It’s a numbers game: Lakeville South graduate aspires to combine math, football
Lakeville South High School graduate Hayden Epinette traveled with his mother and father, Lisa and Dave, to meet with executives of Pro Football Focus in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company provides data analytics to all 32 NFL teams. Epinette plans to study math and statistics at UCLA. He hopes to some day work in the sports data analytics industry.
by Tad Johnson
Sun Thisweek
Dakota County Tribune
Sometimes life is a numbers game.
For Hayden Epinette, he hopes to make the numbers game his livelihood.
The Lakeville South High School senior has always been good at math, but it wasn’t until his affinity for football took hold and the rise of sports analytics that he found his true interest.
Epinette will hone his math and statistics acumen at UCLA starting this fall at the university in the heart of Los Angeles.
The selection is not without intention.
L.A. is the home or nearby to at least a dozen professional sports franchises and UCLA has a history of connecting students to pro teams.
Not only has Epinette taken note of the rise of predictive data analysis for team at all levels, he’s also seen fantasy sports turn into a multi-billion-dollar industry in the U.S.
He says if he doesn’t latch on to a sports franchise, there are many other applications for the skills in working with numbers in fantasy sports.
“I am passionate about numbers,” Epinette said. “I like to work with numbers as a hobby, such as making projects to predict the outcomes of football games and the performance of certain players.”
After he saw the movie “Moneyball,” which documented how the Oakland A’s used “sabermetrics” to win a division title, he saw a whole new path in life.
“When I saw that, I thought ‘that is definitely what I want to do,’ ” Epinette said. “I know this is right up my alley. (The Oakland A’s) were famous and pioneers in the sport. I realized that math nerds like me can make a difference in sports. I can make a difference working in the front office for some sports franchise.”
His interest has taken him so far as to set up a meeting with the leaders of Pro Football Focus, a company that provides in-depth analytics to all 32 NFL teams and many college football squads.
Epinette traveled to its Cincinnati headquarters with his parents after a friend of a friend of his father’s set up the meeting that also included former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver, NFL commentator, and PFF majority owner Cris Collinsworth.
“He was just a normal guy,” Epinette said. “We look at these athletes as though they are in another world, but they are just like the rest of us.”
He said they spoke about football, the upcoming NFL draft and what work is like at PFF.
As for advice, they encouraged him to get another mathematics major to go along with statistics, so he could broaden his future career paths.
Epinette said he can tell the difference between the teams that embrace analytics and those that don’t based on their draft and other personnel decisions.
He says the teams that do it right are more successful in player evaluation and the results on the field.
That’s where he wants to be in a few years, but it’s going to take some more hard work.
Dedication
Epinette said he has always had a strong interest in learning from an early age.
He said his parents, Dave and Lisa, were encouraging but not overbearing through his formative years. He recalled doing flash cards while sitting in the grocery cart and one summer doing an exploration about the work of renowned marine biologist Jacque Cousteau.
Epinette said these experiences created a strong interest in reading early on, which continued into his high school years where he would create projects for himself, such as a three-round mock NFL draft based on consensus data from top prognosticators.
He said there’s been a lot of hard work behind his academic success, saying that even he has good and bad days in math.
Epinette had a very good day when he took the ACT last year. He scored a perfect 36, which put him in the top 0.2 percent of test takers nationwide.
He said he read the review book prior to the test and concentrated most on the finer points of English grammar.
“I would have been fine with a 34-plus,” he said. “It was exciting when I got the results. I was able to see the value of all the hard work I have put in over the past dozen years.”
He said many of the Math League problems he faced over the past three years were more difficult than those on the ACT.
Epinette was on the state qualifying Math League team for two years and has competed as an individual at state.
He said Lakeville South teachers and staff have prepared him to succeed in his chosen field by providing him with opportunities, giving positive feedback and constructive criticism.
It’s not all numbers and football for Epinette.
He was a captain on the swim team and has played trumpet in various school bands, getting the opportunity to play in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin last year.
Epinette said going overseas with the band made him confident that he will be able to adjust to life at UCLA apart from his family.
As for swimming, he competed in freestyle sprints on the team that qualified for the state true team swimming meet this year.
With his captain title, he said he enjoyed mentoring younger swimmers to inspire them to continue on the competitive tradition.
He said one of the things he learned about swimming was how to be committed to a practice routine to keep improving. He said the practices were brutal sometimes, but he got through it with the support of teammates going through the same grind.
“The meets are where you can see the hard work pay off,” he said.
Hard work paying off is a recurring theme for Epinette whether it’s in the classroom or in the swimming pool.
With that kind of foundation, one can see that the world is wide open for him.
Tad Johnson can be reached at tad.johnson@ecm-inc.com.
Lakeville South graduate goes from war zones to finding peace
Laith Alishaqi is driven to make this a better world for others
Laith Alishaqi was a middle hitter for the boys volleyball club team at Lakeville South High School. The graduate plans to attend the University of Minnesota next year to study biology and civil engineering.
