Arkansas City Public Schools recently received an award from the Confidence in Kansas Public Education Task Force.
Frances Willard Elementary was honored at a banquet earlier this month for receiving a Challenge Award for third grade Math.
The Challenge Awards are designed to recognize Kansas schools that are making a significant difference in student achievement despite facing significant challenges in school population.
Ellen Cales, third grade teacher at Frances Willard, and her partner teacher, Janie Stoy said they work hard to make many of their lessons interactive and hands on to keep all students actively engaged in learning.
They said since all students learn differently, they wanted to provide a variety of opportunities for students to learn and they differentiate instruction to meet each student’s needs.
"Receiving the Challenge Award was an honor and is something we definitely wanted to share with our students from last year," Cales said. We wanted them to have ownership over the award also because it shows how hard they worked."
Stoy agreed.
"I am very proud of the kids last year," she said. "They worked super hard and deserved recognition!"
