Thursday, March 28, 2024

K-M Technovation team makes presentation to Triton Board

The Kasson-Mantorville Middle School Technovation Team gave a presentation to the Triton School Board last week explaining an app they developed last year to help young people Stop Sex Trafficking.

Technovation Challenge is an international coding competition for girls in middle and high school to solve real-world problems through technology. The team earned trips last school year to Washington DC where they met with President Barak Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and to San Francisco where they toured technology companies.

Andrea Richard represented the three-member team along with teacher Sharie Furst.

The sex trafficking app uses a series of questions to inform 12 to 14-year-olds about sex trafficking, what it is and how young people are drawn into it. The app also gives contacts that can be called if a youngster feels they are in a bad situation.

The reason for the presentation was two-fold. The Triton school district is considering making the app available to its students and also considering starting a technovation team in the district.

Regarding the app specifically, Richard said that sex trafficking is a major problem in the area and children are trafficked from small cities and towns not just metropolitan areas.  Most of the victims, she said, are 12 to 14-years-old.

The impetus for the app, she said, was a girl from Kasson who was a victim of sex trafficking.

In gathering information, she said, the team talked to the Rochester Police Department, Mission 21 in Rochester, Sisters of St. Frances, the Olmsted county attorney and others who work with sex trafficking victims.

The app is currently available at the Google Play Store and will be at the Apple Store in about a month.

Also at the meeting, High School Principal Craig Schlichting and counselor Kristi Kreigh gave an update on the Certified Nursing Program that the district wants to establish at the high school. The program has now been renamed the Nursing Assistant Registered program.

The district has already re

See full story in this week’s print edition or subscribe online. Please subscribe here or current subscribers can login here.

Dodge County Independent

Dodge County Independent
Dodge County ADvantage
301 S. Mantorville Ave.
Plaza 57 • Suite 200
Kasson, MN 55944

Dodge County Printing
301 S. Mantorville Ave.
Plaza 57 • Suite 200
Kasson, MN 55944

507-634-7503
 
Hours: 
Monday-Thursday 10a.m.-3p.m.