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As if Santa Claus already didn’t have enough to do at this time of year, due to the ingenuity of 16 Washington Community High School students, Santa Claus will now be making semi-personalized phone calls to children of all ages come Christmas Eve.
In its first year, Tricia Gardner’s Business Entrepreneurship class has set up what she considers, “a direct line to the North Pole.”
Loved ones can sign up to have the young ones in their lives receive a call from Santa Claus at his workshop for a fee of $2. There will be a two-hour window in which the call will come and will be tailored to a boy or girl.
Calls can be made to any location in the United States and to cellphones as well.
Gardner, who is in her fourth year at WCHS, taught Introduction to Business, Orientation to Technology and Consumer Economics last year and always had a passion for business entrepreneurship before coming up with the idea of dedicating a whole class to the subject.
“My department head encouraged me to start a course dedicated to Business Entrepreneurship because it is a major and small businesses are the backbone of the economy ... “Gardner said. “What’s been neat though is that students have taught me it’s so important to start with a leader because if we don’t have the leader developed, we can never own our own business.”
Preparation started for the class’s final project at the beginning of November when students were split into four teams based on their personal skills.
A data collection team has been gathering numbers and spreadsheets, while an advertising team put together posters hanging around the school and even took them to the grade schools, preschools and area businesses.
Forms can either be filled out and mailed into the school or interested guardians can sign up at the class’s website at www.SantaCalls.Blogspot.com. Online payment is available through PayPal.
Also on the website, participants can find a recording of “Rockin’ Around the Telephone” sang by students on the recording team; the jingle will also be played on the call from Santa Claus.
With most of the students on the recording team having some kind of musical background they not only sang the song, but worked together to come up with background music and even edit the song using the computer program GarageBand.
As if Santa Claus already didn’t have enough to do at this time of year, due to the ingenuity of 16 Washington Community High School students, Santa Claus will now be making semi-personalized phone calls to children of all ages come Christmas Eve.
In its first year, Tricia Gardner’s Business Entrepreneurship class has set up what she considers, “a direct line to the North Pole.”
Loved ones can sign up to have the young ones in their lives receive a call from Santa Claus at his workshop for a fee of $2. There will be a two-hour window in which the call will come and will be tailored to a boy or girl.
Calls can be made to any location in the United States and to cellphones as well.
Gardner, who is in her fourth year at WCHS, taught Introduction to Business, Orientation to Technology and Consumer Economics last year and always had a passion for business entrepreneurship before coming up with the idea of dedicating a whole class to the subject.
“My department head encouraged me to start a course dedicated to Business Entrepreneurship because it is a major and small businesses are the backbone of the economy ... “Gardner said. “What’s been neat though is that students have taught me it’s so important to start with a leader because if we don’t have the leader developed, we can never own our own business.”
Preparation started for the class’s final project at the beginning of November when students were split into four teams based on their personal skills.
A data collection team has been gathering numbers and spreadsheets, while an advertising team put together posters hanging around the school and even took them to the grade schools, preschools and area businesses.
Forms can either be filled out and mailed into the school or interested guardians can sign up at the class’s website at www.SantaCalls.Blogspot.com. Online payment is available through PayPal.
Also on the website, participants can find a recording of “Rockin’ Around the Telephone” sang by students on the recording team; the jingle will also be played on the call from Santa Claus.
With most of the students on the recording team having some kind of musical background they not only sang the song, but worked together to come up with background music and even edit the song using the computer program GarageBand.
The students involved said they have enjoyed being the first ones to take part in the new class.
“It’s a newer class, so we’re the first people obviously and it’s gone very, very well — learning how to create a business is kind of hard, but you have to work together ... it’s teaching us a lot about business,” said senior Isaac Fisher.
“Working together” seemed like a common theme among the students and Gardner as well.
“We all have our strengths and weaknesses and we have to play to those ...” said junior Jasmine Diederich.
Money raised from the calls will likely go toward a “school store” that Gardner said will have miscellaneous school items for students such as pencils, notebooks and more. The deadline to order a call is Dec. 14.
Gardner said watching the students come together both in working on the project and helping form the curriculum has been one of her greatest thrills as a teacher.
“It truly is education in experimental form,” she said. “It has been amazing and renewed my passion for teaching and I can’t wait to see the next group of students in January.”
