Start up a conversation with EPHS senior (and soon to be graduate) Alyssa Newton, and you’d likely find yourself launching into any variety of fascinating topics, ranging from the challenge of learning Hungarian, to the similarity between saxophone and bagpipes.

Bottom line, Newton is a blast to talk to, which might be the little secret to her success in making a difference at Eden Prairie High School.

“She just is so welcoming to every student in this building,” said Mona Koebele, National Honor Society adviser, and business resource assistant.

Koebele also notes that Newton “kind of goes under the radar.”

It’s easy to go under the radar in Eden Prairie High School, with 800-student classes and a high caliber of academic and athletic achievement. But, what makes Newton stand out is not just her academics, though she’s garnered accolades in that regard. She’s also made an impact in the lives of other students at the high school.

Most notably, Newton started an after-school tutoring programming her junior year, which has served mostly Somali ELL (English Language Learner) students.

Newton said she started the tutoring her junior year with Associate Principal Tim Quick.

“Every single day, we’d stay after school and help kids with their homework.”

This year she wanted to continue it: “I’ve been getting some juniors to carry it on the next year,” she added.

Newton said the other tutoring service “closes way too early,” plus she wanted her tutoring atmosphere to be more relaxed. The number of students who have visited the after-school program vary, from as few as one or two to as many as 15 or 20 students.

Newton also managed to keep the program going this fall semester, all while attending the University of Minnesota for post-secondary education classes (taking modern fiction, Russian, German and linguistics).

Koebele was impressed that Newton was able to take the U classes while keeping up with her National Honor Society volunteer and meeting commitments.

“Somehow she miraculously worked it out so that she could be here” and still take the classes she needed, she said.

Koebele said she often sent e-mails out to the approximately 230 NHS students, that include a standard note that they should respond in person (so as not to overload the system with e-mails). Koebele recalled how one day, Newton showed up covered in snow very early before school. Turns out, Newton biked to school to sign up for the volunteer opportunity and was then planning to bike to the transit station to catch a bus to the U.

No matter what the circumstances were, notes Koebele, “she would do it, she would follow through.”

Interests

Newton has quite a list of accolades, including involvement in NHS, Girl Scouts, a  Student Citizenship Award from the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce, a Rotary Above and Beyond Award  and a $2,500 National Achievement Scholarship – a program that was established out “to honor scholastically talented black American youth, and to provide scholarships to a substantial number of the most outstanding participants in each annual competition.”

For the record, she also made the University dean’s list during the fall semester.

Newton has interest in languages of all sorts: she speaks German and is learning Russian, but has plans to learn Hungarian when she visits that country this summer and to learn Hebrew in College. She cites her favorite book as “Crime and Punishment,” but says her interest in Russia started her freshman year when she made friends with another student from Russia.

She and that other student would pass notes to each other in class using the Cyrillic alphabet.

That beats pig Latin.

Awesome teachers

Newton has grown up in Eden Prairie. When asked what some of her favorite things were about the city, she said she likes the fact that she can bike on the sidewalks. She also likes that the schools are the “best in Minnesota.”

“I’ve had some pretty cool teachers.”

Newton recalled how, in middle school, one of her teachers steered her away from a group of troublemakers and into the direction of taking enriched classes.A number of teachers along the way saw the potential in Newton.“They gave me options,” she said, adding that they “respected my opinion.”“Those were the awesome teachers.”

Next step

Newton had her pick of colleges (including Harvard) but has opted to go to Yale, because “it’s awesome.”

She paid the campus a visit and thought  “this place is amazing, and I have to come here.”

And so she will. But not before first having another adventure this summer thanks to her planned trip to Hungary.

Why that country? She notes that most of the languages in Europe are Indo-European, while Hungarian is from the Finno-Ugric family of languages.

 “It’s one of the weirdest languages in Europe, so I just wanted to learn a non Indo-European language.”

Koebele said Newton is one of those kids who really took her high school experience “and did absolutely everything she possibly could with it.”

She really appreciated every opportunity she had and made the best of it, Koebele added.

“I really do look for her to do great things.”

Newton’s advice to kids at the high school is to “take all the hard classes.” But she also advised them not to burn themselves out.

“Do what you’re interested in and have fun.”