Photo submitted
Posted June 8, 2019
by Tad Johnson
Sun Thisweek
Dakota County Tribune
When Laith Alishaqi was in fourth grade, he didn’t understand what his teacher or the students in his classroom were saying.
That’s because Alishaqi, who was born in Iraq and lived for four years in Yemen, didn’t know English.
“I remember that first day,” he said. “There were all these strangers. And when the teacher was speaking to the class and to me I didn’t understand anything.”
Alishaqi was determined that it wasn’t going to be that way for very long.
He poured all of his energy into his English Language Learner classes, and in one year he was proficient enough to “graduate” from ELL to advance to fifth grade on his own.
“What I learned is that the teachers were really helpful if you actually asked for help,” he said. “I wanted to get on the good side of teachers because I needed their help.”
Having an older brother and two younger siblings – Abdulla, Saif and Lina – also helped the transition, as they all needed to learn English.
At the time, there were many other immigrants in Fargo, North Dakota, which Alishaqi also credited for helping to build up his confidence and speed up his adjustment to a new country.
“It felt really good I know I accomplished something,” said Alishaqi, who graduated from Lakeville South High School on Thursday. “It is really amazing how fast I learned a language and new life.”
War-torn
Alishaqi was born in 2001 in Baghdad and the family moved to Yemen after it was too dangerous to live there following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition.
He said he can remember Humvees driving down the road outside his house as the fighting resulted in the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s government.
Alishaqi said the family was in Yemen for about two years before unrest started building in that country, making it unsafe for civilians.
It was a long process for the family to gain immigration approval to the U.S., but Alishaqi’s father earned his visa and moved the family to Fargo.
“I left with the mindset that the whole world was going to be horrible,” said Alishaqi, whose extended family members also left Iraq and are living throughout the U.S. “Nothing good happened until I came here. I learned that people can actually be nice and loving.”
The family moved to Lakeville in the summer of Alishaqi’s ninth-grade year after his dad Omar Alishaqi got a job as technician and his mother Luma Mahdi started work as a medical interpreter. They moved in large part because they sought a wider array of cultural options the Twin Cities could provide.
He said he was able to make friends over the summer by playing sports like soccer, which helped ease his transition at the start of the school year.
Alishaqi said he made friends quickly among those he considered outsiders or the ones who were different.
When school started though he realized that friends were easy to make despite their differences.
“I had to get comfortable with suburban life. I had to get used to it,” he said. “But now I know how peaceful it is, for example, to go out on a boat during the summer. I had to learn to appreciate those things, then I was able to make friends.”
In his classes, Alishaqi said his parents provided much support along the way, so by the time he reached high school he had strong study habits.
He admits that he didn’t take hard classes at first, but he started to challenge himself in his junior year by taking more difficult courses.
That’s the year that he started playing boys volleyball at Lakeville South. The club team isn’t sanctioned by the Minnesota State High School League, but Alishaqi said the team has great coaches, including Stephen Willingham, a coach for 33 years in Lakeville.
He said it’s a great team game that he hopes will one day be played at all Minnesota high schools.
Alishaqi also enjoys working in teams in the classroom, such as those he experienced in the class Engineering of the Future.
“I love working with others toward a certain goal,” he said. “Working together, it raises our standards a little.”
Alishaqi said when he was growing up he liked shows like “Handy Manny” and “Bob the Builder,” which led him to like working with his hands.
Earlier this year, he built a Little Free Library for people to pick up a book and leave books they’ve already read.
He said he also likes doing routine maintenance on cars.
“I like doing the little things that prepare me for the big things,” he said.
Alishaqi plans to attend the University of Minnesota in the fall to study biology and civil engineering. He said the dual path should give him options after graduation, saying he has an interest in dental school.
Alishaqi has an older brother, Abdulla, who is a sophomore at Minnesota State University-Mankato studying mechanical engineering.
He said college isn’t hard, it’s the time management that’s hard.
“You have to determine when you want to study and when you want to have fun,” he said.
Alishaqi welcomes that idea since he says he “lives by routine,” such as his recent monthlong fasting for Ramadan.
He said it’s not as difficult as people would think to fast from sunrise to sunset, but the no water rule is tough.
Training his body to acclimate to what others would view as a hardship gives Alishaqi the background and the desire to want something better for him and his family.
“I love my family,” he said. “They have gone through so much. They have given up their whole lives and I have to pay them back in some way.”
Tad Johnson can be reached at tad.johnson@ecm-inc.com.
Lakeville South point guard directs awards project
While basketball is fun, Anna Harvey has her sights set on engineering
Lakeville South High School graduate Anna Harvey looks for a teammate to pass to during a 2018-19 game. Harvey was a Miss Basketball Minnesota nominee this year along with the school’s Athena Award winner.
Photo by Jim Lindquist/sidekick.smugmug.com
Posted June 8, 2019
by Tad Johnson
Sun Thisweek
Dakota County Tribune
Many people in the Lakeville community know Anna Harvey as the point guard from the Lakeville South High School girls basketball team.
