TEACHERS GO TO BOSTON ON A MISSION,
Thanks to; A KIDS CHOICE FOUNDATION
It’s back to the books for Bossier Parish students. Over the summer,
though, it was teachers attending a whirlwind of classes at The Landmark School
out of Boston, Massachusetts, cramming months’ worth of knowledge into just days.
Denise Bankston, founder/Trustee of A Kid’s Choice Foundaton, paid the way for
15 Bossier educators to attend The Landmark Outreach Summer Institute. The
Outreach Summer Program offers ore than 30 seminars and graduate courses that
help educators hone their teaching skills and empower them in their classrooms.
Patricia Kimbrough, who is at Carrie Martin Elementary and Kelli Aiello, a teacher at
Legacy Elementary, attended Landmark last yea. They chose to return with this year’s
group, and paid the difference, for a week-long course that earned them three college
credits.
Also attending from Legacy were Kim Slack and Lisa Smith Ashley Grantham, Bossier
Elementary; Bonita Huggins and Laura Selsor, Curtis Elementary; Shawn Fields, Julie
Templin, Stacy Barry, MichaelAnne Behrens, Debbie Vanderpool, Leslie Hadwin and
Samantha Bailey from Meadowview Elementary; and Kelli Rehak from W.T. Lewis.
Landmark Outreach instructor Ann Larsen guided Bossier educators through a course
that deived into the characteristics of language-based learning disabilities. They also
learned how to best help students with these learning challenges achieve reading
fluency, how to take them from writing sentences to paragraphs to essays, and
how to help them develop study skills.
Bankston’s own son struggled with dyslexia and dysgraphia in school. It wasn’t until
she found The Landmark School that he experienced a breakthrough, enabling
him to not only graduate from high school but also college. Now, Bankston is on a
mission to introduce Bossier educators to the teaching methods that helped her son
excel, so other students like him can do the same.
Bossier Schools thanks Denise Bankston for being such an inspiration and benefactor,
not just to the 15 teachers who were awarded this educational opportunity, but to the
countless students who will benefit from the knowledge they gained and will pass on
for years to come.
A Kid's Choice Foundation
A Kid's Choice Foundation
