BRATTLEBORO — Meghan Forrett, a senior at Windham Regional Career Center, has been nominated to receive the prestigious Presidential Scholar award for 2019.
This award is given to a few select students across the nation who have mastered their programs of study and created positive growth and change in the community during their high school careers.
According to a news release, the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program was established to recognize and honor some of our nation's most distinguished graduating high school seniors in America.
In 2015, the program was extended to recognize students who demonstrate ability and accomplishment in career and technical education fields. Each year, up to 161 students are named as Presidential Scholars, one of the nation's highest honors for high school students.
Forrett is one of only five students chosen throughout the state of Vermont and was nominated on the basis of her outstanding scholarship and accomplishment in career and technical education fields, as well as her community service commitment and strong educational leadership skills.
Maribeth Cornell, a business teacher and advisor to the Future Business Leaders of America group at the Career Center, nominated Forrett for this honor.
“Meghan has worked extremely hard throughout her high school career in both her program of study and her career and technical student organization, FBLA.”
Some of Forrett's accomplishments for FBLA include:
• As an Officer in Training her freshman year (2016), she earned first place for Introduction to Financial Math and second place for Sports and Entertainment Management.
• In her sophomore year, as Community Service Vice President, she won second place for Introduction to Business, third place for Introduction to Business Procedures, and Honorable Mentions in Accounting, Marketing, and Business Communication.
• As President her junior year (2018), she won first place, Outstanding Chapter of the year, third place in both Business Communication and Sports and Entertainment Management, and Honorable Mention in Accounting 2, Entrepreneurship, and Marketing.
• As the incumbent President in her senior year, Forrett hopes to lead her chapter to more victories in the spring.
Forrett's many community service accomplishments include being the WRCC spokesperson for the Rotary Club, serving as a math tutor for struggling students, organizing four blood drives for the American Red Cross, and being honored as Student of the Month through the Elks organization.
She is the creator of three workshops to make earmuffs for area homeless people, is in her fourth year of planning and participating in Project Feed the Thousands, is a fifth-year altar person at her church, and volunteers at the local fire department for fundraising events.
Academically, she will by the end of her senior year have taken enough dual enrollment courses - seven - to complete her fall semester at a college of her choice, and will have earned six IRCs (Industry Recognized Credentials) in the Business and Leadership Program at Windham Regional Career Center: OSHA 10, First Aid and CPR, Cyber Security, Word 2016, and Excel 2016.
In a news release, she says her biggest accomplishment was overcoming the anger and the self-esteem issues that many high schoolers face today. She attributes her personal, social, and academic success to her involvement in the local FBLA chapter.
Once she became involved with this organization, she says, her whole perspective changed, her grades and negative attitude improved, and she learned the social skills to create a positive foundation for herself and a strong desire to help others.
Her main objective in being involved in FBLA is to help students with anxiety, self-confidence, and social issues, especially those who don't play sports and are looking for group involvement.
She is working to solve the problem of “what and how students can get involved in school in ways that will make them feel good about themselves.”