The Rotary Club of Rosemount is pleased to announce that Rosemount High School senior Michael Stefanko was its September 2017 Student of the Month.
Michael is someone who frames his life by his goals. He has a lot of them. Michael’s charity, Goals4Change, has a mission statement: “We want to get kids active in their communities through programs and fundraisers that engage their interests.” The Goals4Change Coding Camp is a week-long program in the summer centered on the idea of giving through teaching. For this effort, Michael recruited 15 AP Computer Science Students and crafted a curriculum for a 1:1 learning environment.
As president of the student body and student council at RHS, Michael organized the homecoming festivities, which were some of the most successful in the school’s history. He attributes much of his success to Chad Terry and Susan Semmler, his leadership advisers, who taught him how to lead effectively every day.
In addition to his charity and work on the student council, Michael is also captain of the Rosemount Policy Debate Team. He spent seven weeks at the University of Michigan in 2017 researching the year’s policy debate topic: The federal government should increase its funding and/or regulation of elementary and/or secondary education. He has been to two national tournaments, one in Salt Lake City and the other in Birmingham. He is the most successful debate team member in 20 years at RHS.
In school, Michael treats classes like projects. He has taken 12 college courses in high school, and nearly every other class is an honors course.
After high school, Michael plans to attend college. He applied to 15 very selective schools, almost all in the top 20 in the United States. His top five choices are Cornell, Berkeley, New York University, Madison and the University of Minnesota.