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Aboite News
Serving southwest Allen County & Roanoke
INfortwayne.com
MARCH 2019
Opera strikes a chord with students First graders learn language arts skills through music
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bhernandez@kpcmedia.com
Entertainment ...................A12 Food & Drink ....................... A6 Briefs .................................... A2 BRIDGETT HERNANDEZ
Stephanie Carlson, director of development and education at Heartland Sings, (center) and vocal artist Jerome Síbulo (left) review an operatic piece with firstgraders at Washington Elementary School.
The program is designed to reinforce what the firstgraders are learning in the classroom based on state-mandated curricular standards. Stephanie Carlson, director of development and education at
Heartland Sings, helped to develop and taught a similar program in Tucson, Arizona, schools for 12 years before moving back to Fort Wayne almost three years ago. Opera is a powerful medium for storytelling, she explained.
BRIDGETT HERNANDEZ
Phyllis Davis, who retired from Southwest Allen County Schools after 27 years as the district’s HR director, visits with teachers Rachel Radloff and Kate Graham during her retirement party.
Leaving a legacy By Bridgett Hernandez bhernandez@kpcmedia.com
Phyllis Davis has hired almost every employee at Southwest Allen County Schools during her nearly three-decade tenure as the district’s human resources director. That’s more than 1,200 employees – the size of a small town. Davis, who retired from her position at the end of January, had a profound impact in her role as HR
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By Bridgett Hernandez First-graders at Washington Elementary School get a front row seat to an operatic performance twice a week without ever leaving their classrooms. The arts integration program, presented by Heartland Sings, brings performers into the classroom for interactive lessons that teach students language arts skills through music. Presented with an operatic piece, often in a foreign language, students learn to identify different parts of a story, including setting, characters and plot. The lessons also encourage students to express themselves through new vocabulary words and to summarize the story using transitional words and phrases.
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director, SACS Superintendent Philip Downs said. “Southwest Allen County Schools is a reflection of Phyllis because she hired all of us, not to mention an expectation of a standard of performance that is very high. That’s because Phyllis herself started off by holding herself to that high standard and hired based on that,” he said. Davis graduated from Delphi High School and
earned her bachelor’s degree at Ball State University. After college, she worked as a teacher and, for the next several years, she and her husband, who’s from Huntington, moved around a lot for his job in the lumber industry. The couple was glad to return to the area in the early 1980s. Davis taught a political science course at Indiana University-Purdue See LEGACY, Page 2
“Opera is literature that’s alive. It has aspects of movement, it has aspects of music and it has aspects of theater,” she said. Bringing a lesson to life During a lesson Jan. 24,
Community Calendar.............................A14 Spring Home Improvement ....................... A8
SAVINGS…
Check out the savings and coupons in this month’s Penny Saver.