Daleville benefits from MSLE program

Janice Smith, a special services teacher at A.M. Windham Elementary School, briefed the Daleville Board of Education about her Multisensory Structured Language Education (MSLE) training during a Feb. 19 meeting.

Smith is among 40 teachers from across the state receiving the training, which focuses on educating students who suffer from dyslexia.

“When most of us think dyslexia we think of students who reverse letters and numbers, but that’s not what (it) is,” Smith said. “It’s a specific learning disability that’s neurological in origin. Usually these students have trouble with reading and written language.”

Over the course of the rigorous program, which is facilitated by Shelton College in Dallas, Tex., Smith will receive 500 training hours and will have filmed herself working with students more than 15 times.

Though she is still not finished, Smith said the training has been beneficial to her students.

“One of my second-year students has continuously progressed above her target goals, and her grades have improved drastically,” Smith said. “This training has provided me an opportunity to meet the needs of these students and share this information with other teachers.”

Smith said the information isn’t only beneficial to special needs students.

She plans to host a condensed training course for special needs teachers and reading coaches within the Daleville City Schools system.

“I have learned so much, and I really think these recourses will have an impact on other teachers and therefore on other students as well,” Smith said. “More students than we realize have reading problems, and if you can’t read where you need to, it affects everything in your life.”

Smith’s MSLE training has been sponsored partially by the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) and partially by the Daleville Board of Education.

In other news, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Diane Flournoy spoke about ACT Aspire; the assessment test students in grades 3-8 will take for the first time this April.

“We’ve been doing extensive training with the state throughout the year,” Flournoy said. “It’s going to be really interesting to see how we work our way through this new assessment, but we will work our way through it.”

Students in the third, fourth, sixth and eighth grades will take the reading and math assessments this year.

Students in fifth and seventh grades will take the reading, math and science assessments.

In other business, Superintendent Andrew Kelley said despite a lack of grant funding, the system is committed to offering its Summer Feeding Program again this year.

“It’s been very popular the last few years, but we didn’t receive those funds from grants this year,” Kelley said. “Right now it’s still up in the air, but locally we’re committed to having that program again this year.”

The summer feeding program offers lunches to every child under the age of 18 during the months school is not in session and is typically funded through grants from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In the past, Daleville’s A.C.T.I.O.N. program has also helped fund some of the labor costs associated with the program, which Flournoy said typically cost around $5,000.

In other business, the board got its first look at a tentative school calendar for the 2014-2015 school year, but tabled a decision on the calendar until its March meeting.

Important dates on the tentative calendar:

• First day for teachers - Aug. 4
• First day for students - Aug. 11
• Thanksgiving Holidays – Nov. 26-28
• Christmas Break – Dec. 22 – Jan. 6
• First day for teachers – Jan. 5
• First day for students – Jan. 6
• Spring Break – March 30 – April 3
• End of 4^th session – May 21
• Graduation – May 22

The Daleville Board of Education will meet again at 4:30 p.m., March 29, at the system’s central office.