BW’s Russell McMurry Discus Award finalist Program

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Big Wal­nut High School senior Rus­sell McMurry has been rec­og­nized as a 2011-12 Dis­cus Award win­ner for his achieve­ments in the areas of Faith, Tech­nol­ogy and Ath­let­ics, and is now eli­gi­ble for 2011-12 Dis­cus Awards scholarships.

The Dis­cus Awards is a national pro­gram that pro­vides recog­ni­tion and schol­ar­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties to all-around high school stu­dents who excel in three of 10 key attributes.

What sets McMurry apart at Big Wal­nut High School is his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the school’s Credit-Flex Program.

Credit-Flex allows stu­dents to tai­lor their edu­ca­tion to their per­sonal inter­ests, explained Big Wal­nut High School prin­ci­pal Steve Fujii. While stu­dents still take all core courses required for grad­u­a­tion, using Credit-Flex those same stu­dents can earn elec­tive cred­its in a non-traditional setting.

“Credit-Flex requires some kind of unique cir­cum­stance for the stu­dent,” Fujii said. “It’s for stu­dents who are pas­sion­ate about some­thing, or have a unique oppor­tu­nity offered to them, or had an atyp­i­cal expe­ri­ence before they attended Big Wal­nut and can use those expe­ri­ences to advance their education.”

In McMurry’s case, he’s pas­sion­ate about tech­nol­ogy, and plans to attend Ohio North­ern Uni­ver­sity where he will study Com­puter Science.

After com­plet­ing his required courses for the day, McMurry goes to Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School and checks in with Wayne Thomp­son, the district’s Direc­tor of Tech­nol­ogy. Thomp­son then assigns tech­nol­ogy tasks to McMurry that become real world, hands-on learn­ing experiences.

“I recently set up some lap­tops at the mid­dle school as a com­puter lab, and I’m con­stantly in the tech room orga­niz­ing — tedious but nec­es­sary work,” McMurry said. “Some­times I trou­bleshoot for a teacher or install programs.”

McMurry works under Thomp­son for one or two hours each day, and will earn one-half of an elec­tive credit for his efforts. On days when there’s noth­ing to do he logs on to the Atomic Learn­ing edu­ca­tional web­site and works with tech-related tuto­ri­als and walk-through guides.

“Credit-Flex has opened my eyes,” McMurry said. “Schools don’t have unlim­ited resources. When you run out of classes in your senior year and you’re going into col­lege, through Credit-Flex you get to inter­act with peo­ple doing what you want to study. Work­ing with Wayne Thomp­son and Dave Maxwell helps me under­stand their cul­ture and language.”

Fujii said Credit-Flex adds legit­i­macy to some student’s expe­ri­ences by allow­ing them to earn for­mal credit while doing some­thing they’re pas­sion­ate about.

“If only a few stu­dents are inter­ested in pur­su­ing a par­tic­u­lar field of study, it would not be cost-effective to pro­vide these types of learn­ing expe­ri­ences in a class­room,” Fujii said. “For stu­dents in the arts, agri­cul­ture, music and sci­ence — any stu­dent who has any extra ordi­nary oppor­tu­nity pre­sented to them — it’s an oppor­tu­nity to take a look at what they want to do.”

Fujii said Big Wal­nut High School has always had some form of flex­i­ble credit sys­tem in the form of inde­pen­dent stud­ies and post sec­ondary edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties; but over a dozen stu­dents at the high school are cur­rently involved in the more for­mal Credit-Flex program.

Fujii noted that Credit-Flex has a for­mal appli­ca­tion process that the stu­dent works through with his or her high school guid­ance coun­selor, stu­dents don’t just walk in and say they want to do Credit-Flex; but for qual­i­fied stu­dents it offers oppor­tu­ni­ties for ser­vice learn­ing and mentorship.

McMurry added that any stu­dent who has an inter­est in the high school’s Credit-Flex Pro­gram and a valid oppor­tu­nity has vir­tu­ally noth­ing to lose by doing it; that it’s some­thing that can only be beneficial.

“Even if you don’t like the work, you find out about it before you invest your col­lege career in it,” McMurry added. “And if you do like the work, it gets you pre­pared for col­lege and the work world.”

Rus­sell McMurry is a mem­ber of the Big Wal­nut High School var­sity ten­nis team, is pres­i­dent of the Sun­bury United Methodist Church Youth Group, and the Dis­trict Youth Coun­cil pres­i­dent. He also works at The Lakes Coun­try Club.

Posted by Gary Henery on May 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.