But what they probably don’t know is the newly minted graduate put in a few hundred hours of work to lead the design and creation of 200 awards to mark teachers’ years of service or their retirement in 2019.
“People loved them,” she said. “There were some tears. It was great to see all of the hard work pay off. That’s the good stuff.”
While Division I basketball is in Harvey’s future at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University this fall, she has her eyes on much bigger things with a major in the school’s Integrated Business and Engineering Honors Program.
She said the awards project is exactly the kind of work she’ll be doing in the Lehigh program, as it asks students to use both their hands-on technical skills but also soft skills in management and communication.
Harvey said among her duties in leading the school project was helping create the design, making sure there were enough funds to purchase the materials, meeting with administration officials, recruiting students to help with the assembly-line process and making many of the awards herself with wood cutters, laser engravers and more.
“There were a lot of good splinters there,” she said.
She said she worked on the project on the weekends and even came into the school on “senior skip day.”
Harvey said working in a STEM class is her favorite. It doesn’t make any difference what kind of project or object she’s making, she said those are the courses where she’s never looking at the clock.
Growing up playing basketball with boys, Harvey said going into wood shop classes wasn’t a problem for her.
While there are increasing numbers of girls going into wood and metal shop classes, she said the boys still largely outnumber the girls.
For Harvey, it doesn’t matter your gender, as long as you can do the work well.
She said she was inspired to take this path by both her mother, an architect, and her father, who works for a graphic design company.
“I love both of their workplaces,” Harvey said. “They have all of their projects all over the place. It is so creative.”
She said she’s ready to start her new adventure in a new place, but it comes with some drawbacks.
“I’m going to miss my family a lot,” Harvey said. “But I know in my heart that Lehigh is the place I want to be. It’s beautiful and on the mountainside.”
Harvey committed to Lehigh in March of her junior year, saying she considered several other schools.
She said the fact that Lehigh had the exact major program she was looking for combined with the mid-major basketball opportunity make it a perfect fit.
“I wanted to have a social life, too,” she said of not wanting to play, for example, at a Big Ten school where there would be more basketball demands.
She said she’s adept at multitasking, as evidenced by the award project, but also with juggling three-hour basketball practices during the season and holding down Advanced Placement classes.
Harvey said she was able to do it with a lot of help from her teachers, coaches and school administrators.
The 2019 Miss Basketball Minnesota nominee said she is excited to get started with college and basketball practices, saying some of the players on the Lehigh squad are Minnesota players she faced in AAU or on the high school team.
“One of the things about basketball is it’s a game of mistakes,” Harvey said. “You can either wallow in it and have it consume you or get past it.”
She said the other great aspect of basketball is it’s the ultimate team game.
“When I’m in the flow I don’t remember any of it,” she said. “I’m so in the moment, living it so much that time flies, but you still have to be aware of the clock.”
During the game, she says she relies on her instincts along with her shooting and dribbling ability, trying not to think too much about executing a certain move or shot.
“It’s a great game,” she said. “I love it.”
She said also enjoys her role as the point guard, facilitating action and scoring chances for her teammates.
She said one of the great joys of the past season was playing with her sister, Maria, who is a ninth-grader at Lakeville South.
Harvey also relished her time as a Cougar Buddy, working with seventh-grade girls basketball players in Lakeville.
She said she served as a special assistant coach, talking to the girls about strategy, technique and the mental side of the game.
“I would give them some pep talks, take them aside when things didn’t go right,” she said. “I would tell them that: ‘I know what you are feeling. I’ve been there.’ The main thing is to make sure you have fun with them and let the game be fun.”
It’s the kind of message she’s heard from many of her coaches through the years.
She said her basketball and tennis coaches served as great mentors and even additional moms or dads.
“They made me unafraid. They made me brave. They made me not be a coward,” she said.
Tad Johnson can be reached at tad.johnson@ecm-inc.com.
Shop local for the holiday season
Special events bring shoppers to retail centers
Posted Nov. 9, 2017
by Tad Johnson
Sun Thisweek
Dakota County Tribune
The holiday shopping season is upon us, and there’s no looking back.
While it seems that Christmas decorations emerge earlier each year, it’s for good reason. The holiday shopping season often dictates whether a retail store will turn a profit or loss for the year.
Black Friday, typically the day after Thanksgiving, earned its name since it’s seen as a day when retail locations turn profits for year, which put them in the “black.”
Local businesses owned by friends and neighbors in Dakota County are no different.
With increased competition both from new brick-and-mortar businesses starting in the growing south metro suburbs and competition from online-only retailers, locally owned businesses have become more savvy in their promotions and create a shopping experience that keeps people coming back.
Many people across the country have realized the value that local businesses bring to provide jobs, incite economic development and provide unique products and services that they have made an effort to buy local.
