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APRIL 16, 2015
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Health Dept.: No Signs Of Public Meningitis Threat
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mourning Ashburn community has rallied around the family and friends of Madison Small, a popular student-athlete who died April 7 from a rare bacterial infection. Hundreds lined up to pay their respects to the 18-year-old Broad Run High School senior during a memorial service Monday night at St. Theresa’s Church. Last week, the school’s varsity softball game was canceled, but a crowd gathered around second base where Small, the team’s captain, would have played. In the halls, students wore pink in her memory, and grief counselors were made available. “We play for 24” became a rallying cry. It was the sudden nature of Small’s death that shocked most and generated worldwide media attention about the meningitis case. “Out of nowhere this impossible thing happened,” Broad Run assistant coach Jim Ziegler said. “I was in shock and had to go to the nurse because my blood pressure was all the way up. This is supposed to happen to people my age.” After enjoying Easter Sunday with her family,
A memorial to Madison Small adorns the wall of the Broad Run Spartans’ softball field dugout.
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Multi-grade Teaching: A Sought-After Model At One School
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She describes it as a school within a school. The rest of Emerick Elementary’s nearly 500 students are in traditional, grade-level classrooms, while the three PALS classrooms are situated in their own hallway so students and teachers can easily rotate. “It’s not for all students,” Haddock said, noting, for example, that some are not organized enough to move classrooms with their school supplies. “That’s what I love here is we can offer both.” Continued on Page 24
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“It takes some organization on both the teachers’ end and the students’ end,” Emerick Elementary Principal Dawn Haddock said. “But the results make it worth doing.” She first learned of the PALS concept when she moved from Pinebrook Elementary to Emerick two years ago; the school started the program 16 years ago. “The first question everyone asked when I came here was, ‘Are you going to get rid of PALS?’” she said. “I told them, ‘Why would I get rid of it? It’s working.’”
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ach spring in Purcellville, there’s a lottery that triggers parents to hold their breath and cross their fingers. It’s the drawing that decides which students will be a part of Emerick Elementary School’s PALS classes, a little-known program that has teachers and administrators eager to share its successes and duplicate it in other
Loudoun schools. PALS (Pupils Achieving Learning Successfully) is made up of three multi-grade classrooms and taught by three teachers. First-, second- and third-grade students are with only their grade-level peers for language arts, but the grades are combined for social studies, science and math. That means 9-year-olds are learning right alongside 6-year-olds, and, several times a day the students, with notebooks and pencils in hand, are rotating classrooms and teachers.
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