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HomeMy WebLinkAboutC.054.93009_0799JAN 2 4 05 780 children. Most of the girls live with their mothers and their mothers were teen mothers also. Alan Hutchens is Guidance Counselor and Soccer Coach at South Iredell. He said there are a lot of situations that keep children from reaching their potentials. He gave real situations from Shepherds School. He sees children because their parents are separated and getting divorced, or someone in the family has died. It is noticeable how that increases after Christmas, Hutchen said. He sees children who are unable to control their temper, anger difficulties, violent. There are children who are being or have been abused. There are underachievers because of low self-esteem, low self-concept, and cannot cope with the rest of the classroom. There are loners, people who find it very difficult to socialize. There are also school phobics. Some of the children require long- time support; others take only two or three weeks until they are back in the mainstream classes. The counseling helps the teacher because they work directly with the difficult children. The counselor can come into the classroom and see the students interact with the other children. They can consult with the parents or with outside agencies if necessary. They can work with small groups of children. A lot of parents call the school for help. There is a great increase in the number of single -parent families. A lot of the parents call on the schools to help with the children. They try to encourage parents to come in for review meetings with the children. These are on- going meetings. Mr. Hutchens believes that early detection is essential and that prevention is better than cure. Jill Blackwelder is a guidance counselor in high school. She said a lot of the students come to school dealing with home tragedies that make it difficult for them to cope with school work, etc. She deals with students who have been raped, some have problems with drugs and alcohol. She gave a recent experience of dealing with a panic attack. Ms. Blackwelder said these students are not teachable when they are dealing with tragedies like this. It is not fair to the teachers to expect them to teach these children. Some of the programs they offer to help these students are support groups. Last year they had 16 different groups at South Iredell High School, consisting of sexual abuse victims to groups of high anxiety level. Pat Turner teaches an Advanced Placement English class at West Iredell. This program is for the highly motivated, college bound students. Some of the students spend six hours a day doing homework. They pursue college level studies in high school and possibly receive college credits. over 1000 college and universities in the nation offer Advanced Placement or college credits to students who score at a certain level on the AP tests given in high school. The examinations are very tough. The courses are very rigorous and teachers have special training to teach these courses. Dr. Register said the school system is serving the changing needs of the students, which are varied and diverse. Chairman Haire thanked the school board and staff for the informative meeting. Commissioner Johnson said he thought they had touched on the kids at both ends of the spectrum. He inquired about the average students who are bright but are not going to college. How about the vocational skills so that they will be able to get into the job market?