Small Business Saturday, which happens on Nov. 25 this year, started in 2010. It’s a day when people are encouraged to shop local with more information at americanexpress.com/us/small-business/shop-small.
“Shopping locally supports a healthy local economy, ensures that the businesses we want to do business with thrive and stay here in Burnsville and provides a wide variety of business and job opportunities,” said Jennifer Harmening, Burnsville Chamber of Commerce president.
She says the chamber’s mission, similar to that of other chambers in Apple Valley, Lakeville and the Dakota County Regional, is to “unite and support local businesses with the goal of increasing economic opportunities and fostering a healthy business climate.”
“So everything we do is about promoting and advocating for Burnsville businesses,” Harmening said.
Burnsville and Eagan are home to two of the largest shopping centers in Dakota County.
Burnsville Center has long been a magnet for holiday shoppers as it offers special events and visits from Santa Claus during the season.
Twin Cities Premium Outlets is another regional draw that offers a little something different with upscale retailers in a walking mall setting.
Special events also come to other regional shopping areas like the Heart of the City in Burnsville and the downtown areas of Lakeville, Rosemount and Farmington, which host tree-lighting ceremonies that also dovetail into a shop local effort.
These experiences aim to bring people to the downtown areas for fun, meeting neighbors and discovering what these downtown areas have to offer for gift-giving time.
There are dozens of small shopping centers throughout each of the cities. These are filled with many local retailers offering boutique or unique shopping excursions.
“We find that retailers are focusing on the shopping experience and making sure that customers enjoy shopping here in Burnsville,” Harmening said. “Our businesses are also getting more creative with engaging customers through social media.”
Sun Thisweek and the Dakota County Tribune will offer a large listing of local events in the Nov. 16 and 17 editions with the special section “The Holidays.” The section will offer information about holiday tree-lighting events along with arts and entertainment that’s focused on the season.
The idea behind many of these events is that people can attend them and stop along the way to shop local retailers or dine at a local restaurant.
Inside the shops people will find treasures that make for great gifts, some of them one-of-a-kind that one wouldn’t find online. Buying local also gives a person the satisfaction that they are propping up the local economy that provides jobs to friends and neighbors.
“A healthy business community means a healthy tax base, a healthy tax base reduces the portion of the tax base that homeowners pay and overall leads to a strong community,” Harmening said.
Apple Valley has one of the busiest retail areas in Dakota County at the junction of Highway 77/Cedar Avenue and County Road 42.
The area is home to scores of retailers and restaurants, several of them are locally owned.
“It is important to see other small business around us doing well,” said Deb Haupt, of Eagan, owner of Haupt Antiek Market in Apple Valley. “Other shop owners are investing in their small businesses as well as new businesses moving into the area.”
Many of these businesses are taking a cue from shops like Haupt Antiek Market, which is only open four days of month and focuses on an event shopping experience.
The business has a theme for each monthly sale and brings in new items for each sale that aim to turn the shopping experience more into a treasure hunt.
Local businesses also have the perk of often having ample parking and accessibility.
Customer service is another aspect of shopping local that businesses strive for. If people can’t find exactly what they are looking for at a local shop, the retailers often take the time to talk to a customer and see if a certain product can be ordered for them.
Harmening said Burnsville folks are very loyal to local businesses as many use directories like those found on the chamber’s website to find retailers to support.
To find these directories, go online to burnsvillechamber.com, lakevillechamber.org, applevalleychamber.com or dcrchamber.com.
Year in Review 2016: Helping hand has lasting impact on District 196 board member
Published January 12, 2017 at 2:07 pm
Isaacs says a first-impression of American kindness motivates him today
by Tad Johnson
Sun Thisweek
Dakota County Tribune
Sachin Isaacs
When a 19-year-old Sachin Isaacs arrived at the Amtrak train depot in Winona, Minnesota, in 1999, the two suitcases he had brought from India had been jostled around so much during the ride from Chicago that they had burst open and scattered his clothes.
Isaacs admits that it was a pathetic sight, which was compounded when the emigrating college student’s ride didn’t show up and he didn’t have anyone else to call.
After Isaacs sat at the station for about an hour as the clock neared midnight, the only other person there – the station master ready to close up for the night – approached him.
Isaacs explained as best he could, being fairly new to the English language, that he was in America for this first time on a student visa and his ride hadn’t arrived to take him to Winona State University.
He said the only contact he had had with the school was through dean Mary Thorn. The station master cracked open local phone book, found seven Thorns, but no Mary.
The worker started with the first Thorn on the list and called four more Thorns before finding Mary and her husband, Buzz, on the other end of the line.
In the middle of the night, Mary and Buzz Thorn drove their pickup truck to the station, placed Isaacs’ two tattered bags in the back and ferried him off to the only dormitory that was open at the time.
“That one gesture has impacted me for a lifetime,” said Isaacs, the newest member of the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School Board. “She didn’t know me. She picked me up at a very late hour and possibly influenced the trajectory of my life as a human being by that one act.”
