At the turning of the new school year, it’s no surprise to see the hallways of GlenOak littered with flyers. Anything and everything will be hung up, from clubs to sports, but the most eye-catching of them all is the flyers advertising the Junior Achievement Businesses.
While these businesses are student-led, the reason they are able to thrive as much as they do is the teachers behind the business academy, Amanda deFays and Michael Nieporte.
This year the GlenOak Business Academy partnered with the Chick-fil-A Leader Academy.
“Partnering with them was truly a no-brainer, servant leadership is one of the management styles that we teach here to begin with,” Neiporte said.
Neiporte explains that servant leadership is a model of leadership that the GlenOak Business Academy tries to instill in its students; if an employer takes steps to ensure that their people are successful, it will in turn, make them successful.
The Business Academy started incorporating Chick-fil-A’s program little by little. The marketing class had meetings once a month where they would go over the servant leadership philosophy. During these meetings, the team considered more than just a business’ profit and discussed charity service events. For example, they raised money to acquire blankets, which were donated and scheduled a time to clean Middlebranch Trail.
All of Neiporte’s work did not go unnoticed, this year he was nominated for Chick-fil-A’s Teacher of the Year. A title worth $10,000 and awarded to only six individuals nationwide. Neiporte was nominated by the local Chick Fil A franchise operator, George Roche based on all the work he had done for the business academy and the community.
“It was cool and surprising, you don’t expect to see a giant cow walking through the halls with a check,” Neiporte said.
With the $10,000 reward Neiporte and deFays are excited to be able to help their student business.
“To be able to have some resources that we can dip into when we need to will be really monumental for these students,” deFays said.
