Major kudosto Shaw Elementary

To the editor:

The 2010-11 school year marks the fifth year for Shaw Elementary. When the school opened in the fall of 2006, one-fourth of the school population was special needs students (in our entire district, only one of our high schools had more special needs students than Shaw). Another fourth of the population were ELL students, meaning English was not their first language.

With those demographics, Karl Schleich (who is an adequate yearly progress-type of leader, with more energy than any four people ought to have) and his staff, took a deep breath and embraced all of their students with a strong determination to strive for excellence.

They quickly learned that “excellence” for some students meant giving up a walker, learning to communicate in various alternative ways, or being able to sit through a class or activity without causing a major disturbance — none of which shows up on AYP paperwork, but takes major effort to achieve.

Just to make life at Shaw a little more interesting, mid-year of year No. 1 Shaw welcomed an ELL deaf student, which has led to Shaw housing the elementary portion of the Mat-Su district’s Deaf Education program, which currently serves 12 students with more coming.

Over the past two years the school district has lifted some of the special needs load on Shaw.

Every year the staff commitment has remained constant.

This is my 31st year working with special needs students. The majority of my work settings have been positive environments. I have to say, however, that I have never seen a principal or staff step up to the plate with such commitment to the hard work, frustration, learning curve and determination that has gone into making Shaw Elementary a school that passed AYP this year.

My hat and my heart are off to Karl, his entire staff and our great parents. It is my privilege and honor to be working with these people.

Lynda Eller

Deaf Education

Shaw Elementary