Isaacs was among one of the top newsmakers in Dakota County in 2016 as he won on Aug. 9 a seven-way race for a School Board seat, vacated when longtime Board Member Rob Duchscher moved out of the district in March.
Isaacs, who was unable to gain a seat in 2015 against three incumbents, won the contest handily as he earned 28 percent of the vote. He outdistanced his closest competitor – Wendy Brekken – by 9 percentage points.
He said the fact that he ran the previous year was a boost to his campaign as people were familiar with him during the second campaign’s door-knocking phase.
Among the reasons he said voters likely supported him were that he is the parent with school-age children, he represented a diverse perspective as a first-generation immigrant and he earned the endorsement of the teachers union – Dakota County United Educators.
Key issues
Now that he’s in office, Isaacs says he wants to address three key issues.
He plans to focus on reducing the academic achievement gap between minority and white students, addressing food insecurity and improving community engagement.
They are all interrelated, according to Isaacs.
Statistics show that many students who are not achieving well in school are minorities receiving free or reduced-price lunches based on federal family income guidelines.
Some of these students are coming to school hungry, as poverty in Dakota County has increased along with the percentage of students receiving the free or reduced-price lunches. One district school reported a four-fold increase in such students in the past 10 years.
Isaacs says that research shows that students facing food insecurity at home won’t be ready to learn at school or continue the learning at home.
He advocates for expansion of The Sheridan Story program, which can provide students in need with food to take home in a discrete manner using donated funds of $180 per year per student.
The Minneapolis-based nonprofit started working with District 196 two years ago. It has identified 950 district students who are in need of the program. As of November, about 550 students had been sponsored.
“It is the solvable problem,” Isaacs said. “With a little bit of support, we can help these kids out of that atmosphere and get them to focus on education.”
Isaacs says the second way in which the district can close the achievement gap is to find more ways to provide homework help for minority students.
Since parents are often addressing multiple issues such as extended work hours, multiple children at home, mealtime and bedtime routines or a language barrier, homework can get lost in the shuffle.
Isaacs said after-school homework help in the buildings and at home needs to be expanded. He said the one-to-one iPad initiative makes tools like Facebook and Skype more possible in linking students at home to homework helpers throughout the district.
“These are the things we must do,” he said.
That leads Isaacs into his third initiative, which is to increase community engagement.
It starts with getting all parents involved in their child’s education and extends to making sure support staff and community members assist in creating a culture where learning is valued.
“Ultimately for the success of the kids, the key stakeholders need to be invested,” Isaacs said. “In the whole-child initiative, each stakeholder needs to do their part to help students attain the best life they can, achieve their goals and reach their potential. Learning doesn’t start and stop in the classrooms. It happens throughout (the day).”
He said there are many retired people in the district who could serve as ideal homework helpers, and the recruitment of volunteers needs to increase.
Isaacs is taking to the coffee shops and other sites throughout the district to do his part in increasing community engagement.
He encourages district residents to offer their views, suggestions or talk about their experiences with the district during his monthly listening sessions.
“These ideas will happen when there is more free-flowing dialogue,” Isaacs said. “I’m ready to do my part to help catalyze this relationship to what it can be.”
To find out where and when the sessions are held, district residents can go online to Isaacs’ Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SachinISD196.
Background
Though Isaacs is not the first person with a diverse racial background elected to the board – Board Member Art Coulson is part Native American – he is a visible minority in his complexion and accent.
He said the symbolism of that is important.
“Young people should be able to look at positions of leadership and see that diversity,” Isaacs said.
As a first-generation immigrant, Isaacs said he will bring a different way of thinking to board discussions.
His perspective of many times being the only minority in a classroom or even an entire town, as was the case in the small Wisconsin town he spent his college summers at, he says will result in better policymaking.
“The robustness of the discussion will result in better outcomes for our children,” he said.
When Isaacs was growing up in India, he was being groomed to work in the successful retail industry business that was owned by his father.
But Isaacs said he wanted to do something different.
That’s when he embarked on his quest to become an American college student, where he landed at Winona State. The school had made the best scholarship offer, which he had to earn to keep by maintaining a high grade-point average.
In school, he met his future wife, earned a bachelor’s degree in business and went on to receive a Master of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas.
He said his view of numbers through the lens of economics will allow him to see the story behind the statistics and strategies to address problems.
The senior product manager of clinical assessments at NCS Pearson is the only School Board member with children currently in district schools. His oldest daughter is a first-grade student at Glacier Hills Elementary School of Arts and Sciences and his youngest is still in preschool.
He said this will also bring a different perspective as a parent whose children are on the receiving end of instruction.
He also has the perspective of a parent who recently made the choice to move into District 196 because of the schools.
He said it was the district’s triple A philosophy of educating students well-rounded in the arts, athletic and academics that attracted them.
To see the AAA in action, Isaacs is on a quest to spend a day in every district school in the 2016-17 calendar year. He had visited six out of 31 as of mid-December.
