The latest edition of Lakota Shout Outs include a state championship, two 'Women of Excellence', a teacher of the year, and some outstanding student-athletes signing letters of intent to play their sports at the next level.

At its Nov. 18 meeting, the Lakota Board of Education voted unanimously to reinstate transportation services for freshman students, effective for the 2020-21 school year for students living outside of neighborhoods with walking paths or sidewalks that lead to schools.

The genesis of Lakota’s “Portrait of a Graduate” started with this simple request: “Describe the ideal Lakota graduate.” We figured that if everything WE do is designed to create a future-ready, student centered learning experience, then we should start with the end in mind.

Personalized learning does not discriminate on the basis of grade level or subject area. Case in point: Lisa Sizemore’s second grade class at Wyandot Early Childhood School.  As part of Lakota’s move toward more personalized learning, Sizemore introduced flexible playlists into her Math Workshop this year. Playlists give students a list of options from which to choose, each activity reinforcing a skill or concept they’ve learned in a different way. 

“What I love about this school is that everyone is on board that building relationships is the centerpiece of education,” said Hopewell Junior math teacher Kyle Schlensker. “It’s a goal that falls outside of curriculum and standards, but it’s key to our students’ success.”

With more than 9,000 attendees, the Ohio School Board Association’s Capital Conference is a highly anticipated event for educators across the state. One of the highlights of the three-day event is the Student Achievement Fair. Each year, 100 booths display innovative learning opportunities from schools throughout Ohio. This year, Lakota Local Schools held five of them.

The longstanding tradition behind Lakota’s annual food drive helped the district bring home a win in the second annual “Stuff the Bus” crosstown competition against neighboring school districts Middletown and Hamilton. But the real winners were all three communities that collectively brought in more than 15,000 pounds in donations for their respective relief organizations, a total determined thanks to the support of Planes Moving & Storage.

If you stop into Brittany Schafer’s fifth-grade speech therapy session, you’d be surprised at how engaged her students are – and at how much she can cover in just 30 minutes. New resources are changing the look of traditional speech therapy sessions. While Schafer still uses flash cards, worksheet exercises and games like Apples to Apples, Lakota teachers now have access to new digital resources that can transform the way they teach and the way students learn.

Now that they’ve studied some of his 400-plus political cartoons, students in Marian Weber’s American Literature class at Lakota West will likely never look at a Dr. Seuss book the same. “We’ve all read his children’s books, but I never realized there were deeper meanings beyond all the rhymes,” said West junior Sergio Negroe, noting his surprise at finding out Dr. Seuss’s first career as a controversial political cartoonist later used children’s books to subliminally apologize for his former missteps.