(Article by Joe McQueen, published by KPC Media Group Jan. 30, 2022. Shared with permission.)

KENDALLVILLE — Impact Institute attracts students from across northeast Indiana every year.

High school juniors and seniors flock to Impact to learn and gain knowledge of different trades like automotive and heating and air conditioning.

About 600 students attend, with about a third coming from East Noble and DeKalb high schools.

DeKalb sends the most students to Impact with 107 students from the high school attending this year. East Noble sits in second for students attending Impact with 96 for this school year.

Each school in the region sends the same percentage of students to Impact, but the number of enrolled students varies based on school population.

Promoting the vocational school is one of the things that helps attract many students. DeKalb Central Superintendent Steve Teders said he’s not surprised the high school has the largest student enrollment at Impact and much of that he points to is his school’s efforts to promote it to students.

“We make sure to find a spot for every student to get in,” he said.

DeKalb’s administrators and guidance counselors have played a large role in getting students to go to Impact.

In recent years, Impact’s welding program has seen growth among students from DeKalb. The school currently has 20 students enrolled this year in the welding program.

He said welding among students has become more popular where now the high school even offers a class on beginner level welding.

One of the main reasons why students love going to Impact is having the opportunity to do hands on activities in their classes.

“They can actually see what they’re working on compared to just sitting in a classroom reading books or listening to lectures,” he said.

Another benefit for students going through the welding program is amount of job opportunities for them after completing the program and graduating high school.

The school also brings prospective students to Impact to tour its facilities and see what students there are doing and learning about.

He said it’s important that the school puts together these types of opportunities for students and that the guidance counselors do a good job presenting the opportunities to students when their early in their high school careers.

“We have conversations with freshmen and sophomores about what they have to do to get into Impact when they become juniors,” he said.

The Dekko Foundation has provided funding for the summer boot camps Impact hosts for students in eighth grade to give exposure to middle school students about Impact has to offer.

DeKalb has seen many of its students take advantage of the summer programs and has used word of mouth to increase student interest.

The high school plans to focus more on exposing the opportunities Impact has to offer to middle school students in the corporation.

“It’s better to expose those young students to help plant those seeds and find their niche to realize they want to take advantage of something,” he said. “We’re always going to explore more opportunities for our students that they have available to them.”

East Noble High School has the second largest student enrollment at Impact. The school allows nearly 100 students per semester to attend.

East Noble Assistant Superintendent Becca Lamon said that its a financial decision for the school to invest in their students having to be college ready and workforce ready by the time they graduate.

“It helps student think about what they will do as a career before going off to college or the workforce,” she said. “An example would be if a student thought they would do medicine, but decided not to later on.”

Impact gives high school students the opportunity to expose themselves to different trades before moving forward with their lives.

She likes that Impact gives students the chance to engage with read world experiences.

“They’re not just reading books and sitting in classrooms. We promote it so heavily because we value the opportunities they offer,” she said.

The school has a strategic plan to help enhance the education of its students for the future. One of the parts of the plan is offering students a well rounded list of opportunities that includes vocational training.

Out of all the programs offered at Impact, the medical programs tend to be the most popular among East Noble students.

“We have a lot of students who are into automotive as well,” she said.

To help introduce what Impact has to offer, the school starts that process when students are in kindergarten.

She said the school will present younger students about how they will need more than just a high school education.

Students are able to hear about different career opportunities from age five all the way until their senior year of high school.

“They will hear from students who have been apart of Impact,” she said. “Another thing that helps attract students is peer recommendation when students see a friend who has participated, that word of mouth carries them forward to Impact.