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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?