LifeSmarts Team Ties for Fourth Place in National Championship
Belleville High School LifeSmarts Team (L-R): Kaitlyn Schoenike, Anthony Diaz, Holly Flick, Alison Thompson and Alex Shrader. Photo courtesy of Marie Perry
Belleville’s High School LifeSmarts Team is on a roll! After winning the Wisconsin State Championship back in February, its team of five graduating seniors, Alison Thompson (Captain), Alex Shrader, Holly Flick, Anthony Diaz, and Kaitlyn Schoenike, packed up and took their competitive spirit to the next level as they traveled to the national championship in Cincinnati. There these students settled in to compete over four days from April 27th-30th, 2023.
LifeSmarts is a competition that focuses on five key topic areas: consumer rights and responsibilities, the environment, health and safety, personal finance, and technology. It is exactly what the name implies, testing students on practical consumer-based knowledge that will help them succeed in life. The National LifeSmarts Championship is a comprehensive event where teams from across the country compete in a variety of academic trivia competitions to test their demonstration of knowledge in these five key topic areas.
In Ohio, the team participated in a variety of competitions to test their knowledge and understanding of different consumer education concepts. After they went head-to-head against schools from Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Colorado, and Georgia, the Belleville High School LifeSmarts made a run at the championship, and ended up finishing tied for 4th place out of 42 teams. This was an awesome achievement at this level and their coach, James Pickett, couldn’t be happier with his students’ accomplishments this season.
Pickett emphasizes, “This is a tremendous opportunity for our students to showcase their knowledge and skills in areas like personal finance and technology; skills that all students need to have to succeed after high school. I’m so proud of our team. It was an awesome experience and our five seniors did an incredible job representing Belleville and the state of Wisconsin.”
In addition to the team’s success, applying knowledge she gained from her experience in LifeSmarts, Captain Alison Thompson was selected to win a scholarship from Norton for an essay she wrote about identity theft, written from the perspective of an identity thief.
Thompson enjoyed her experience leading the team and notes, “LifeSmarts showcases the skills that I’ll need in the future; things like personal finance, paying for college, understanding consumer rights, and more. It makes learning about real life skills fun. My favorite part of the weekend was getting the opportunity to explore a new city and do things like go to the aquarium, park, and escape room.”
Trips like these are not only about the competition, but give students a chance to see another part of the U.S. While in Ohio, the Belleville team got to experience the downtown Cincinnati area, including many different restaurants, parks, and activities like the Newport Aquarium and escape room. Lastly, the team got to meet new people from across the country and network with business people from sponsoring companies like Amazon, Proctor & Gamble, FICO, Johnson & Johnson, and more.
District Administrator Nate Perry says, “It is great to see Mr. Pickett and the Belleville High School LifeSmarts team pick-up where they left off in previous years. The team winning the state competition and qualifying for the national competition shows that Belleville students can compete with anyone. The $1,000 scholarships that the students earned is fantastic, and I would imagine that the trip to Cincinnati will become a lasting memory as they wrap-up their time at BHS in the next month.”
Showing that students can demonstrate practical applied knowledge when it comes to things that will affect their lives as consumers and put a smaller high school like Belleville on the map academically in a national competition like LifeSmarts offers a clear testimony to what local teachers like James Pickett are preparing their students for in the real world. These students got the chance to take their knowledge on the road and they did not falter. They showed Belleville’s academic prowess off on a national level!
