Tag Archives: Region 6

Teachers from China visit Tomah elementary school

image of Chinese educators in Tomah classroom

The Tomah Journal: Lemonweir Elementary School received visitors from the Orient on Monday.

Thirty-six teachers from China observed classes and asked and answered questions about the education systems in the United States and China when they visited Lemonweir as part of the Kingstar Nanjing Foreign Language School Program and XuZhou Kindergarten Teachers College, which partners with the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Nicki Pope, Lemonweir principal said the purpose of the trip is to learn best practices for education and how classes are conducted in the United States.

The educators from China visited Lemonweir because of its 45-15 school year. They were curious about everything from how classrooms are set up and designed, how teacher contracts are structured and the daily schedule, Pope said.

“It’s interesting,” she said. “It’s fun to watch the students excited to see and ask them questions. So it’s been a good experience.”

Read the complete article.

La Crosse Adapted Sports League benefits athletes and future teachers

photo of students playing field hockey

WXOW.com: For the past five years, the La Crosse Adapted Sports League (ASL) provides student athletes with disabilities the chance to represent their schools through sports. Now they have an opportunity to work on their athleticism throughout the summer for the very first time.

On Thursday, students from four area high schools practiced their field hockey skills at the league’s first Summer Developmental Skills Program.

The league is comprised of High School Students at Logan, Central, Onalaska, and Holmen that otherwise would not be able to participate.

Athletes travel to other schools, earn varsity letters and compete just like other high school teams.

For 15-year-old Central High School athlete Jackson Larson, ASL’s skills camp helps prepare him for a full year of competition.

“It’s pretty exciting learning all the skills and stuff,” Larson says.

Though Larson says he loves a lot about competing one aspect is his favorite, “Goals, goals, getting goals man,” Larson describes.

Although, with athletes playing against other schools they can’t score every game. When they lose it only motivates them to prepare for their next match-up, “Using better strategy to actually win, our coaches really help us with the strategy,” Larson explains.

With coaches like Matt Meyers helping athletes see past the losses.

“They understand that there’s a bigger life picture, ASL Coach Matt Meyers elaborates, “sometimes in life you’re going to win and sometimes in life you’re going to lose, but always keeping perspective and having a good head on your shoulder in that regard,” Meyers finishes.

Read more about the La Crosse’s Adapted Sports League.

La Crosse program aims to help teachers nurture empathy

photo of teachers working together

La Crosse Tribune: America is experiencing an empathy deficit. At a time when teens are 40 percent less empathetic than they were 30 years ago, cultivating empathy should be a high priority for parents and teachers, says Michele Borba, an educational psychologist and author.

At UW-La Crosse’s Fall for Education Conference Nov. 3-4, Borba will share how to teach students the nine essential habits of empathy — lessons from her latest book, “UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World.”

Borba, an expert in childhood development, has been featured on “Today,” “Dateline,” “The View,” “Dr. Phil,” “Dr. Oz” and “The Early Show.”

UW-L’s Fall for Education conference is a professional development opportunity for area pre-kindergarten-grade 12 teachers and administrators, as well as UW-L’s Master of Education-Professional Development graduate program students.

It is sponsored by the university’s Institute for Professional Studies in Education program.

“Education is changing so much,” says Patricia Markos, director of UW-L’s IPSE program. “We are finding out so much more. If we [educators] can be the ones to make a difference in a child’s life while in school, we should be the ones making that difference.

“A teacher might be the only person in child’s life who ever gives them a compliment or smiles at them,” Markos said.

Read the complete article.

Oshkosh students advance in National History Day Contest

image of students

Oshkosh Northwestern: Oshkosh Area School District students recently excelled at the state-level National History Day Contest.

Three students from Webster Stanley Middle School earned a trip to the national competition, which will be June 10-14 at the University of Maryland. To make the trip to nationals a reality for these students, a GoFundMe account has been created. For more information or to make a donation, visit www.gofundme.com/nationals-oasd-team.

National History Day is a yearlong program that turns students into historians as they explore local, state, national and world history. This year’s theme was “Conflict & Compromise in History.”

The program culminates in three levels of competitions — regional, state and national — in which students showcase their rich knowledge of history and present their work to a panel of judges.

Read then complete article on Webster Stanley Middle School’s team.

La Crosse’s ACE Academy celebrates completion of first home

image of student-built house

News8000.com: A new home is built in the city of La Crosse by area high school students.

Students in the School District of La Crosse’s Architecture Construction Engineering Academy finished their first complete home construction project.

They showcased their work at an open house Wednesday.

Last year’s senior class framed the building, while this year’s group of seniors built the garage, put on the exterior siding and finished the interior work.

For city leaders, partnerships like this are big for the community.

“It’s incredible. I mean, we’re so proud of them and the workmanship and the skills that they’ll take through their whole life now, whether it be for actual careers or for their own homes,” said Jason Gilman, City of La Crosse’s Director of Planning and Development.

