Jackson elementary school takes new tack with student clubs

North Elementary School in the Jackson School District has taken a different approach with some of its extracurricular activities.

Fourth-grader Ainsley McClard has been leading classmates in the school’s Lego Mindstorm program, a before-school introductory robotics program with Legos.

Ainsley can get to school early because her father is the principal and set up the blocks in the principal’s office for the 10 other students in the program who participate Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

She learned to put together the Lego Mindstorm blocks and program the robots created from the Lego blocks over Christmas break.

“We’re a little school. We can run clubs, but not many clubs,” principal Lance McClard said. “Our teachers are doing so much. Can we have students run some of these clubs?”

Ainsley is one of four students who will give a presentation about STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) and Mindstorm clubs to the Jackson School Board at 7 p.m. today at 614 E. Adams St.

Lance McClard said Mindstorm has taught students perseverance, teamwork and collaboration.

Aiding her peers, Ainsley is much less likely to tell fellow students how to do something, but instead helps students try to solve the problem on their own, McClard said.

McClard said he has seen the other students helping one another more often.

If the students have enough time at the end of the year, they plan to teach fifth-graders to use Mindstorm.

“I’m not in charge. I’m here to help you if you have a question,” Lance McClard said of his daughter’s approach. “The only way to get better is to try.”

Three faculty instructors, Danielle Nagel, Elizabeth Seaton and Jacob James, are in charge of STEAM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The 15-student program has created catapults and built items using Little Bits — programmable and connectible battery powered circuits — in other semesters.

“In education, there’s a big push to get people into engineering and coding jobs that are going unfilled,” McClard said.

With STEAM, McClard said instructors have allowed students with past disciplinary issues into the club.

As a result, McClard said he has seen those students far less often in his office.

“I picture a couple of cases,” McClard said. “They were going to make friends one way or the other, and one way was to be a class clown. Now they have an outlet.”

North Elementary also expanded its student leadership council to include about 50 students.

Previously, the school’s leadership council only included a small number of students.

“Why are we turning kids away who want to be involved?” McClard said.

McClard said students have volunteered for certain projects, such as one student who made an anti-bullying poster.

“They’re starting to take on different issues that we were trying to take on ourselves,” he said.

bkleine@semissourian.com

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