Foundations Health and Wellness Foster Care

On WRCO's morning show, we are talking to Colin Drew's, um, and we're talking about, uh, the, uh, health and wellness foundations, uh, of which he is a part of.

And it has a tight original center coming up tonight in our area.

Good morning, Colin.

Good morning.

Tell us a little bit about what you do and what you're all about.

Yeah, so I work for a nonprofit foster care organization called Foundations Health and Holiness.

We are based out of Green Bay, Wisconsin, but we have regions throughout Wisconsin.

We have six offices for foster care statewide, and we are in the process of looking to open up an office in the lacrosse driftless region area.

Um, and we are, yeah, just looking for, for amazing foster homes who want to, um, help, um, with, with kiddos who are, are needing good homes.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Uh, you know, what the expectations are for somebody who might be considering that.

Yeah, definitely.

So we are, um, we're, we're as an organization, we, we really do our, we really strive to.

do our best to find families who are really in it, their hearts are in it, they're motivated, they're just willing to want to help.

And really what we do is we're looking for families who, whether they're empty nesters, whether they have children already or still in the home, whether they've never had children before, we're looking for families who are just willing to open up their hearts in their homes.

in the process to become a foster parent generally starts with a phone call with me.

And I generally answer questions and kind of talk through the process about what that looks like.

And generally then are coming out to the home to meet with the family and just again, answer more questions.

There is a lot of information when it comes to fostering, but we want to do our best to make sure our families feel supported and feel like they have all the resources necessary to be able to provide the best support necessary for these children.

Is there a most common question that perspective family asks of you, Colin?

Yeah, it's really, I mean, the biggest question is, do you think I can do this?

You know, I, that gets asked quite often because I think a lot of times what people will think about when they think about foster care is they, they, there's that stigma attached to it, right?

These are, these are kids who are maybe

You know, they get the label as troubled kids or challenging kids or delinquent kids where at the end of the day, these are kiddos who are good kids who've been dealt a really bad hand.

And these kids are just looking for somebody who will show up and will offer them some advice or some encouragement or just ask them really how their school day was.

So I think a lot of families, um, you know, their hesitation is, you know, these, these children biologically aren't mine or how is this going to work or how is this going to look?

And what I tell families is be open minded and be yourself and understand that these kids, they don't need a perfect parent.

They just need somebody who's willing to give them an opportunity and just, just ask how they're doing.

And what ages are we talking about, Colin?

Yeah, so we see children really all ages.

I say zero to 18.

However, we don't see real, real, real young children coming in by themselves.

We'll usually see like large sibling groups.

So we'll see like two, three, four or five kiddos at a time who are brothers and sisters who may need a home.

Obviously, that's a group of siblings that would only work in certain homes due to the amount of kiddos.

Um, but will you see them kids all the way up to age 18?

Um, and really everything in between, um, from all over the state, uh, we work with all 72 counties and six out of the 11 tribes.

So we get referrals from, from all over.

Um, and unfortunately there's, there's so many kiddos and we just don't have enough homes to place these children in.

Is this the kind of thing where you might be getting a call in the middle of the night to, to come and take care of a student or how does that work?

Yeah, great question.

So generally not in the middle of the night.

We're fortunate being the agency, we're the placing agency.

So we're the ones that are taking placements and providing services for these kiddos.

So what happens is a county will reach out to us anytime, any day, but usually it is during the workday because it's a county

County social worker reaching out to our organization saying, hey, we have this six-year-old kiddo who needs a home.

These are some of the things that this kiddo might present with.

And then we will potentially find them a home that would work for them.

And then we're there to help support our families and do whatever we can to make sure that they feel supported.

But yeah, we see kids from all different ages, all different walks of life.

And we do our best to match these kiddos with our homes.

We get to know our families really well during the process.

So we get to know their personalities.

We get to know what their home structure and home environment is like.

But then we also have a pretty good understanding of what will work in their homes.

So then once we start getting referrals from the counties that we work with, we will then have a good understanding of, hey, this child might be a good match for this home.

I'm gonna send it their way and let them read some information.

talk with their family and just see if this would be a good fit.

And if that sounds like it would be a good fit, we then proceed to set up home calls with county social workers, talk a little bit more in-depth about that kiddo, and then we will really try to push, if everybody is on board, we'll try to push to have that child come to one of our foster homes for the weekend, just so the child can kind of get a feel of what it would be like, and also the family can get a feeling of what it would be like.

Because at the end of the day, we want to make the best placement possible.

We don't want children to just bounce in and out of foster homes.

That's not healthy for anybody.

And we just want to make sure that when we are making placements that we're making the best possible placement, we can.

But however, we also know that there are hiccups.

We also know that there can be challenges that maybe weren't presented early on.

But then we are there to help support that, walk you through that.

Unfortunately, sometimes it just doesn't work.

And we do let the counties know that it's not working.

But we're really good about supporting our families, being available 24-7.

So if there's ever a situation, night, day, weekend, anything, they're willing, they can give us a call.

But as far as nighttime placements, that generally doesn't happen because we're getting placements from the county.

So we're not gonna be calling you at midnight to say, hey, are you willing to take this child?

You might be calling up at midnight because maybe the child you have in your home is struggling to get some sleep or it's having nightmares and you just don't know what to do.

Call us and we'll talk you through some of that stuff.

Okay, well that's good to know.

Foster care is more or less interim care then?

Or how long do these these kiddos stay at these particular homes?

Yeah, we generally will see kids.

I always tell families like

generally nine to 13 months, and that kind of is a big range.

We generally will see kids minimum of six months, but we've seen kids up to two, three, four years at times.

