Students Programs @My School Finley GEAR UP
Finley GEAR UP
Finley Middle School & River View High School Attend 1st Annual AVID Mabton Convention
On Wednesday, April 17th, Finley GEAR UP AVID students took a trip to Mabton Middle/High School to take part in the 1st Annual AVID Convention. This convention was able to take place because of the collaborative efforts of WSU GEAR UP, UW GEAR UP, Mabton School District, and the AVID program. Upon arriving at Mabton Jr/Sr School, Finley was kindly greeted by students and staff and were treated to a breakfast snack. As soon as all the schools filed in, Mabton AVID Elective teacher, Scott Sexton introduced himself and welcomed all the schools to Mabton. From the cheers coming from the Mabton students, Mr. Sexton has a large fan base! He then introduced the first activity of the day, the poster presentations. Each AVID class from the represented schools worked on a poster in the week leading up to the convention. The posters were a representation of what AVID means to them. Many of the posters included pictures, descriptive words, sayings, quotes, and drawings. The Finley AVID posters were presented by student volunteers standouts including Ruvim Tyutyunnik (10th grade), Kleymer Pineda (9th grade), Jose Cisneros (8th grade), and Naydelynn Gudino (7th grade).
After the poster presentations Mr. Sexton introduced the first guest speaker of the day, Dr. Bassett, President of Heritage University. Dr. Bassett spoke of the importance of education and also about his friendship with the founder of the AVID program, Mary Catherine Swanson.
The second guest speaker was the Keynote speaker for the convention, Lt. Colonel Consuelo Kickbusch (Ret). Lt. Kickbuschs’ speech left an impression on many in the audience. She spoke of her childhood, growing up in poverty and having to overcome discrimination and illiteracy. She gave insight into her parents, her mom, raising 10 kids and battling depression and her father trying to be a provider with what little work he could find. She encouraged the kids to take charge of their lives and become leaders in their communities. This included making sure the students knew the importance of respect (for their parents, teachers, each other) and gratitude (especially for their parents). In a “building community” exercise, students were encouraged to volunteer and go down to the floor to speak of how they had been impacted by Lt. Kickbuschs’ speech. Finley Middle School 8th grader, Riley Roney, almost immediately stood up to volunteer and spoke to an almost filled gymnasium, a welcome surprise from a student who often has trouble speaking in his AVID tutorial groups. For many Finley GEAR UP students and volunteers, Lt. Kickbusch’s story was the best part of the convention. In a survey, a Finley Middle School 7th grader said “Lt. Kickbusch’s speech impacted me by the way I respect my parents.” when asked what they took away from the guest speaker’s message.
The next part of the agenda was lunch. Finley GEAR UP was the first group to get in line for fresh Subway sandwiches, after being the loudest cheering school. After lunch, excitement began to fill the air as each school’s mascot got ready for the Mascot Dance Competition. The competition was judged by one adult representative from each school, so everyone had a fair advantage. After three rounds of some awesome dance moves, Finley GEAR UP’s own River View High School Panther, worn by 10th grader Raven Sallee, was crowned the winner! The Minute to Win it/ Mixed School Competition was the next activity. Each school sent three volunteers down to the floor to participate in three fun games. Finley Middle School 7th grader Darrin Roberts brought home a win for Finley GEAR UP in the hula hoop game.
The day ended with a reflection time. Student speakers were selected from each school to talk to the audience about what the experience of the day had been like for them. All of the students had really nice things to say about the convention and spoke of being impacted by the speakers and the AVID program in general. Finley Middle School 8th grader, Austin Smith, voluntarily stepped up as Finley GEAR UP’s representative, something he probably would not have had the courage to do prior to being in the AVID program. The day was culminated with a college fair. Schools in attendance included WSU campuses, EWU, Gonzaga, Heritage, and CWU. The First AVID Convention turned out great and Finley GEAR UP would like to thank the Mabton School District for being such generous hosts.
On Tuesday, April 23rd Finley Middle School and GEAR UP partnered with Sandvik Special Metals and took all 7th grade cohort students to their 14th annual job site visit. Sandvik is a global, high-technology, engineering company, and international leader in the production of titanium rods used in the aerospace industry that has plants across the world. One of its major consumers is Boeing.
Every year, between the months of March and April, Finley Middle School 7th grade students are privileged to enter the premises of Sandvik, tour the facility and witness the working of a large international company from its production area to the sales and marketing department. No other person in the community is allowed to enter the premises of Sandvik Special Metals. Thanks to an established, solid and professional relationship between Finley Middle School Staff and Gary Grade, these students have the opportunity to visit the facility. Gary Grade is the Director of the Sales and Marketing Department at Sandvik LLC., Finley Middle School students are very fortunate to have this life experience opportunity!
