July 21, 2023 -- Thanks to Columbus City Schools’ Summer Experience program, students from Wedgewood Middle School have new options for athletics to pursue in their futures.
In addition to classroom learning, summer scholars at Wedgewood worked to develop foundational skills for golf, volleyball, and baseball. Wedgewood’s Summer Experience building principal Dr. Amanda Mitskevich said these athletic experiences helped build the students’ confidence and taught them to work with others.
“We focused a lot on teamwork, leadership through sports, and camaraderie,” Dr. Mitskevich explained. “We’re taking some kids out of their comfort zones.”
Some of the students found they had an aptitude for one of the sports and expressed an interest in pursuing it further. Dr. Mitskevich encouraged interested students to join sporting teams at their schools. For the sports not offered at CCS middle schools, she connected interested students with community organizations that could assist them in building on the foundation they gained at Summer Experience.
“We found a few students that excelled at golf who had never tried it before,” she said. “If we can start exposing more of our urban population to sports like this, we may start to see more of those sports in our schools.”
Nimo Osman, a soon-to-be freshman at Briggs High School, said volleyball was her favorite of the three sports she practiced this summer. She plans to play on the Briggs volleyball team in the fall and was excited to get in some additional practice ahead of the season.
“I’m a volleyball player; it’s fun,” Osman said. “Serving the ball is my favorite. When you serve the ball - and it goes over the net - and nobody can get it, it makes you feel good.”
Dr. Mitskevich said an important part of the athletic pathway was getting students excited about different sports and bringing out their competitive sides. The volleyball learning session concluded with a tournament where students got to compete against each other and put their skills to the test. Dr. Mitskevich said it was great to see the students involved and excited about the sports they had practiced.
“[We want to] inspire that competitive nature in kids. To see them laugh and support each other is great,” she said.