He said so far he’s been impressed with the learner-centered environment in the classrooms with a non-commoditized of imparting education that finds the best way for each student to learn.
“One of the things I have seen is the personal investment,” he said. “I have been deeply impressed at the personal accountability that our teachers take for each of their kids. … It shows the amount of depth of caring that educators have and the responsibility they feel in trying to make each one of our kids live up to their fullest potential.”
Isaacs said he’s hoping the kinds of successful strategies and efforts being made by teachers become shared throughout the district.
As one example he saw four English composition students working on a joint writing project where each student wrote a part of a larger work. While each student had to write their own piece, that had to collaborate in real time using Google Docs to ensure the different pieces worked together as a whole.
“This shows the students that critical thinking is a process and used not just in science or mathematics,” Isaacs said. “Projects like this, this is excellence, this is a world-class education. … This gives our students global readiness to go out in the world with a competitive advantage.”
Rosemount graduate ahead of his time
Published July 1, 2016 at 2:44 pm
William Lai’s acceleration in the classroom takes him to Oxford
William Lai has a new perspective on laziness.
Rosemount High School graduate William Lai (second from right) celebrated speech and debate success with some of his teammates this year. Lai will take his talents to Oxford University’s Brasenose College this fall. (Photo submitted)
The Rosemount High School graduate says he self-studied some of his classwork over the summer and during the school year because of “laziness.”
“Why do it in two years when you can do one?” Lai said of his view of the calculus curriculum.
This approach has led to a rare path for Lai, who will be one of 13 students to enter the first-year class of a triple-major program at Oxford University’s Brasenose College in England.
Though Lai will turn 16 just before his studies start this fall, age has never been an issue to him since he’s proven his intellectual worth wherever he’s been.
That’s included studying math modeling at the University of Minnesota, working at an internship at the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis or in front of the interview panel at Oxford.
“I’m used to talking to people older than me,” Lai said. “They don’t talk down to me after I show them I can talk to them on their level.”
During his U of M class he said the students bonded in large part because they felt they were all in it together as their shared suffering brought them together, Lai added with a laugh. That’s also been true in other situations like chemistry labs when groups of students have to work together for successful experiment outcomes.
“When you are working with nitric acid you don’t want to have an accident,” Lai said.
While skipping the fifth grade put Lai in a class of older students early on, it was the invitation he received to sit in on the Rosemount High School DECA business and marketing program’s afterschool session while he was a middle school student that deepened this interaction.
“The biggest thing is to start early,” he said, offering advice to students who may ponder a grade-skip. “You are going to have to deal with older students at some point.”
He said talking to high school students on their level about business, marketing, the economy and other “relatable random subjects” earned him quick acceptance and regular visits to the DECA room.
In addition to skipping a grade, Lai spent only three years in high school and self-studied pre-calculus the summer before his eighth-grade year, starting his accelerated mathematics path.
Lai said his parents didn’t force him in any way to accelerate or skip grades as they simply presented options to him.
He said the cooperation from the schools, especially RMS Principal Mary Thompson, along with his ability to accelerate in several subjects have prepared him for the rigor of Oxford.
“I’m used to going fast,” he said. “I’ve grown accustomed to it.”
At Oxford, Lai will be in the Philosophy, Politics and Economics program, which aims to give him his college degree in three years.
He’s been told to be prepared for a large volume of study material and to work as hard as he can from the outset.
“They want to test your mettle,” Lai said.
He has a good idea of the rigor based on the Oxford admissions process, which included several essays, a multiple-choice test and interview that posed questions such as determining the logical prerequisites of questions involving a present tense dodo and the impact of government surveillance activities related to terrorism.
Lai said extracurricular activities like DECA and speech at RHS prepared him to handle such questions.
Those activities allowed Lai to explore wide-ranging topics such as those related to current events, historical issues that have shaped the country’s laws and the formation of a entrepreneurial venture.
“I’ve had great coaches and teachers,” Lai said. “(DECA adviser) Mr. (Ryan) Harrison has been helpful since he knows a lot about different businesses. When we went to Nashville for nationals there was a lot of down time and we talked about different business principles. It was exhausting for me and for Mr. Harrison, but it was worth it.”
That year Lai placed first in the nation overall for Business Finance Series Event.
“(Speech coach) Mr. (Cort) Sylvester, he knows so much about current events, so he helps you to think about other perspectives and be ready to deal with those issues,” Lai said. “He would say: ‘Look for this, it is a popular line of thinking.’ ”
This summer Lai advanced to the third round of extemporaneous debate at Nationals before bowing out.
Lai said Lincoln-Douglas debate helped advance his skill and knowledge in English composition and history due to the hours of research it required.
While Lai said he likes video games and read the Harry Potter books like most teenagers, he’s also delved into the works of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and German philosopher Martin Heidegger.
Lai has also gained cultural experience having traveled extensively throughout the world, making several trips to China, where his family’s roots are, and other trips to Europe, Australia and Africa where he spent a lot of time in museums, art galleries and historic sites.