We do have kids that get adopted through foster care, however, we never know when that potentially could happen.

A lot of these children come into foster care with parental rights still attached,

However, sometimes what happens is these kids are brought into care, brought into foster care because mom or dad just aren't doing what maybe they need to be doing on their end.

And so, you know, they'll be given some opportunities and some chances to do what they can to get their kiddos back.

But unfortunately, sometimes it just doesn't work.

And then that child or children might need to be potentially adopted.

And if they're in one of our foster homes and that adoption conversation starts happening,

A lot of times our foster home is approached to see if they're willing or they're open to taking in those kiddos on a longer term basis.

But again, we just never know when that's gonna happen.

But I generally say nine to 12 months, but we generally also are testing the loop about what the progress is, what that's gonna look like.

So we keep our foster families informed as well.

But usually nine to 13 months, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, it just really depends.

It's a case by case basis.

Well, Colin, you'll be speaking tonight in the basement of the Park Street Christian Church at 6 30.

And what are some of the things that that you presented your program or you're hoping to see and maybe have people ask you about?

Yeah, I would just really, yeah, I'm just, I love coming into new areas and just educating individuals about the need for foster care, whether it's something that they're willing or thought about doing or the something that they maybe have had a friend or family member talk about.

I'm just all about educating the community and spreading the awareness about foster care.

I know not everybody can be foster parents or just, you know, whether they're busy or life situations.

So I understand that.

And it is a big commitment and a big responsibility.

But at the end of the day, these are amazing kiddos that just need somebody to give them a chance.

And so I will talk about just educating the community about foster care.

I'll share some statistics for the Richland Center and surrounding community areas.

And I'll just talk about how families maybe who aren't wanting to foster or who are wanting to foster, how they can give back and what that can kind of look like.

How can people contact you, Colin?

Yeah, definitely.

My best number to reach me.

I do have a Green Bay local number.

It's 920-606-1205.

Again, 920-606-1205.

I usually will always be available by phone, or you can email me at cdrews at we are

Foundationswithanus.org.

See Drew that we are Foundations.org.

Wonderful.

Good to talk to you and keep up the good work.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate

it.

Colin Drew's joining us, Foundations Health and Wellness Foster Care Recruiting Manager.

He'll be in Richland Center tonight again at 630, the basement of the Park Street Christian Church.

you

It is back to school week here on The Morning Show and at Eagle School as well.

We welcome along staff members Jeff Seaborg, the resource coordinator, Mike Breninger, senior administrator, and Kelly Copernall, who is with Student Services and in the office at Eagle School.

Mike, I understand you're already back to school.

School started on Monday, so this is already the fourth day of school for us.

All the cobwebs are getting knocked out.

Of course, every school the first week is

the students getting acclimated, you know, figuring out where their classes are, if they want to be in the classes they're in.

So we're still in that adjustment time, but next week is full go.

So yes, we are in school already.

We're a little bit early for some schools, but depending upon where schools are in the U.S., they out in the Eastern U.S., they've already, almost all the schools have already started.

Uh, we tend to get out a little bit earlier than most of the schools do.

So we have to start a little earlier in order to do that because we have the same day, day, number or hours, actually, number requirement as the public schools or other private schools,

public schools and private schools in the state.

Many of them they have to, because of state law, have to wait till September, but evidently you're not under that jurisdiction.

Well, okay.

So you're right.

The public schools have a little more rigidity in terms of what they're supposed to start after labor day unless.

like this year Labor Day is quite late, so they're actually starting before Labor Day.

The private schools have a little more flexibility when they start, but even the public schools can request an exemption from starting after Labor Day, and they pretty much always get their exemption.

So we just, we don't pay that much attention to Labor Day, although there are families that tend to schedule their vacations very late in the summer.

And so they let us know, oh,

We didn't realize school was starting on August 24th.

We're going to have to miss the first couple of days of school because we're at the Grand Canyon.

So there, there does need to be a little bit of mental adjustment that summer ends a little before Labor Day comes.

Indeed.

You wanted to talk about the choice program, I think, to kick it off here today,

Mike.

Sure.

So parental choice has been in Wisconsin for a number of years here.

We've been on the parental choice program at Eagle.

This is our second year.

So what is parental choice?

That just means that the parents are making the choice about where to send their kids and that a voucher, a money voucher from the state goes with the parents and the child to that school.

So in order for a school to receive those vouchers, they have to have, well, there's similar requirements to the public school.

Some requirements are even more stringent than the public school.

We decided we would do that, especially for lower income families benefit from that the most.

So before two years ago, everybody had to pay tuition.

All the families did.

It was a hardship for lower income families.

This allows a family lower to moderate income to send their children to Eagle.

And if they qualify, then they don't have to pay any tuition at all.

So, you know, it's a great benefit for families that want to send their kids.

They don't have to pay tuition out of pocket.

It comes from the state funds.

It

really

is a

blessing for many families, especially if you've been homeschooling, if you've been homeschooling.

And you needed to, you know, have a little bit of a break.

Maybe the academic rigors of homeschooling for you, you know, maybe you didn't take trigonometry or calculus.

And now as a young mom or a dad, you know, trying to teach these skillsets to your younger children can be a challenge.

I know it was for me, my children homeschooled for a while.

It was for my wife too.

I never liked math.

Um, wasn't interested in it at all.

And so when it came time to do that, uh, it was a challenge, but being able to send my children to Eagle school, which, uh, I was fortunate to be able to do.

And then in years later, I went out to teach and to be a principal there and a number of things.

