Carli DiNardo is a sophomore at Mayfield High School. She was recognized by the Mayfield Board for her positive influence on her classmates.

DiNardo was recently named as Pizza Roma’s student of the month for her habit of selflessness and her hard work ethic when noticed by her math teacher when DiNardo created her own practice test to help out a classmate. “She needed my help, and I was good at math and I had already been guiding her throughout the year so far,” DiNardo said.

DiNardo’s idea to create the practice test to help Anna Wallace was inspired by her math teacher Kristen Surdy. DiNardo said, “If I finish first and fast, then I can help these other students,” DiNardo said. “Mrs. Surdy is a really good role model and especially our 8th period class, it’s not the best behaved, so I also like to help her out by assisting some of the other students.”

Wallace experienced great improvement. “On my first test, I got a total of 6 points, and that was for [writing] my name,” Wallace said, “After Carli helped me the first time, my grade went from a 69% to a 76%.”

DiNardo wanted to make it as easy for Wallace to study as possible. “I was looking at the the past papers we’ve had,” she said, “and it’s hard to study off of worksheets that have stuff written on them, so I just used the same problems and equations and put them on a whole new sheet.” “But I just decided to go a little above and beyond in order to make the test best fit to what Anna needed help with.”

Wallace was not the only one who benefitted from DiNardo’s assistance. “I made the study guide because I knew it would help her, but it also helped me with studying for finals,” DiNardo said. “The main goal was to make sure Anna was getting the practice she needed, but I definitely benefitted from it too.”

Wallace was so impressed with her custom-made practice test. DiNardo said, “Anna ended up showing it to Mrs. Surdy, and then Mrs. Surdy showed her whole department,” she said. “Because the whole department knew about it, that’s how I was nominated.”

Surdy was impressed. “Carli is a natural leader in the classroom,” Surdy said. Also stated by Wallace, “Carli is a wonderful tutor, she took her own time out just to help me,” Wallace said.

DiNardo’s accomplishment was actually unintentional. “I wasn’t really trying to become student of the month, I wasn’t trying to show all the teachers that I’m the best student,” DiNardo said. “I was just helping Anna, and it turned into this whole thing, just from me trying to help a friend.”

[When DiNardo provided some of her career options] “And when I was a little kid I always wanted to be a teacher, so maybe even child psychology to help kids deal with school and the bullies,” DiNardo said. “I’ve just been the type of person to help people so I think those would be really good career options for me.”

DiNardo plans to continue helping her classmates and make even more practice tests, “Well I’ve always wanted to go into psychology because I love helping people on a personal level, “ she said. “I especially like helping them find what they can do to fix their problems.”