“I’m not one to relax on the beach,” he said.
He described DECA as the assembly line for putting all of his coursework and experiences together.
Through the activity, he gained writing, speaking, research, analysis, job interview and technical business skills, along with the chance to make real world business decisions.
When asked if he would miss anything about RHS, Lai said his friends, of which he said he has many throughout all the grades, and “it would have been great to have four years of debate and four years of DECA,” Lai said.
“I will miss my high school in a way, especially those in the junior class, that is just how it goes,” Lai said.
Steeple Center addition shows potential for growth in Rosemount
The fireside room of the city-owned Steeple Center addition includes a spacious area with windows from nearly the floor to the ceiling. (Photo by Tad Johnson)
by Tad Johnson
Sun Thisweek-Dakota County Tribune
Nov. 5, 2015
The city of Rosemount workers planted a tree outside the Steeple Center last week.
“It’s still rather small, but it has great potential,” said John Loch, longtime community volunteer and Rosemount Area Arts Council member.
The young evergreen tree is a fitting symbol for the current growth arc of the arts, entertainment and activity center for which work on its addition is almost complete.
“It feels like it is going to be a great space,” Rosemount Parks and Recreation Director Dan Schultz said. “It is welcoming. We hope it gets a lot of use.”
The 10,000-square-foot addition, which is located between the current Steeple Center arts and event venue and the future senior housing facility The Rosemount, aims to be a casual gathering space and a site for planned activities.
While RAAC and the Rosemount Area Seniors are looking forward to the new activity areas, the fireside room and adjoining outdoor courtyard offer gathering spaces unlike any found in the city.
“People are going to be really happy with it,” Loch said. “I think it’s going to be a gathering area.”
The tile floor of a second-story activity room will make it feasible for use with a variety of arts projects. (Photo by Tad Johnson)
The courtyard will feature trees and other plantings around a patio for several tables and chairs.
The fireside room faces southwest with windows that stretch from nearly the floor to the top of the two-story vaulted ceiling.
It will have a counter, from which coffee will be served. Members of RAAC and the Rosemount Area Seniors will offer community information at what is called the Front Porch in the space.
The Front Porch was established in December 2012 when the city and RAAC drew up a contract that would have the nonprofit’s members staff the “visitor center” at the Steeple Center in exchange for free use of the facility.
That agreement will continue at the new center.
Loch says that extension is a recognition that RAAC provides great value to the city-owned venue. RAAC has organized scores of events annually since 2013.
Even more are expected now that full use of the Steeple Center is back online.
RAAC aims to build on the momentum of the addition’s completion by recruiting members of the community to serve as teachers of new class offerings. A story in a future edition will cover this new initiative.
While the new center will boost RAAC arts activity potential, the site will provide a significant upgrade for the Rosemount Area Seniors.
The senior group currently meets in a room at the Rosemount Community Center that has no windows.
The first-floor room that is slated to become the new Do Drop Inn has a large bank of east-facing windows that look out to South Robert Trail.
“The seniors are excited,” Schultz said. “They should feel a little more comfortable here. Right now they meet in a room that doesn’t have a window. We hope this gives them more of a connection to the community.”
“They love the windows,” Loch said. “How could you not like that and to move to a much bigger room?”
On the second floor are two large meeting and activity rooms, one of which has a tile floor.
“It’s a great room with the windows overlooking the court,” Loch said. “We expressed we needed a room with a tile floor.”
The Rosemount Community Center’s carpeted floors limited the kinds of art activities that could be planned there, but the tile floor at the Steeple Center will allow for activities such as pottery and those that involve glue, sprinkles and glitter.
Loch said the size of the room could allow for three different activities at once.
The other second-floor activity room that faces east has a temporary dividing wall that can be extended to create two separate spaces.
All of the rooms have running water, cabinets and will provide wireless Internet access. The first floor also has a full catering kitchen.
Schultz said he is very happy with the overall project.
“We had a good crew working on it,” Schultz said.
The city worked with an interior designer to select color and finishes that aimed to give the space a home-like feel, according to Schultz.
The Parks and Recreation Department will start accepting 2016 reservations for the Steeple Center in mid-November.
The old and new spaces of the Steeple Center can be used for meetings, events, fundraisers, parties, wedding ceremonies or receptions.
The Assembly Hall in the former St. Joseph Church seats 192 with tables and chairs or 204 in theater-style rows.
For more information call Rosemount Parks and Recreation at 651-322-6000.
DARTS aims to get back on target
After a difficult 2015, nonprofit’s new president focused on the future
Published October 29, 2015
by Tad Johnson
Sun Thisweek-Dakota County Tribune
Ann Bailey
The new DARTS president hadn’t heard of the 41-year-old Dakota County nonprofit until 2003 when she was in need of one of its services.
Ann Bailey, of Apple Valley, who was providing care for her aging father at home, was in need of a break.