Um, having that flexibility of getting your children into a, uh, you know, an environment where, uh,

they can really be fostered and encouraged and nourished like we do at Eagle School International is really a blessing.

You've been there as mentioned in other roles, resource coordinator.

What is that job involved, Jeff?

Well, before I go on to the resource coordinator, I would like to finish up on the school choice and that September 1st through September 18th is the 14th, I'm sorry, is the closing window for registration.

And I have a number for people to contact.

We have a great gal in the office.

She can answer anything.

I mean, I almost sometimes think she knows the winning lottery numbers.

You ask her something, she has got the answer.

She might really get busy here.

Exactly.

No, please, please don't call.

Time for dough.

Yes.

The number to call is 608-647-6742.

and she can assist you in helping determining your eligibility and registration.

It's a very easy process and she can walk you through that.

But as far as get back to resource coordinator, a school needs many things.

Many of them revolve around just having the support and the financial resources to do so.

So one of the things that I'm looking forward to doing is to try and

identify where those sources of funds may be found.

They're out there.

You just need to chase them.

We also are seeking international students to come in.

Mike mentioned the international student program.

As important as the international students are to our program, having them attend our school is

extremely beneficial for our domestic students and for the families that host them.

They learn a lot from us about what it's like to live and function and the cultural activities here in the United States, but it gives us an opportunity to learn about what they're doing and they're seeing.

I mean, we've had students from Spain, Italy, France, South Korea, Thailand, China, Germany, Costa Rica, Brazil, Panama, and many, many others.

And we just, we love the opportunity to do that.

And as important as the students are, so are our host families.

If you've ever hosted an international student, it's a delight, okay?

I haven't done it myself, but the families that I've talked to have hosted international students, they just, they get a bang out of it.

Kelly here sitting next to me, she can tell you a little bit about the joys of hosting international students because she seems to be a chronic habitual

host family.

I mean, if it's not a bad thing, we love that Kelly does this for us.

Yeah, I'm thinking that's true, Kelly.

I think once you get started, it's hard to stop because it's a delight, isn't it?

It is.

And I do have to say, since Mike is in our presence, I think he has hosted like 45 or 50 students.

So I'm late to the game.

But I have somehow just collected them sometimes at my house.

If there's like,

like a family said that they could and then are unable that I'm like well just bring them on and there's room for more and room is a relative term so um anyway yeah uh last year I had three the year before I had three so this year I just have one and I feel like

This is a dream, you know, but it's, we have a sweet girl from Spain, her name is Sarah.

She loves to watch little cheesy romance hallmark movies with me already, so it's been great.

She loves Scott's cooking and we're just, you know, she's an added sibling to the mix.

And so that's what most families are all about.

We show them like, you know, the culture of

What it's like to be raised in the United States in the Midwest in particular but it also is like is shining the light of Jesus in their lives and some of them Have not ever heard the gospel some of them I have kind of heard it, you know through church back home or whatever but just being a living example of trying to

emulate Jesus for them is really a joy for me because I don't have the ability to go to Spain to be a missionary but I get to tell Sarah about Jesus here and so that's my joy really.

I like the cultural exchange part of it.

It adds kind of spice to life but for me I think because I have such a mother's heart I like to share.

that part with her to

wonder sometimes who learns more who benefits more the student or the the hosts right

and kelly mentions the mother's heart i i i always uh... whenever i've been here i like to tell a little story about kelly not to embarrass her but when our students come into the office and if they have meds you know that we hold for them you know all our staff are trained on how to you know to administer the meds and chart them and everything else but we'll have a student or when they come in you know uh...

He spends the meds, but I've done it, but Kelly does it almost all the time.

She'll put her hand on her shoulder, on her head, and she prays for them.

It's not just about the medicine.

It's about speaking the word of Jesus and the love of Jesus into their life as they take this medicine.

And so it's something that you don't often get an opportunity to do in an academic setting.

But we love that opportunity when we get to do that for our students.

Mike, is it 45 or more?

You know what, I lost track after 40.

I'm coming up on 50 here.

Part of it is they're flowing in and out.

We have a little different situation at Eagle than most of the public schools have international students.

There's a runner called J1 Culture of Exchange students.

They come for one year.

We have F1 educational students.

So many times they're

multiple years, two, three, I've had students live with me for four years.

I had a Korean girl that was with me for four years.

She was like my daughter, you know, couldn't really get away from me.

So, so, uh, yeah, we, we've.

One of the things we do is we want the kids the international kids to join into the family So we always asked our own children, which I don't have any left at home right now But our own children and we would say hey, we're thinking about taking two or three internationals.

Are you on board?

Yes, yes, we want to do that again bring them on You know there was never a time where they said no we don't want any more international students

because they had fun.

They had fun getting to know them, getting to know their culture.

Sometimes they kind of made fun of each other with language idioms and so forth.

So it's been a very enriching experience.

All my children in my home have been exposed to the world through having international students from all over the world come.

And many of them have traveled to other countries because they maintain the friendships after the kids go back.

I have two children that married international students and one that is in a long term

three year romance with us boy from Spain.

So this is like very interwoven in our family.

They do become family literally.

When you call them son-in-law or daughter-in-law then that's pretty much family.

My, yeah, you are, speaking the truth there.

Another thing we wanted to hit was the electronic free environment.

I think we've talked about that a little bit with Eagle School before.

This is not a new initiative, but something that you're pretty proud of, Mike.

Yeah, so we've been at this for several years.

I know that in many schools, the push has been electronics, no paper books anymore, no pencils, no pens, you know, have Chromebooks, tablets, cell phones,

Several years ago I started reading studies that were saying the kids are not learning as well or retaining as much when they're doing it on electronic screens.

