Jordan Wolfe was both valedictorian and the salutatorian at her high school graduation on Thursday night. In fact, she was the only graduate in her class.
As she walked onto the stage to receive her diploma, donned in her green robe and graduation cap, the 18-year-old Webster native became the first and only student to ever graduate from the Technology Engineering And Math Science (TEAMS) charter school in Penacook.
The TEAMS school is in its fourth year running, with an average of 28 students from around the Concord area. The ninth through 12 grades school was introduced in 2012 as an open public high school with a federal grant from the Department of Education to support students studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. TEAMS uses computer programs to teach courses instead of a traditional classroom model, and provides students with a smaller learning community than most public schools.
Wolfe’s graduation Thursday was celebrated in a combined ceremony with CSI charter school and their 20 2016 graduates. TEAMS and CSI share the same building on Washington Street in Penacook, which is owned by the Merrimack Valley School District, although they each have their own staff, board and mission.
Wolfe was in her first year at Merrimack Valley High School in 2012 when she decided that school wasn’t the best fit for her. She didn’t feel like she was being productive in the long hours of study hall and thought she might be better suited for a smaller classroom setting.
At TEAMS, 80 percent of all courses are taught online. Students can move at their own pace and work from school or home. The school also has certified teachers – or “coaches,” as they call them – dropping in throughout the day to help students as needed while they complete their online classes.
That was the system that worked well for Wolfe, who, as a black belt and member of the Air National Guard, excels in and out of the classroom.
“A course that might take one kid a full year to do, Jordan might be able to finish it in four and a half months,” said George Rogers, director of TEAMS. “She’s a worker . . . The prime example of self discipline.”
In addition to online courses, students at TEAMS take four full-year engineering courses and an SAT prep class focused on writing and reading comprehension. These were other subjects Wolfe thrived in, especially the engineering curricula, which involved mastering all three of TEAMS’s 3-D printers. She recently finished a senior project using the 3-D printers to create a model of a miniature community, complete with lighting from a circuit board she installed herself.
When the school purchased its newest 3-D printer, Wolfe was one of the first to learn how to use it. She typed out detailed instructions for future students to utilize.
“I like to have that role of people looking to me for information,” she said.
Wolfe also completed two internships while at TEAMS, one as required by the school at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord last summer, and another with the Lumber Barn where she acted as a software professional, advising the business on the architectural software Visioneer, which she learned how to use at TEAMS. At the end of her internship, the company ended up investing in the $5,000 software as a result of her work.
As for the next chapter of her life, Wolfe has a plan. In late June, she will leave New Hampshire for basic training at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio. After basic training, she will head to technical school in Florida for four months to study aircraft structural maintenance.
She hopes to eventually come back to New Hampshire to complete her bachelor’s degree with the support of the G.I. Bill, but she’s not sure what she will study quite yet.
“My problem now is, I want to do a little bit of everything . . . I just want to be skilled in everything,” she said, laughing. “I can’t just choose one thing.”
Rogers hopes TEAMS will have two more graduates following in Wolfe’s footsteps next year and keep expanding from there. He said he is especially proud of everything Wolfe was to accomplish while at the school, and that she sets a high bar for TEAMS graduates to meet in the future.
“Jordan is really quite well-rounded,” Rogers said. “We’re very lucky to have her as our first graduate.”