That’s when she heard about DARTS’ respite care.
“DARTS not only helped me become better educated about caregiving, but helped me focus on my own welfare so I could provide better care for my father,” Bailey said.
The help she received from DARTS made such an impression on Bailey that a few years later she volunteered to serve on its board of directors.
After five years of service on the board, Bailey was selected in June as the nonprofit’s president after Greg Konat resigned earlier this year.
Bailey, who was a technical leader at Target for 18 years, says 2015 has been struggle as DARTS lost its estimated $5 million in annual contracts with the Met Council after several violations were found in its transportation services division, and the situation resulted in a defamation lawsuit against DARTS.
The new president said she can’t talk about details of the lawsuit because it’s awaiting litigation, but she said the organization has a balanced budget for 2016 as it is out to remake its services in the coming years.
“2015 has been a struggle,” Bailey said. “We’ve had to pay unemployment for some workers. We are sitting on office space that isn’t being utilized. … We spent so much time on crisis management in 2015.”
After making hard decisions to pare its budget and using its endowment to cover a 2015 budget hole, Bailey said there is still a vital need for DARTS in the community.
Bailey said board members, employees and volunteers are invested in helping build and shape the organization for a good long-term position.
That starts with remaking DARTS transportation services, which gained a new focus in 2015.
“We were so focused on transportation before, now we can provide transportation under our own brand,” Bailey said of DARTS, which previously had 66 percent of its expenditures tied to transportation, which provided revenue to support other services.
The transfer of the Met Council Metro Mobility and Transit Link contract meant DARTS had to determine a new transportation place in the community.
She said transportation is the one thing that people remember DARTS most for and it’s the reason DARTS decided to continue with a bus service after losing the Met Council contract.
“That is the roots of where our expertise is,” she said.
After meeting with Met Council and area leaders and reviewing its options, DARTS has developed the Loop Transportation concept, which started a few months ago in West St. Paul.
DARTS buses run in a 30-minute circuit primarily along Robert Street stopping at places like the grocery store, pharmacy, restaurants and other entertainment options.
“The demand is there,” Bailey said.
Another loop being piloted this fall is the Burnsville Medical Loop, which is 30-minute circuit that stops at area senior housing sites, medical clinics and pharmacies.
While it made changes in ride service, DARTS dropped its vehicle maintenance services and cut some administrative positions in an effort to save money and refocus.
“(Vehicle maintenance) wasn’t a core competency for us,” Bailey said.
While the budget reductions were made, Bailey said DARTS officials didn’t want to cut off the organization’s arms and legs.
“We want to make cuts wisely,” she said.
She said DARTS wants to be a small piece of the transportation puzzle.
Ridership will be the key to the success of the loop service, which costs $3 to ride but $70 to provide the trip.
Bailey said the goal is to have two DARTS transportation loops in each of the cities in Dakota County.
The nonprofit is also providing its DARTS Direct service, which provides transportation for group outings.
She said DARTS is considering an Uber cab model for seniors, but that it’s only in a discussion stage.
Other services
With more than 25 percent of Dakota County’s population to be age 65 or older by 2035, Bailey says DARTS has services that need to be used.
She said DARTS reaches only about 1 percent of the county’s population (about 3,000 people) and she’d like to see that percentage pushed to 5 or 10 percent.
The ability of DARTS to reach more people largely will depend on its ability to market its services.
One of the struggles is that potential users and clients often have to make the first move. Seeking help doesn’t seem to be in the human DNA, according to Bailey.
“That is the guilt we all put on ourselves,” she said. “We want people to let (DARTS to) do the chores and the work.”
The “work” Bailey is talking about is the suite of services that includes caregiver support; home cleaning, repair, modification and chores; and errands.
DARTS offers caregiving counseling, coaching, support groups and seminars, in addition to in-home respite for up to four hours a week.
Bailey knows from her own experience that caregivers “will thrive more when we can help,” she said.
“It’s hard to get people to sign up for respite care,” she said.
DARTS has a professional staff and an army of more than 1,000 volunteers who help provide these services.
Using its paid staff, DARTS offers market-rate cleaning, repair and home modification services, the latter of which was added most recently and can result in a wheelchair ramp and safety railings being installed on a sliding-fee scale.
Volunteers help with such chores as leaf removal or grocery shopping.
Bailey said when she interacts with community members at expos, a common reaction is, “I didn’t know you did all of that.”
But that isn’t all.
DARTS encourages seniors to engage with the community through its Learning Buddies program.
The program pairs older adults with elementary students in area schools who could benefit from a mentor. More than 3,100 children have Learning Buddies who help with one-on-one reading, math and science.
“We keep seniors engaged,” she said. “They should be celebrated.”
More is at dartsconnects.org.
Tad Johnson is at tad.johnson@ecm-inc.com. Follow him on Twitter @editorTJ.
U of M Landscape Arboretum – October 2015
Here are some photos I took during a visit to the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in October 2015.
Tad Johnson 