So the first thing we did is say no cell phones in the school and now that's a big movement and there's states that are passing bands against cell phones in the school, but we've been doing that for 10 years or so, maybe more than that.

We do have Chromebooks and tablets, but we rarely use them if they have to write a paper or do some research.

They can use them.

Otherwise, we have them use paper, books, pens, paper, write things down.

The tests are on paper.

Why do we do that?

Because all the studies show that there's a greater cognitive engagement for the kids when they do that.

I don't want to get into too much of the technicalities, but there's the, the left brain is kind of the cognitive intellectual side.

The right brain is the more creative side.

And when they, when they use their hands and write on papers, it actually activates part of the right brain that would not be activated if they're just, you know, pushing buttons on the computer or the tablet or the cell phone.

So every study that I have read,

over the last 10 or 15 years have said the kids will learn more, it's longer lasting if they use paper, pencil, and so forth.

So it might seem archaic to some.

I had one guy say, you know, you need to get with the 21st century here and put the electronics in the classroom.

And I said, no, no, this is intentional because we believe and we have seen a greater cognitive engagement and critical thinking skills

are easier to develop when they can't instantly go to the computer and especially can't instantly go to AI and say, well, write me a paper on this or tell me about this.

And AI answers all the questions instead of them thinking through, well, what's the consequences if we believe this or we accept this proposition?

What's the result of this?

So I'm really big on teaching critical thinking, logic,

you know, rational thought, and it's very much easier to do that with a little older system of paper, pencil, pad, those kind of things than it is with with electronics.

We're not anti electronics.

We still use them.

We just don't use them as the primary moderation, obviously.

Yeah, because

if you don't get this early,

By the time you graduate from high school, if you're not using pen, paper, text, books, etc., when you go to college, you are going to be 100% electronic, almost always 100% electronic devices.

So if you don't develop those critical skills by the time, you know, we have kids from kindergarten to 12th grade, you know, we've got a number of years to expose them to this critical thinking concept.

If you don't get them before they're out of high school, it's going to be extremely difficult.

Mike mentions AI.

I mean, I know

good and bad depends on how you feel about it, but you know, like I said earlier, I really wasn't a fan of math.

And so I'm amazed at what you can do with AI if you don't know math.

You know, I can tell AI, I have a room that's 10 by 17 and the walls are, and it'll tell me how many gallons of paint I need, how many square footers of carpet I need.

You know, I can see where that's beneficial, but I still like just sitting there with my pad of paper, you know, and I'm thinking, oh yeah, you know, I'm going to need

14 square feet of 14 square yards, et cetera, of this and that.

I like being able to do that because they'll become the time when maybe someone, you can't do that.

And that's sad.

I like to tell the story about Gordon Cooper.

He's an astronaut.

In 1963, this was part of the original Gemini 7 or Mercury 7 program.

Their thrusters, their stabilization and control systems went out on the capsule as they were going to reenter Earth.

no way to get back in using any type of assisted devices.

He used the grease pencil that he wrote on the glass of the windshield of the capsule, a slide ruler, and his watch to determine what angle he was going to enter, how long to fire the thrusters.

I mean, he did that, and he did that, and he said, because I knew it.

I just knew it.

He had no opportunity to Google, how do I get back in the Earth's orbit, right?

You're not going to do that.

I mean, now our children, our kids at Eagle, are going to go on to be astronauts.

You're calculating a grease pencil problem on a space capsule.

I don't know.

You

never know.

I think the odds might be slim, but nonetheless, for many other things that they're going to go on in life, we think that between kindergarten and the senior year of school, we can prepare them to think critically.

I've seen that capsule at the Smithsonian and it looks like sticks with aluminum foil stretched around it.

I'm not sure how they, how they ever figured it out, but somebody did.

Yes.

Amazing stuff.

As far as healthy eating, Kelly, we wanted to turn it over to you a little bit.

Tell us about the clean eating program.

Yes, we have a clean eating program and that just says that we offer foods with no preservatives, organic when we can, whole foods, everything made from scratch.

We have

have breakfast, egg sausage, hash browns, I think we had.

French toast.

Yeah, French toast.

Really hearty meals.

The kids can have seconds.

It's great.

They love to be fed.

That's part of loving them, is feeding them.

And so that's one of the ways that we just show them love and to try to teach the whole person and to get them to be healthy mentally, healthy physically.

emotionally, spiritually.

And so part of that is a clean eating program.

And that's a part of learning,

right?

Not being

hungry and

being able to concentrate.

Right, exactly.

And you can think more clearly when the preservatives aren't in your food.

You can self-control a lot better when you don't have all the preservatives and the sugar and all of that.

And it's just so normal in the standard American diet to have all of the

like red 40 and all that sort of thing.

And so we ban that.

We don't allow soda or candy.

And even for my own children, I can tell the difference when they've had skittles and when they haven't, just because of the experience in the brain from those things.

So anyway, that's just one way that we can help them to do better just in their own lives.

I just want to say that you might think, well, the kids probably hate it, eating all this healthy food when they can go get junk food.

But it turns out they actually like eating healthy food if the meals are made well.

They line up to come and get seconds and they often times rave about the meals.

So it's better than eating monosodium glutamate and sodium benzoate and oh I think I'll eat some more of

that.

As part of resource officer, are you the taste tester than Jeff?

But I don't mind taste test.

I don't officially have that title, but I've had many a good meal there.

But one of the things about the...

It's regular maple syrup, and sometimes we have organic maple syrup there.

And yet, maple syrup does have a high sugar content.

But we try and limit that as much as we can.

