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First-year ag teacher credits students, community with FFA chapter success

A first-year Wisconsin agriculture educator says her school’s success has been a team effort with students, administrators, and the community.  Amelia Hayden is the ag teacher and FFA advisor for the Osseo-Fairchild school district. “We’ve got a lot of students who are interested in everything from beef production to natural resources to leadership and communications, so it’s really exciting to see how their experiences in FFA are propelling them to all of those different agricultural careers.”

Hayden says her students have been working hard and getting noticed. “I’ve learned a lot and gotten to teach a lot of new classes, and I’ve also seen a lot of successes with our ag program being granted twenty-thousand dollars by the CHS Foundation to celebrate their 75th anniversary, as well as placing in the top ten for the National Chapter Award here in Wisconsin FFA.”

And Hayden says exposing younger students to agriculture has led to greater interest and participation in high school. “Most every middle schooler takes an Introduction to Agriculture class with me, and so being able to have that classroom time with them and show them all of the fun opportunities there are to learn about agriculture has really helped me recruit the youngest generation in our school.”

Hayden tells Brownfield about 50% of the Osseo-Fairchild FFA membership is 7^th graders.  She says expanding ag education into more middle school programs should be an easy sell because of the increased graduation rates with students who take agriculture classes.

Hayden spoke to Brownfield during the Wisconsin Association of FFA State Convention in Madison.