The SACS Education Foundation has created a new opportunity to honor SACS employees and would like your assistance. Students, community members, and colleagues can nominate a SACS employee who has gone above and beyond to impact our students. Any SACS employee can be nominated, including teachers, custodians, bus drivers, and nurses. If you see a staff member who excels at their duties and goes the extra mile to help others, nominate them for this award by scanning the QR code on the flier. SACS staff spends so much time doing their best to make the learning environment for students as good as possible, so it is our turn to show them appreciation by acknowledging the work of the individuals. Take some time to think about who you know is making a big difference and submit the application by the 15th of each month, where the nominated staff members have a chance to win $250. This January, Mr. Haff, Social Studies

Thank you,
SACS Education Foundation

Click here to nominate!

If you have more questions, contact Mrs. Braman by email! abraman@sacs.k12.in.us

Sai Shamyant "Shammy" Boda is a Junior at Homestead. In November, he started taking the AMC testing course. The American Math Competitions are mathematically based exams that test problem-solving with geometry, algebra, number theory, and probability. Certain elite colleges such as MIT and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) require these test scores to be considered for admission. This year, Shammy was the only Homestead student to qualify for the second-level test, the AIME. Though it was an 

e-learning day, Shammy came in with Mrs. Bowman-Ashby to take the test. Due to his high performance on both the AMC and the AIME tests, he has moved on to qualify to take the USAMO, a test that fewer than 250 students nationwide qualify for. This test will be taken over two consecutive days, with six hours of proof-based exam time each day. Please be sure to congratulate Shammy on his stellar academic achievement! 

From Sunday, March 2nd through Tuesday, March 4th a large number of our Homestead Spartans took a field trip to Indianapolis to compete in the State DECA competition achieving amazing results.

What is DECA?

DECA is an international business competition with almost 300,000 members worldwide. Students begin the competition process by taking their personal interests and finding an event that best suits them with the assistance of their supervisor. With more than 60 different events, there are plenty for students to choose from. 

Preparation

After choosing their event, the studying begins. With the money students use to sign up here at Homestead they are automatically given access to Competition University, a studying resource that has lessons, quizzes, and sample roleplays for their events. In addition to Competition University, Mr. Dunn holds study sessions in his classroom twice a week after school to help students prepare for their competitions and get support where they need it to feel confident before competition day.

Competitions

The first competition takes place at the district level. Our district competition includes Homestead, Canterbury, Concordia Lutheran, Lakeland, Mississinewa, Snider, and Northside. The top three groups from each event moves on to compete at the state level. 

The state competition takes place the first weekend of March where students compete to move on to the International Career Development Conference (ICDC). The top three or four students of each event move on. 

At ICDC students compete to receive "DECA Glass" which is the highest level of award in the DECA competition. Once again, the top three competitors receive this award.

On March 15th, 2025 the Homestead Interact Club raised nearly $2000 through their annual pickleball tournament at the Fort Wayne Country Club. There was an entry fee of $50 with all proceeds going to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is dedicated to finding a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, and other blood cancers through funding blood cancer research. Hopefully this fun tradition continues for many years to come!

If you are interested in donating or supporting in another way the link is below:

https://www.lls.org/

Thirty-seven Homestead Latino students recently attended the Positive Pathways Career Information Fair hosted by the Latinos Count Organization.  

Our students started the day participating in small group discussions with successful Latino adults from our community. Following the small group discussions, a panel of current Latino students from PFW addressed the group sharing their experiences as college students.  After eating pizza for lunch and receiving a Latinos Count t-shirt, our students then attended a College and Career Fair meeting with representatives from area businesses, colleges, skilled trades and military branches.

We thank the Latino adults from our community for their time and encouragement, the event sponsors, as well as our hosts, the Latinos Count Organization, for including our students in the 2025 Positive Pathways Career Information Fair.