Service Learning

I have been attending a couple of schools as a substitute teacher.  I love the feel of these schools and have decided to make them both places to do my service learning experiences.  I am grateful for the opportunities to know these schools before I go work there.  The two schools that I have chosen are Meadow Elementary in Lehi. Utah and Thunder Ridge Elementary in Saratoga Springs, Utah.  I have a soft spot in my heart for Meadow, as my children attended every year of all four of their years in elementary school in this school.

Meadow is a great school.  The parental support is amazing at this school.  They work in classrooms, as a strong PTA presence, and in what the school calls houses.  Meadow has a great program that helps teach great values and helps every student in the school to feel included in a group of other students.  This helps to keep bullying down and kindness up.  Meadow tries to have options to bring in more art options as after school programs.  This is very important to me.  Their test scores are usually always above average.  This is a strong middle-class school.  There is a very small amount of low income in the school, but they do very well in there testing scores.  The average of missing days of school is low.

Thunder Ridge is another great school.  The faculty and staff are beyond great.  There does not seem to be quite the re pore between staff and families.  I noticed that the classes really stay working on their own and there is a lot less school wide interaction.  They do have a great PTA which seems to help a lot.  Thunder Ridge is larger in student percentage.  I love that for after school programs they have a great theater program.  There tests scores are also above average.

I am so excited for the opportunity to do service learning.  I love being able to learn things in a classroom, but I feel like there is so much more learning that can be done by seeing what you are learning being implemented in the classroom.  I feel like the teachers in both schools will help me to learn things I could never learn by just reading a book.