The day of the field trip, buses were loaded and ready to go by 8:10am. Upon entering the facility, students were taken to various sessions; Finance, Sales and Marketing, Engineering, Laboratory, Human Resources and a Facility Tour. During the sessions, students had the opportunity to win various prizes for answering complex questions. In the Sales and Marketing Session, currency from a foreign country was passed around to all the students. In order to win a prize, students had to guess the name of the country belonging to that currency as well as the exchange rate in US Dollars. Congratulations to Darin Searcy, who was able to guess everything correctly. He won a $25 iTunes gift card! 
In the Engineering session, students learned that Sandvik utilizes various engineers for product development such as, chemical, mechanical, electrical, industrial, and environmental. Students were also introduced to a very important phrase, “How do we know, that we know, that we know?” This phrase is very important because it is used by the engineers on a daily basis for the purpose of product improvement, growth, and creation. In the Finance session students were taught the basics of payroll. All students were provided with calculators to do simple calculations and learn the differences between gross pay and net pay.In addition students were given the opportunity to guess how many jelly beans were in a jar. The student with the correct answer got to keep the jelly bean jar. One of the winners was Jaden Owens. Congratulations!
On Friday, February 22nd, 59 Finley Middle School 8th graders attended the Washington State University Tri-Cities GEAR UP led 8th Grade Career Day at Columbia Basin College. The students were supervised by Site Manager Amandalyn Rubio, Student Service Counselor Rachel Ruiz, and all 5 GEAR UP tutors. Finley GEAR UP had been preparing for this day for months, including having all 8th graders complete career interest surveys on WOIS. The surveys were used to group the students together with the students from the different schools in attendance, as well as for assigning the groups to the career presentations they would attend throughout the day. 
Upon entering CBC, all the schools were seated in a large auditorium for an introduction of the day by GEAR UP Director Geno Morales and Career Day Coordinator Lupe Mota. All 24 groups were then dismissed to their first presentations of the day. Overall, each group had the chance to attend three presentations. Some of the career professionals included an Art Professor, Police Offic
The day ended back at the auditorium where each school picked a student representative to go up in front of everyone in attendance and talk about what their experience had been like during the Career Day, as well as the GEAR UP program in general. For Finley, Gabe Richards was selected to be the student representative. He spoke wonderfully about what he learned from the Career Day, as well as what he has l
Huge thanks to the GEAR UP Career Day Coordinator, Lupe Mota, GEAR UP Director, Geno Morales, and all Finley GEAR UP staff that made this day run smoothly. 
Five 8th grade girls committed to attending a math workshop at Columbia Basin College for three evenings in April. There were only 50 spots available on a first come first served basis. The workshop was called GEMS-Girls Engaged in Math Success. GEAR UP partnered with Finley Middle School to recruit any 8th grade girl interested in learning more about math application when it comes to the real world and pursuing math further in high school. This opportunity aligns great with the second objective of the One Vision Partnership III. Grant- to increase the number of cohort students enrolling in Algebra I. by their 8th grade year. The GEMS grant was specifically targeting young girls to get an increased female interest in the STEM fields.
Tuesday and Wednesday were identical schedules in that the students received a brief introduction, split into their pre-algebra or algebra groups and worked for an hour on math problems. Students worked word problems in pairs using manipulatives kits, and even had a friendly competition playing equation bingo where they were completing 2 and 3 step equations. The second hour brought either an engineering or manufacturing lab. The engineering lab featured how to create a marshmallow shooter out of PVC pipe. The manufacturing lab was familiarizing the girls with the program Solid Works. Solid Works is a program that engineers use daily to create 3-dimensional models using various materials to fabricate future products. After the students worked on Solid Works they went into a lab to create the product they made on the Solid Works program-a washer necklace. If you were in engineering day one you went to manufacturing on day 2 and vice versa.
The last day of GEMS was the keynote address from Dr. Amy Roth McDuffie from Washington State University Tri-Cities. Dr. Roth McDuffie reviewed with the girls example careers in math such as an actuary, machinist, operations research analyst, and surveyor. These careers were examples of outside the box careers that people might not consider when thinking about math application in the real world. She also covered “math myths” such as: math comes easy for math minded people, boys are better than girls at math, or only some people are good at math. This proved to the female students that they could be successful and enjoy math in school and after.
9 juniors from River View High School committed to attending the College Planning Day Event hosted by WSU Tri-Cities, on Friday, March 15th. They had a long week of various tests (HSPE and ASVAB) at River View, but despite having a modified week elected to attend the trip. Students were accompanied by one parent, two GEAR UP staff members, and regular day teacher Dan Groom.
The juniors selected their “schedules” for the day prior to the event. They chose to see 4 schools throughout the 9-12 time frame. Most River View students selected: Gonzaga, WSU Pullman, WSU Tri-Cities, Eastern, and Columbia Basin College. There were 14 schools total at the event with over 400 high school juniors.More Articles...
