasonably long so you can get on with your life,' says sophomore Madelyn. But, 'the tricky part is knowing when to stop.' The most common use for ChatGPT is generating ideas that the students then narrow down or flesh out. Use of ChatGPT skyrocketed in 2024, in proportion to its increasing usefulness over the course of the year. OpenAI, ChatGPT's parent company, allowed the chatbot to access past chats, and web searches, so that the AI was not limited to its training data, but could also access information on the internet in real time. As a result, more students have found ways to use ChatGPT productively. Advertisement 'People have figured out how to use ChatGPT better,' explains Madelyn. 'There are still people who think they're gonna get away with turning in heavily AI-written papers, but a lot of people have found how to use it as a tool to cut down homework time or for a jumping off point.' She estimates approximately 70% of her friends use it regularly. Some students see ChatGPT usage as a bridge to building key skills. One HCHS junior comments that 'ChatGPT is not going away anytime soon, so we might as well learn how to use it to augment our learning, rather than detract from it.' As more professionals use AI for everything from writing emails to writing code, becoming familiar with the tools in high school is increasingly important. In addition to ChatGPT, students also use other AI tools, like QuillBot, Perplexity, and Mathaway to proofread essays or help with homework. One junior explains that they had a hard time using traditional tools, like JSTOR, or EBSCOHost, to find sources for their term paper due to its niche topic, so AI provides them with 'a great jumping off point to find primary and secondary sources that I think make [AI] a really useful social studies source.' Madelyn describes the way students discuss AI as a kind of ubiquitous vice in pursuit of higher grades, almost like not sleeping enough. 'You pull up to school like 'yeah, I got three hours of sleep last night I can't even' and it's kinda normal. We all know it's not great but we laugh it off, and there's a bit of camaraderie, because the other person has probably had those days, too.' In the same way, other students seem to understand and relate to their peers who admit to using AI for assignments. Advertisement Scheherazade Schonfeld Teachers and administrators have engineered their AI-related messaging to discourage usage in all cases: The HCHS student handbook now reads, 'Students [will] not use AI-generated content in any way on assignments or examinations, as detailed above, unless an instructor for a given course specifically authorizes their use.' And the punishments are severe, ranging from failing the assignment to expulsion. The English Department Academic Integrity Policy does not authorize 'any use of AI for the work of our classes.' Teacher Kimberly Airoldi explains that in English classes, automating any part of the process with AI was explicitly counter to her department's goals of teaching writing skills. Many students who use ChatGPT to generate content that they pass off as their own, in violation of the student handbook, believe that they usually get away with it. Although most major assignments are checked through Turnitin, a commonly used plagiarism and AI-detection tool, minor assignments are rarely checked. Even Turnitin admits they can't detect 100% of AI use, and tools like HIX Bypass exist to get around Turnitin. False positives, Airoldi explains, are common when using an AI detector, which is why teachers need to manually check each flagged essay. But teachers know a lot more about AI use than students think. Eighth grader Dalia observes that nearly all of her class knew which students were using AI. 'Our teachers aren't stupid,' Dalia says. 'If every single person in our class knows people are using AI, then I'm sure the teacher does, too.' Advertisement When asked how likely they were, on a scale of one to five, to use ChatGPT/AI in completing their assignments, 37% of HCHS students rated themselves as a three or above, with 45.7% of students considered themselves to be at a one. Among students who did not use ChatGPT, the most common reasons were unreliability and fear of being caught. 'I've never used it because I'm too scared,' says one senior. Students are 'surrounded' by adults using AI, says Airoldi. But, she explains, the distinction is that students are still learning and building skills, and 'if you use AI, you don't get that part. You get a paper, yeah, but you don't get the learning part.' Additionally, students are 'surrounded by this messaging that AI can make your writing better,' a fundamental misconception pushed by tech companies, says Airoldi. On the contrary, AI writing lacks the nuance and subtext she aims to teach. The emphasis on the supposed value of AI has not only changed the work that Airoldi's students use AI for, it has also changed the way they write themselves. Even when they are not using AI to generate ideas or write text for them, students are also 'replicating the language and the approach of AI' in their work. This has led to more robotic essays that sound like they are AI-generated, even when they are not. Sophomore Penelope warns against idealizing the power of AI. 'I don't think it can do a better job than me if I put just a little bit of effort in,' she explains, and in implementing her ideas, 'I don't think it would go in the right direction.' Though some treat AI tools as the equivalent of a peer or collaborator, Penelope doesn't think ChatGPT is 'who I would collaborate with.' Even though the rules seem clear, it's hard to tell when ethical usage veers into plagiarism or cheating. For instance, one might use an AI tool to understand what is happening in their English class, only to reference those same ideas to write an essay that is not entirely their own. Sophomore Tal thinks the best option may just be not to trust AI at all: 'I'd rather just struggle through the work and figure it out myself.' A 10th-grader at Hunter College High School in Manhattan, Schonfeld dreams of being a foreign correspondent one day.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Hopkins County Humane Society loses roof during storms
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – Some animal shelters have announced the Hopkins County Humane Society (HCHS) suffered some damage from the April 2 storms. Partner shelters with the HCHS say the Madisonville-based humane society lost a roof and now needs to send some cats to other shelters. Pictures shared by both the Vanderburgh Humane Society (VHS) and It Takes a Village (ITV) indicate HCHS has lost its roof and needs to relocate some cats. Sinkhole closes lane in Owensboro ITV says HCHS 'urgently' needs to relocate all 85 of their cats. The VHS says it took 20 cats from HCHS within the next couple of hours. The HCHS says at this time, it does not need any volunteers as it must assess the situation first. They will let people know when it is needing assistance via social media. The HCHS says due to damage to its facility from Wednesday night's storms, it will be closed on April 3. 'Eyewitness News. Everywhere you are.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
