Newsletters 2013-14 Focus newsletter, [1] fall | Page 3

A N O K A

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H E N N E P I N

S C H O O L

“If you could save a life,
why wouldn’t you?”

Simeon
Toronto

One man’s passion helps CPR certify nearly
2,000 students by 2014

“I

lost my mom when I was 15,”
Blaine High School (BHS)
health teacher Jeff Richards
explains. “So it is a passion of mine that
all kids in the district get CPR certified.”
Richards’ students say his catch
phrase, “if you could save a life, why
wouldn’t you?” is catching on. This past
school year, his passion helped 1,030
Anoka-Hennepin high school students
become CPR certified—566 of those
students coming from BHS. By the end
of 2014 that number could double with
teachers around the district planning to
do the training as well.

Blaine High School’s (l to r) Jacob Hanson, Audra
Weigant, Jeff Richards, Brianna Timmons and Hailey
Tanner participated in the CPR certification program.
Richards led the effort in Anoka-Hennepin District 11.

Hailey Tanner, a sophomore at BHS, is proud of the CPR Certification Card she carries in
her wallet. She was one of the first students to go through the pilot program in the fall of 2012.
“I babysit. I have two brothers, and then add in my cousins, they are all under six,” she said.
“The littlest is under two so he puts everything in his mouth. [Being certified] makes me more
comfortable watching them.”
In April 2012, Gov. Mark Dayton signed the CPR Training in Schools bill into law. The bill
requires school districts to provide one-time, hands-on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
and automatic external defibrillator (AED) instruction to all students between grades 7 and 12.
According to the bill, the training can occur in as little as 30 minutes and can be administered
by community members. The new law takes effect in the 2014-15 school year.
Anoka-Hennepin has far exceeded the requirements of the law by fully integrating CPR across all
middle and regular high schools in the 2012-2013
school year.
Ellen Delaney, Anoka-Hennepin’s director of secondary curriculum, assessment and instruction, says
the cost to run the program is nominal. Purchasing the
mannequins for the middle and high schools are the
primary expense.
“We were able to build all training into professional
development days so there were no additional costs to
the district,” Delaney said.

“

President Barack Obama met
with all 98 Boy’s Nation delegates in Washington, D.C. on
July 26, including Andover
senior Simeon Toronto.

“It’s such a blessing. I mean,
I’m just a 17-year-old playing
around in politics, but to be elected to these things, it’s really
humbling,” he said. “It’s been a whirlwind month of a lifetime.”
Toronto’s whirlwind summer came together this spring
when his counselor, Tara Koschak, told him about the
opportunity to go to Boy’s State.
He was required to rank in the Top 25 percent of his
class, and from there, he went to an informational meeting
with the American Legion’s Boy’s State Dean, Dave Way,
and other Legion representatives. After that, Toronto
formally applied and was selected to go.
“The thing is—all this was free for me,” Toronto said.
“The American Legion sponsors this whole thing. They pay
for all the students to go to Boy’s State, and then for all of
the expenses to go to Boy’s Nation.”
Acknowledging he didn’t really know or understand the
Legion’s involvement in the community before this, Toronto
said he has the utmost respect and admiration for the community group now.

- Jeff Richards,
BHS Health Teacher

Toronto’s mother, Allison, gives a lot of credit to ANDHS
for preparing him for an opportunity like this.

His passion helped
1,000 students become
CPR certified so far.

“There’s a tremendous staff that’s trying to introduce kids
to the wonderful opportunities that are out there like this,”
she said. “Without them, he would never be able to do this.”

”

Brianna Timmons and Audra Weigant, both sophomores at BHS decided to become certified. Timmons’ said, “my grandpa had a heart attack when I was eight and he ended up dying
because no one knew what to do.”
“It’s nice to walk around with the certificate in my wallet,” Weigant said. “You don’t have to
be scared. It’s better to do something you think will work instead of nothing at all. It gives me
confidence and makes me nervous too.”
“It is important because you could be sitting in a restaurant and someone could be choking
and not everyone knows what to do. You could be a little hero,” sophomore Jacob Hanson said.
As students lean over adult, child and infant mannequins, the song Staying Alive fills the
classroom. Why Staying Alive? Because according to Richards, the beats in the song are perfectl