Megan Ritchhart is a special education teacher at the high school. On Friday Megan and other special education staff took students to the ISU extension building to participate in a program put on by Vocational Rehab Services, which is part of Iowa Works. Part of the day was to cover cooking.
She told me that the goal of special education at Knoxville is to provide students with their academic core, and then provide them the skills they need to be productive members of society able to live independently.
I asked her about the best part of her job:
I love seeing the kid’s growth. I'm very fortunate that I get to have my kids for four years from the time they're freshmen to the time they graduate…as they get older it's fun to look back at where they started and see how far they've come and all the skills that they've gained throughout their time at High School.
There’s much more in our full interview:
I went over to the extension office to see what the kids were up to and what they were learning, and I was pleased to see how much fun they were having learning by playing games.
I met Calvin Smith, who works for Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services. He told me they like working with students during the summer on pre-employment transition services.
He tells me there are programs for such services in every county of the state, and the Knoxville school staff are among the best he works with!
In our interview below, he tells me more about the program. You can hear how much fun the students are having in the background:
Our “kind” of Panthers!
The summer lunch program is underway at the Knoxville High School. Verlin Goodyk works with the summer lunch program as well as the Panther Food Shelf. It’s nice to see that some of the Knoxville cooks find employment with the program during the summer months. Verlin tells me there is a great need in every community in Marion County, and that over 400 children were served food this past Wednesday in Knoxville.
Hungry kids can’t learn, and we can be proud that the Knoxville School District and our partners step up to fill the need to feed children whose families need the help in the summer months as well as during the school year.
Food can be picked up at the high school between 11:30am to 12:30pm every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Here is our full interview:
We hope you enjoyed this edition of Panther Tales: Dr. Bob Goes Back to School. If you enjoyed it, please share and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks for reading!