Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Middle School Move to Emerald

Middle School Move



Kendall Yeager was nine when she faced the prospect of becoming a sixth grader. She had nearly finished the fifth grade curriculum during her fourth grade year at Soda Creek Elementary School. She felt isolated from her classmates and bored. “It got to the point where I wasn’t interested in the work because I didn’t feel challenged,” she said.

The school wanted her to skip a grade. While this may have solved the academic problem, she would have been two years younger than her peers (she had started kindergarten early). Her parents looked at other options and settled on Emerald Mountain School (then Lowell Whitman Primary School), where Kendall enrolled in fifth grade.

The smaller classes and individual attention suited Kendall’s learning style. She was engaged in the work and challenged, particularly in Strings and Spanish. She’d only had a little classroom Spanish and had never played an instrument, but the flexible yet focused environment helped Kendall learn at her own pace. She enjoyed the work, especially in Spanish. “The teachers do a really good job teaching at the level where you are at - not pushing you or holding you back.”

While the academics challenged Kendall, the outdoor education pushed her completely out of her comfort zone. “It’s not super common for a 10-year-old to go camping in Moab without her parents,” she said. Kendall gained new skills and learned the importance of personal responsibility during the trips. The sense of accomplishment she gained was invaluable to her overall experience at the school, which fostered her independence and confidence as an adult.

She graduated from the middle school in 2007 and attended Steamboat Springs High School. Not long after receiving her diploma, she got a job working full time as an executive assistant at the Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association while also pursuing a degree in business administration at Colorado Mountain College. She received her Bachelor of Science degree last year and has been promoted to Development Coordinator at the VNA, handling donor relations and communications, grants management and grant writing.


She’s not sure she would have had the drive to accomplish this — she is now 22 — without the skills she developed at LWPS/Emerald. “It definitely shaped my life and the direction that I’ve gone.” 

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