Because what, as you know, and maybe many of you listeners are parents, when your kids are hyped up on sugar, they're just bouncing off the walls.

And we don't want that at school.

But one of the things that I do like about the environment at Eagle is, and I'm reminded of the term, we're a wiggly environment.

Our children, when they're in the classroom,

We're not standing there at the front of the classroom, slapping the ruler on the table and saying, eyes front, don't move a muscle.

You know, I'm here to instruct you.

We allow them to have that little bit of wiggle because we do have children that have, you know, some attention deficit problems.

And they're challenged with that and that challenges the teachers.

We try and work in that environment.

We let them wiggle a little bit.

If they need to sit on the floor, if they need a hug, if they're more comfortable going and sitting in a soft chair in the room, we allow them to go sit in a soft chair.

The whole emphasis is that they can still wiggle and they can still learn.

And so we try and do that.

We try and let them wiggle a little bit when they need to.

And we try and hold that down by having a clean food program.

Indeed.

We'll come back after the break and talk more about Eagle School during their first week of school here on The Morning Show.

Welcome back to The Morning Show at WRC already.

We're focusing on Eagle School during our morning show get together today.

First of all, Kelly, we wanted to talk a little bit about the culture at Eagle School to kick off the next segment here.

Yeah, that's my favorite thing to talk about probably because I feel like that's where my heart is.

finds the most joy is when we can meet the student where they're at.

We have a standard for them to act and to, you know, respect the teachers, respect one another.

We have 12 values, equal values that we're talking to the kids about.

But, you know, they come with things that they either bring from the home or bring from the bus or whatever they're going through.

and just being able to be there with them and to help them see their situation the way Jesus does and what Jesus would do in that situation.

Just an example would be we had an incident where there was one student making fun of another student.

And so we're like, OK, that's not all right.

So I went down and I did an anti-bullying campaign where I got to unfold 1 Corinthians 13, where it's like, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but don't have love, I am nothing.

If I can speak to this mountain, if I have the faith to speak to this mountain, say, move from here to there, but I do not have love, it's worth nothing.

And so I was being able to tell them, love is patient, love is kind.

And one time I

a youth pastor tell me if you can put your name instead of love and then see if that's the truth then you're on the right track so can I say Kelly is patient Kelly is kind Kelly you know

So we went over that and we unpacked what it is to be kind, what it is to show love, what it is to be patient, not be envious.

And so I love the fact that we can dive right in.

We don't have to use vague generalities.

We don't have to say, well, this is just the better way because it is.

It's like, no, Jesus has a better plan for you.

He wants you to feel loved, feel like you belong.

He wants you to also share that with others so that your classmate feels like they are loved and that they belong, no matter what they're bringing in from home or

Like I said, the buzz are just the way life happens.

We go through hardship.

That we want it to be an environment where everybody feels free to grow and to find out who they are in God and their identity.

And they don't have to be swayed by their inner critic.

Because we all kind of have that where it's whether low self-esteem or just things that we've been through in life.

I feel like I want to be what I needed when I was younger to these students.

And so whether they're in kindergarten or 12th grade, it's an amazing opportunity that we have to be a part of their story.

And so we have chapel every Tuesday and we talk about either our values or a teacher will give their testimony.

or we talk about biblical concepts.

We also have homeroom every morning when we don't have the chapel and that has a devotion time where we're learning about the Bible and learning about if God is who He says He is, then what does that mean for me?

And if I'm going through this hard thing, what does that mean?

Because sometimes we go through hard things to be pressed a little bit to seek God in our difficult times, because we won't naturally seek God when everything is fine.

We usually pray the hardest and the strongest when we're going through a thing.

And school time, these kids are going through things.

So I love to be able to be there and to help them through that.

Indeed.

You find it works, Mike.

Yeah, so one of the things that is education kind of goes through various stages of examining new ways to make education better, to make the environment of teaching better, those kinds of things.

And there's, in a lot of the educational literature right now, there's the model of what might be called institutional rigidity.

That's the model that has been used for generations now where kids come to the classroom, they sit up in their seats, they pay attention, they raise their hand, they answer the question, and we test them based on the information they've gotten.

And if they can regurgitate that back, then we declare that success.

We give them an A and move them on to the next grade.

And when they go to apply for college, of course, if they've got a 4.0 average in their grade point, they're perfect candidates for going to college.

There's been some thought now and quite a bit of writing that that really doesn't develop the child into who they are to be as an adult human.

And so instead of the institutional rigidity, there's kind of the whole child development concept that we're

We're examining in the whole educational world right now, and we have actually been down this path at Eagle for some time.

So we think about the developmental domains that people have.

Everybody has, you know, be emotional.

uh relational mental intellectual spiritual so we believe the kids need to be developed in all five of those domains so we don't just focus on intellectual development academic achievement although that's important we're not dismissing that or

declaring that that's a minor one.

It's still important for the kids to learn things, but we also believe they learn by an enriched environment.

So sometimes they do things together as projects, but as Kelly said, we try or alluded to anyway, we try and have the teachers relate to the kids relationally.

Are you feeling okay today?

Why aren't you?

How can I help you with that?

How do we pray together the spiritual?

uh the emotional okay so you had a little bit of a meltdown today what's going on that you had the meltdown i'm not saying this has never been done in in other classrooms before i'm just saying there's a kind of a holistic approach that is being viewed today as a better way to educate a child we believe that that's a good idea and an institutional rigidity is

especially not good for boys who oftentimes need to be moving and shaking and, you know, give me something to engage in and conquer and a couple of sticks.

I can have sword fights and, and we're like, you know what?

