This week the Carbon School District update is showcasing Bruin Point Elementary located in East Carbon, which is in a remote area of the county. The school is very unique in that they have a high poverty rate so the school does their best to offer additional services to their students.
“Our kids come to school and they don’t have a lot at home, so we really have to provide a lot of extra things for them that they wouldn’t get outside of school,” said Principal Dina Wise. “They are making great progress, our teachers work extremely hard, we have a huge community support and great things are happening at Bruin Point Elementary.” This year the school was able to build a stipend through Trust Land funding to allow teachers to meet 30 hours outside of their contract. This allowed for time to ensure vertical alignment with math standards, implement common assessments and apply learning targets for the students.
Through assistance from Sunnyside Cogeneration the school is able to integrate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) curriculum to their students. This enables the school to host activities for the students and at times invites involvement from their family members. “We had a family night where the students did Makey, Makey projects. Which are little kits that you hook to the chrome books you make electric circuits but they used playdoh and vegetables,” stated Wise. This is a required part of the core for fifth-grade students so they used their bodies to make circuits. The entire evening gave all of the students a way to engage, invent and just be creative with their ideas.
Recently, the school received a grant for Reflex Math which is a program that benefits students in becoming fluent with basic math facts like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This is a great tool for teachers to monitor and support student progress through the game-based concept. The program is in its infancy phase but school officials are working very hard to get it up and rolling for the students to enjoy.
To keep up on what is going on at Bruin Point Elementary visit their Facebook page.