GALION — Galion Primary School Preschool teachers, Lindy Edgell, Lindsey Gribble and Suzanne Woodmansee gave a presentation on different programs in the primary school to the Galion Board of Education on Tuesday evening.
The programs, positive behavioral interventions and supports, Leader in Me, and the Step by Step literacy program.
For the PBIS program, an incentive program, in the classroom there is a chart with different sections marked on them for good and bad behavior, aside from the spot where each child initially starts, and depending on the behavior, the child’s pin with their name on it can be moved up or down throughout the day. If a child misbehaves, they do have the ability to redeem themselves with good behavior and move back up on the chart.
There are monthly incentives, so if a child has good behavior for each month, they may have planned fun days, like this Thursday, students are going to have an outdoor game day.
The teachers said one of the favorite incentive days for the students is a glow party where school staff members turn off all the lights in the gym, give the kids glow sticks, turn on music and the kids get to have a dance party.
Last year the school earned a PBIS silver award, which the teachers said is very good being that few schools in the area get rated that high. They plan to go for gold this year.
For Leader in Me in the preschool, for the first eight days of school, they read one book each day on the positive habits and behaviors highlighted in the LIM program, and they have activities that go along with them.
There are take-home activities for the parents to do with their kids to make sure the parents understand what the school is trying to do and trying to enforce the positive behaviors at home and hoping to make the kids leaders. Once they do the activity, the parents must sign off on it and then the kids get to put their name on a piece of paper so everyone can see the kids who are being good leaders.
In Step by Step, it looks at literacy as a whole, but they start off by teaching the kids the letters. As a part of teaching the kids the letters, they do “taste test Thursday” and the kids get to try a food that starts with that week’s letter and then they get to put a sticker on that letter’s chart as to whether or not they liked the food. The students also have tracing pages to work on fine motor skills, letter development, and letter identification.
Last week’s letter was “E,” so the kids got to try eggplant. The teachers serve foods like cookies and donuts, but also want to expose the children to foods that they may have never had before.
According to their data, 46 percent of students who left Galion’s preschool and went on to kindergarten are on target with where they need to be, versus the 3 percent going into kindergarten who were not in the preschool program.
Galion first grade student Elaina Elder and second grade student Dominic Blue were recognized by their teachers at the meeting for being exemplary students in the classroom, and they were given a certificate by the board to commemorate this accomplishment.
The board accepted a $9,771 donation from the Galion Gridiron Club for a storage building placed near the north endzone of Unckrich Stadium, and $2,000 donation from the Galion Gridiron Club and a $1,500 donation from the Galion Football Parents, both for an endzone camera.