Special area classes are often one of the most enjoyable times in a student’s day.  PE, music, art, computer lab and library time appeal to student interests and give them a chance to share their abilities in a different setting.  For this reason, this time is an invaluable opportunity to reach students academically in areas that they may share a special interest or have special skills in.  WC is blessed to have special area teachers that realize this and harness students’ interests while connecting their activities to the learning that is taking place in the classroom.

There are several ways that special area teachers connect classroom learning to their curriculum.  Mrs. Bailey consciously connects her art lessons to teaching math concepts such as geometric shapes and symmetry.  She also has students routinely complete constructed response questions about their artwork.  Coach Brown connects math concepts in her lessons through calculating heart rates during exercises and working math problems during games.  Mrs. Chatman also connects math concepts with musical notes and beats while she is connecting songs and musical genres to social studies units and literature.  Mrs. Roth has created a blog for students to create book reviews for their library books.  During her library lessons, Mrs. Roth also teaches and reinforces classroom reading strategies.  Mrs. Bougher has partnered with Mrs. Roth to have students type their book reviews for the blog  and to publish other works on the web in the computer lab.

These activities are just the tip of our special area teachers’ instructional iceberg.  By connecting classroom learning to student interests in special area classrooms, we know students will be more successful in learning and retaining information.  This is evidenced by WC’s significant rise in student achievement on the MAP test this last year.  Thank you to our special area teachers for your part in this success and for all of your hard work.  Teachers like you are why they are called “special” classes. 

Have a great weekend and continue to Reach for the Stars.  –Shane Medlin, Principal

The Special Education Administrative staff have just returned from a very thought-provoking conference at TanTarA.  The Missouri chapter of the Council for Administrators of Special Education sponsor an annual conference to address current and upcoming issues in special education.  Much of the focus of this year’s conference was on the topic of Response to Intervention (RTI).  This three-tiered model involves identifying appropriate scientifically-based interventions needed by at risk learners, the methodical implementation of those interventions, and rigorous record-keeping to determine if progress is being made. 

We were excited to acquire more information about RTI because it is a topic that our department has been exploring in conjunction with the elementary and intermediate administrators for some time now.  We have had two administrative team meetings to brainstorm, several members of our staff attended an RTI informational meeting put on by the Carthage School District, in addition to our recent conference in which we were able to attend multiple break-out sessions discussing different components to this new process.  Our next step is to bring in an RTI trainer to work with our district CARE teams.  It is very exciting to be on the cutting edge of a process that will help us to meet the needs of our ever-growing at risk and special needs population.  We would like to thank those administrators for taking such initiative to explore this new approach with us, and we look forward to seeing how this approach will impact student learning in our district.