That's okay.

We want to let them do those kinds of things because that is part of their developmental process to develop the whole child.

So we've kind of moved away a little bit from that educational rigidity.

We still

want and expect children to achieve well academically, but that's not the only metric that we're looking at in order to determine success on the part of the students.

It feels like students don't necessarily fall through the cracks, so to speak, because you've got, you know, mentors and people looking out for

them.

Yeah, we're fortunate to have relatively low student teacher ratios that the teachers know the students, they know them well.

Oftentimes they have a relationship with the kids where the kids are, you know, they don't feel much barriers to be able to talk to the teacher about, why am I not feeling great today?

You know, what's going on in my life?

I want to talk to somebody about that.

And I know that lots of places have school counselors that take care of that.

We actually like it if we can work with it within the classroom setting.

We can't always, but sometimes we can.

So we want the kids to feel like we are an extension of their family.

They're going to learn and they have to have some structure to do that, but we want them to feel like they love to be there with us, that they aren't just being forced to come to school every day because that's what kids do and that's what the law says.

We want them to say, I like school.

I want to go there and I want to learn.

Respect is a key thing too,

you know, respect for, you know, your teachers and then respect for authority and things like that.

Sometimes it's lacking a little bit today.

Kelly alluded to this already.

There was a little incident with probably we'd be considered minor bullying where one child is kind of calling another child something.

We get on top of that immediately.

It's like that, that doesn't work here.

That's not part of our culture.

In fact, we have a big sign in the school that says we speak life.

And so when somebody's bullying, speaking negative things, we have to address it immediately and say, that's not who we are, and guess what?

That's not who you are.

So we're calling you back to who you really are, who God made you to be, and the way you should be speaking to somebody else, and they'll speak to you that way.

So there is a continual focus not just on stopping bad behavior,

by creating the culture of identity where they recognize I'm speaking healthy things, life-giving things that will make me healthier and better as well as the people and students who are listening to me and our teachers promote that.

We talked a bit about the exchange program, the cultural exchange.

You do have foreign language taught at Eagle, don't you Jeff?

We do.

We have Spanish.

It starts as early as the sixth grade.

which I think is beneficial, especially when we're able to keep our students who start Spanish in the sixth grade and take it all the way through the time they graduate.

I think that's quite a blessing.

But Kelly also teaches, do you still teach?

I can't remember now.

Do you do DSL?

No, okay.

But, you know, and that's valuable, you know, for many of our students to be able to do that.

And part of the language barrier sometimes, you know, we're talking about teaching Spanish, but we have

students from many other cultures, and I'm reminded it can be quite humorous in the classroom when you teach them.

I was teaching a class, I think it was a chemistry class, but I happen to talk about, we were talking about gold, and I said, gold's a common thing that people take to pawn shops, and they'll get money for it, and my class, which at the time was about 75, 80% international students look at me like,

What's a pawn shop?

So I take, I tell them, well, you take something in and you, you drop it off and they look at it and they tell you, I'll give you this much money for it and they keep it and you can come back and you can reclaim it for a certain period of time.

And all the, the Thailand students who were in there, oh, you mean a Nana store.

Now they know exactly what that is.

If I would have said gold's good at a Nana store, they would have, they would have got it right away.

So.

So yeah, being exposed to that with our international students is great, but also it's nice to have our children who can at least Spanish is the only foreign language class we offer, but it's wonderful to have that there at the school.

You probably have some of the students teach the Spanish class,

too.

The ones that come from Brazil, they speak Portuguese.

But we're fortunate.

We do have some international teachers as well.

And so that's that's that's great.

You know, I mean especially when the students and the teacher from the same country sometimes that's that's a valuable You know interaction that's there because they can relate to them sometimes in a manner that we might not be able to or explain things early on in a manner They're not really able to the students that are with us for four years and we've had that you know when they've been there four years over the years their English fluency and understanding rises considerably So they're nothing like they were when they were freshmen when they were senior graduates

They've pretty much gotten down all the lingo.

We're so used to saying, you know, like, well, I'm going to date myself, you know, like on cloud nine or, you know, the cat's pajamas or whatever.

You know, I mean, those are oldies, but there's other ones that are, you know, more current, but even they don't get them.

And so I have to remember that if I use a slang, they, some of them just look at me like deer in the headlights.

They have no idea

what that is.

Well, there are some American students that say that, I'm sure too.

Oh

yeah.

No idea what that is, right?

Yeah.

Sports system.

starting to right at Eagle schools.

Yeah, we got sports.

We've got soccer team and our soccer team kind of goes up and down depending upon who we've got enrolled.

We don't have quite as many feeder players from domestic students as we do international.

Almost every international student that comes to us has played soccer because people are in the United States are starting to become aware that that soccer is the number one sport in the world.

So if anybody grows up in another country, the likelihood of them playing soccer is very high.

So often our soccer team is made up of more international students than domestic students.

We have boys basketball, girls basketball, girls volleyball.

So we've got some sports, and sports is important for us.

It's not the core of what we do.

We are pleasantly, we're happy that we can

We can offer sports to the kids.

We compete primarily against other Christian schools, homeschool groups, that kind of thing.

Occasionally, we used to, in the soccer program, we used to compete against the public schools, but then the WIA said they don't want the WIA schools competing against us anymore, and we can't join the WIA because they don't let F1 educational students participate.

in sports and play in the WIA, which I have been telling them for years.

It doesn't make any sense.

They allow this, the J one cultural exchange students to play in sports, but not the F one.

educational students.

So the cultural exchange students are here for a year.

It's kind of a goof-off time.

