Educators report on Wyoming Autism Summit

Educators from Hot Springs County School District #1 reported to the school board last week regarding their attendance at the first Wyoming Autism Summit held in Jackson.

Autism is the largest growing population of Special Education (SPED) in schools across the state, and right here in Hot Springs County, we have autistic students in all three schools.

Autism covers a wide range of issues in both children and adults and they discussed a number of types of autism within the spectrum and how to recognize them.

Cory Sova, SPED educator at the high school, said the disorder has a big impact on students and classrooms in the district, but everything they learned at the summit is immediately applicable in the classroom.

“All these kids have a destiny and this summit makes you realize there is hope,” he said.

Principal Breez Daniels reported she has been meeting with each of the core subject teachers, holding some workshops regarding the high school curriculum.

According to Daniels, the workshops have been an all-day, intensive look at what needs to be focused on in math, English and science.

“Now that we know what we need to focus on we need to figure out how to grade it,” Daniels said. “How can we adjust the grading to let kids know they’re meeting the skill-set or not? It may not be a traditional kind of grading system.”

Daniels added they also discussed intervention practices during the workshops in an attempt to come up with the best way to lead kids back onto the right path.

The Wyoming Department of Education issued a 12-question survey on their website and Daniels said they used the survey, along with a couple of HSCSD specific questions, in October.

The survey will create a baseline and the same survey will be given again either at the end of the school year or at the beginning of the 2018-19 year to see if anything has changed.

Per their own assessment, students feel there is a high stress level in school and are also disappointed in the amount of communication, something Daniels said she finds worrisome.

An interesting part of the survey showed the students actually like advisory time and intervention.