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Powder River School: A family affair
By Jenni Luckett
The students at Powder River Elementary School tease their teacher Julia Woodward by calling her “Grandma.” She prefers to think of herself as their School Mom.
Either way, though, family is a key theme at the school.
“That is my core as far as behavior management,” Woodward said, “that we all love each other and respect each other, and we support each other.”
The strategy makes sense, considering six of Woodward’s seven elementary students are, in fact, related in some way.
Powder River, 40 miles west of Casper, is home to fewer than 50 people – most members of one large, extended family. The local gas station and restaurant are currently closed, leaving just the post office and school to anchor the town together.
The children’s grandmother is the school custodian and lunch aide. Grandpa plows the snow to make sure the kids can walk or bike from home to school.
Even for the few community members who aren’t related to the students, the school is a hub. It’s where they vote and get flu shots. At Christmas, it’s where they will all gather to watch the students perform and to share in a holiday potluck.
Woodward has been part of this community for just two years. She is a retired teacher and child welfare worker from Louisiana, and when she moved to Wyoming, she decided to keep teaching.
“I came here, found this little school and decided to use my talents and go back into the classroom,” she said.
She and her husband live in the teacherage behind the school, and they have become full-fledged members of the Powder River community. They worked a booth at the annual Sheepherders’ Fair this summer, raising money for the school. They share dinner at neighbors’ homes. And, each semester after parent-teacher conferences, Woodward invites her students’ families home with her for a big dinner.
“They really have welcomed us into the family,” Woodward said of her neighbors.
In turn, Woodward works tirelessly to give Powder River’s children the best education possible.
The school provides a wealth of physical resources, including a classroom packed with computers, a gym that also serves as cafeteria and community center, a second classroom stocked with musical instruments and art supplies, a playground, a closet doubling as the library and a greenhouse.
Woodward and her new teaching assistant, Judy Centanino, provide the instruction that brings it all together. |
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“I treat (the students) no differently than in the city schools,” she said. “They have homework four nights a week. My expectations are very high, because they are very capable and I know they can achieve very high.”
At the beginning of the school year, Woodward set goals with each of her students based on growth assessments. She took what the assessments indicated the students should be able to do, then set the bar just a bit higher.
“We know you can do even better than that,” she told her students.
Likewise, students set their own goals, writing them out on bright red paper that adorns the front board of the classroom.
Kindergartner Chance hopes to pass kindergarten and “go on to fourth grade, like Zakary and Chase and Caimen.” Some of the older students hope to improve their spelling, score high on tests and get ready for middle school in a couple years.
The way the students achieve their goals is by working hard, and working independently.
Each day, Woodward gives grade-specific lessons to her students. There’s a kindergartner, a first-grader, a second-grader, three fourth-graders and a fifth-grader.
On the morning of Oct. 10, it was first-grader Torena’s turn. She and Woodward sat at a back table, going through a series of exercises in spelling, reading and writing.
Meanwhile, the other students sat at their own desks, completing assignments from their previous lessons. Fourth-graders Caimen and Zakary each completed worksheets testing their understanding of a book and writing their own stories. Chance wrote his letters in an alphabet coloring book then shaped his letters with foam.
The children do well on their own. When Caimen reaches the last page of his assignments with 25 minutes of work time left, he chooses to quietly take a break. When Chance is interrupted during his letter-writing exercises, he insists that he just needs to finish up one more page.
Still, the arrangement is tricky, Woodward said.
Centanino’s presence – and experience as a teaching assistant at Red Creek for several years – is crucial. She is able to work directly with Chance on letters and numbers. She teaches Wyoming history, which is a fourth-grade standard but will be a theme for all students this year due to the prevalence of fourth-graders in the class. She also teaches science part of the year.
But even then, Woodward believes five grade levels is a strain on any teacher, especially as she’s also implementing the district’s essential curriculum and a new math curriculum this year.
She’s always looking for ways to improve instruction at the little school.
“I’m working with our principal to see how we can still have the high quality learning I feel the children should have, even with the number of grade levels we have,” she said.
That, too, comes back to family.
“I have grandchildren I want taught. And I want them to be loved and nurtured,” she said. “So that’s what I do for these kids.”
A version of this story also appeared in the Casper Journal as part of the district’s new partnership with the newspaper. Help us get your school news out to the community,too! E-mail the communication team with upcoming events, student and staff awards or innovative ideas you’re putting into action!
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