It usually doesn't count for anything when they go back.

The educational F1 students, they're usually here for multiple years and it does count for their education when they go back to their home country.

So I think the WIA is a little bit backward on that and we would like to join the WIA and we could easily be competitive in the WIA and have

uh, have beaten a lot of public school teams over the years.

So I'm just complaining a little bit here, I guess.

Yeah, that we want to do that.

So if anybody has any inside with the.

WIA, please tell him to accept F1 students to play.

Maybe someday.

Yeah.

But if you're in the community and you want to come down to Eagle, if you get on our website, www.eagle school international, you'll see our calendar events and you'll see our games that are posted that are going to be played.

You're welcome to come down to the school.

You know, we got a refreshed gymnasium.

It looks very nice.

We got a nice scoreboard.

We have concessions there.

You know, if you're just looking to do something very low

key and fun, bring your children down, watch a volleyball game or a basketball game, enjoy some concessions, and give you an opportunity to learn a little bit about Eagle School.

If one of our staff members are around, we're probably going to be happy to take you up and down the halls, show you the classrooms.

If it's too late for this year to register for your children, think about next year, okay?

Now is the time to, if you're committed to where you're at this year, now is the time to think about coming to Eagle School next year if you're so inclined.

Indeed.

Sounds like it's off to a good school year.

Mike, just wanted to ask you briefly at the end here about, uh, you, you hosted the meeting last night for the seven 65 kilovolt.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, I

should ask you a little bit.

How

do you feel it went?

Okay.

So this is part of my other hat, which is, uh, Southwest partners.

I'm the president of Southwest partners and we've gotten involved in the seven 65 high voltage line and

People probably are aware of this, but there's proposed lines coming in four or five different tracks across Richland County.

Every one of them would be destroying a lot of wooded land, sometimes farmland, sometimes coming over buildings, which will make the buildings not worth much value.

So there's been a number of meetings, but we just kind of started to pull the community together, had a meeting last night, I think we had

250 300 people show up for it, and they were impassioned people.

And you can imagine people are looking at their, their family property, their farm, whatever it is, and these high tension power lines coming over the top of it, you know, these big, uh, poles in their, uh, fields or backyards or whatever.

Some cases they're dividing the property in half or the buildings in half.

So there's a lot of emotion in this.

It's proposed to go over 10 counties in Wisconsin and then down to Illinois.

So there's a few people in favor of it, but about 98% are opposed to it.

So it's very...

emotional.

We had a good meeting last night, some good information.

We had some people from outside the county have already been dealing with this that got to speak.

And we heard from a lot of people in the county about unanswered questions.

And, you know, what do we need to do now in order to address this?

So there was lots of good things that happened last night.

And you plan another meeting?

Yes, we have another meeting scheduled.

And that's September 14, I believe, is the next one is at the old city auditorium, which is now called the

Center, Performing Arts Center, but it's the old city auditorium, which is, by the way, is completely

uh, remodeled and beautiful.

And there's just really great in that auditorium now.

Yeah.

It's nice to sit in there now.

It used to not be.

Yeah.

Those old hard seats after about a half an hour or taking pills to try and take away the pain.

Yeah.

It wasn't wiggle

friendly, right?

All right.

Well guys, thanks for coming in.

We wish you the best of luck this year at Eagle school.

Thank you Phil.

Thanks Phil.

You bet.

Mike Brennan's here joining us along with Jeff Seaborg and Kelly Copernall, all staff members at Eagle school here in Richland.

Center.

you

It is back to school week here on the morning show and at Eagle School as well.

We welcome along a staff member as Jeff Seaborg, the resource coordinator, Mike Breninger, senior administrator, and Kelly Copernall, who is with Student Services and in the office at Eagle School.

Mike, I understand you're already back to school.

School started on Monday, so this is already the fourth day of school for us.

All the cobwebs are getting knocked out.

Of course, every school the first week is

The students getting acclimated, you know, figuring out where their classes are, if they want to be in the classes they're in.

So we're still in that adjustment time, but next week is full go.

So yes, we are in school already.

We're a little bit early for some schools, but depending upon where schools are in the U.S., out in the Eastern U.S., they've already, almost all the schools have already started.

We tend to get out a little bit earlier than most of the schools do, so we have to start a little earlier in order to do that because we have the same day number or hours actually, number requirement as the public schools or other private schools.

Public schools and private schools in the state, many of them, they have to, because of state law, have to wait till September, but evidently you're not under that jurisdiction.

Well, okay, so you're right.

The public schools have a little more rigidity in terms of, they're supposed to start after Labor Day unless,

like this year Labor Day is quite late, so they're actually starting before Labor Day.

The private schools have a little more flexibility when they start, but even the public schools can request an exemption from starting after Labor Day, and they pretty much always get their exemption.

So we just, we don't pay that much attention to Labor Day, although there are families that tend to schedule their vacations very late in the summer.

And so they let us know, oh,

We didn't realize school was starting on August 24th.

We're going to have to miss the first couple of days of school because we're at the Grand Canyon.

So there, there does need to be a little bit of mental adjustment that summer ends a little before Labor Day comes.

Indeed.

You wanted to talk about the choice program, I think, to kick it off here today,

Mike.

Sure.

So parental choice has been in Wisconsin for a number of years here.

We've been on the parental choice program at Eagle.

This is our second year.

So what is parental choice?

That just means that the parents are making the choice about where to send their kids and that a voucher, a money voucher from the state goes with the parents and the child to that school.

So in order for a school to receive those vouchers, they have to have, well, there's similar requirements to the public school.

Some requirements are even more stringent than the public school.