The home is part of the district’s partnership with the City of La Crosse’s Replacement Housing Program.

View the complete coverage on New8000.com.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra helps Oshkosh music students put on “electrifying” concert

Oshkosh photo

WeAreGreenBay.com: This week, students in the choir and orchestra programs at the Oshkosh Area School District have been working to put together an “electrifying” concert.

It’s a part of the “Electrify your Strings and Choir” program that has been helping students open up through music for almost 20 years.

Mark Wood is a founding member of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and says that the program is meant to stir things up for young musicians.

“We come in to sort of traditional choir and music programs and we rattle the cages and let the kids stretch a little bit,” he said.

Read the complete article on the Oshkosh Area School District concert.

Black River Falls School District working to close special education gap

La Crosse Tribune: The Black River Falls School District was recently notified by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) that, based on state testing, their special education students were lagging behind the average Wisconsin test scores for special education students.

The district has been working to correct this issue ever since they got a warning last year from DPI.

“The state is changing how they measure special education students. Their literacy is becoming a far heavier weight than it used to be. The previous year we were told that while the new requirements were not firmly in place, they let us know that if all data continued in the way it was going that we were not on track to be making adequate progress. So we kind of had a year warning, and then this year that warning came to fruition,” Severson said.

Dr. Tammy Kielbasa was hired in July as the new director of pupil services and has been working to bring together what has been previously done and make it stronger.

“What they spent time doing last year and this year is that they are really working with the curriculum to make sure that we have a rigorous curriculum not only for our regular education students, but that our curriculum for special education students is just as rigorous as the other students,” Kielbasa said adding that they are also working on providing more professional development and additional resources to make sure the teachers have options to teach all of the students.

Read the complete article on special education improvement efforts in Black River Falls.

Foundation helps high-tech Holmen kids

Holmen foundation

La Crosse Tribune: A demonstration by students enrolled in a Holmen High School’s robotics class showed Holmen Area Foundation supporters how their donations are helping to prepare Holmen students for the future.

The foundation held a reception Oct. 26 at Drugan’s Castle Mound Supper Club and Golf Course to showcase how supporters’ contributions are used and to recognize their generosity.

Holmen High School Robotics I students Trent Davig-Huesmann and Jake Hawes demonstrated the model automated drill press they constructed from a kit the class was able to purchase through funds awarded by the foundation. Their tech ed teacher, Ryan Ziegler, teaches Robotics I and Robotic II classes. A $1,050 grant he received from the foundation made it possible for him to purchase the robotics kit for his students.

The foundation began in 1996 to support Holmen’s school district by awarding grants to support educational projects at the district’s schools.

In addition to the robotics kit, grants awarded to applicants from the school district this past year included funds for a document camera for the English as a Second Language classroom as well as support to allow high school and middle school students to participate in an agri-science and technical education career event.

The foundation also serves as a vehicle for awarding scholarships to Holmen graduates. In addition to scholarships sponsored by the board and the school district’s alumni, the foundation administers various memorial scholarships.

Read the complete article.

Viroqua High School initiative encourages students to put down their phones

Viroqua

Vernon County Broadcaster: This school year Viroqua High School students are being encouraged to put their phones or devices away during the school day and “hang out” with one another between classes, during lunch, and before and after school.

Black and orange wristbands with the phrase “Viroqua High School…Hang Up & Hang Out” were handed out to students Sept. 7 (seniors received theirs Sept. 18) as a reminder to put down the phone and socialize.

Principal Kathy Klos got the idea from her son who runs track in college. She said as she was watching a meet, she noticed the athletes did not have their phones or devices.

“I asked him, ‘Why don’t you have your phones?’ ‘What is the rule?’,” she said. “He said, ‘We don’t have a rule, we agreed as a team to hang up and hang out.’ I thought that’s kind of cool that they agreed to it as a team and were not told to do it.”

Klos said she wants to have VHS students consider putting away their phones or devices at lunch or other times of the day and talk to the person next to them.

“Dean of Students Eric Anderson and I monitor the halls, and last year we wondered why it was so quiet,” she said. “There was less interaction with one another (because students were on their phones). I am not saying it’s gone away completely.”

Read the complete article.

Sammie the Service Dog to Work at a La Crosse elementary school

Sammie

WXOW.com: A La Crosse school is one of the first in the area to have a specialized dog to assist students.

As you know, service dogs are used in everything from search and rescue to pushing the button of an elevator for someone with a disability.

At Northwoods Elementary students are quick to pay attention to the man at the front of the room and his dog. Scott Dewey is from Retrieving Freedom, a service dog training program. Many of his canines, like Max, work with veterans with PTSD.

“These dogs do nightmare interruption.  They help get you into public.  They actually sit in front of you, behind you and not guard you but they work to give you a buffer zone,” said Dewey.

Dewey also trained Sammie.

“She can help kids that are having bad days  and help mitigate melt downs and assist with transition zones,” said Dewey.

Read the complete article.