We decided we would do that, especially for lower income families benefit from that the most.

So before two years ago, everybody had to pay tuition.

All the families did.

It was a hardship for lower income families.

This allows a family lower to moderate income to send their children to Eagle.

And if they qualify, then they don't have to pay any tuition at all.

So, you know, it's a great benefit for families that want to send their kids.

and they don't have to pay tuition out of pocket.

It comes from the state funds.

It

really is a blessing for many families, especially if you've been homeschooling, if you've been homeschooling,

And you needed to, you know, have a little bit of a break.

Maybe the academic rigors of homeschooling for you, you know, maybe you didn't take trigonometry or calculus.

And now as a young mom or a dad, you know, trying to teach these skillsets to your younger children can be a challenge.

I know it was for me, my children homeschooled for a while.

It was for my wife too.

I never liked math.

Um, wasn't interested in it at all.

And so when it came time to do that, uh, it was a challenge, but being able to send my children to Eagle school, which, uh, I was fortunate to be able to do.

And then in years later, I went on to teach and to be a principal there and a number of things.

Um, having that flexibility of getting your children into a, uh,

You know, an environment where they can really be fostered and encouraged and nourished like we do at Eagle School International is really a blessing.

You've been there as mentioned in other roles, resource coordinator.

What is that job involved, Jeff?

Well, before I go on to the resource coordinator, I would like to finish up on the school choice and that September 1st through September 18th is the 14th, I'm sorry, is the closing window for registration.

And I have a number for people to contact.

We have a great gal in the office.

She can answer anything.

I mean, I almost sometimes think she knows the winning lottery numbers.

You ask her something, she has got the answer.

She might really get busy here.

Exactly.

No, please, please don't call.

The number to call is 608-647-6742.

and she can assist you in helping determining your eligibility and registration.

It's a very easy process and she can walk you through that.

But as far as get back to resource coordinator, a school needs many things.

Many of them revolve around just having the support and the financial resources to do so.

So one of the things that I'm looking forward to doing is to try and

identify where those sources of funds may be found.

They're out there.

You just need to chase them.

We also are seeking international students to come in.

Mike mentioned the international student program.

As important as the international students are to our program, having them attend our school is

extremely beneficial for our domestic students and for the families that host them.

They learn a lot from us about what it's like to live and function and the cultural activities here in the United States, but it gives us an opportunity to learn about what they're doing and they're seeing.

I mean, we've had students from Spain, Italy, France, South Korea,

Thailand, China, Germany, Costa Rica, Brazil, Panama, and many, many others.

And we just, we love the opportunity to do that.

And as important as the students are, so are our host families.

If you've ever hosted an international student, it's a delight, okay?

I haven't done it myself, but the families that I've talked to have hosted international students.

They just, they get a bang out of it.

Kelly here sitting next to me, she can tell you a little bit about the joys of hosting international students because she seems to be a chronic habitual host family.

I mean, if it's not a bad thing, we love that Kelly does this for us.

Yeah, I'm thinking that's true, Kelly.

I think once you get started, it's hard to stop because it's a delight, isn't it?

it is and I do have to say since Mike is in our presence I think he has hosted like 45 or 50 students so I'm late to the game but I have somehow just collected them sometimes at my house if there's if there is like

like a family said that they could and then are unable that I'm like well just bring them on and there's room for more and room is a relative term so um anyway yeah uh last year I had three the year before I had three so this year I just have one and I feel like this is a dream you know um but

We have a sweet girl from Spain, her name is Sarah.

She loves to watch little cheesy romance hallmark movies with me already, so it's been great.

She loves Scott's cooking, and we're just, you know, she's an added sibling to the mix, and so that's what most families are all about.

We show them, like, you know, the culture of

what it's like to be raised in the United States, in the Midwest in particular, but it also is like, is shining the light of Jesus in their lives.

And some of them have not ever heard the gospel.

Some of them have kind of heard it, you know, through church back home or whatever, but just being a living example of trying to

emulate Jesus for them is really a joy for me because I don't have the ability to go to Spain to be a missionary but

I get to tell Sarah about Jesus here.

And so that's my joy, really.

I like the cultural exchange part of it.

It adds kind of spice to life.

But for me, I think because I have such a mother's heart, I like to share that part with her, too.

I wonder sometimes who learns more, who benefits more, the student or the hosts,

right?

Right.

And Kelly mentions the mother's heart.

I always, whenever I've been here, I like to tell a little story.

about Kelly, not to embarrass her, but when our students come into the office and if they have meds, you know, that we hold for them, you know, all our staff are trained on how to, you know, to administer the meds and chart them and everything else, but we'll have a student or when they come in, you know, you dispense the meds, but, you know, I've done it, but Kelly does it.

almost all the time.

She'll put her hand on her shoulder, on her head, and she prays for them.

It's not just about the medicine.

It's about, you know, speaking the word of Jesus and the love of Jesus into their life as they take this medicine.

And so it's something that you don't often get an opportunity to do in an academic setting, but we love that opportunity when we get to do that for our students.

Mike, is it 45 or more?

You know what, I lost track after 40.

I'm coming up on 50 here.

Part of it is they're flowing in and out.

We have a little different situation at Eagle than most of the public schools have international students.

Those are what are called J1 culture exchange students.

They come for one year.

We have F1 educational students.

So many times they're

multiple years, two, three, I've had students live with me for four years.

I had a Korean girl that was with me for four years.

She was like my daughter, you know, could hardly get away from me.

So, so, uh, yeah, we've, we've.

One of the things we do is we want the kids the international kids to join into the family So we always asked our own children, which I don't have any left at home right now But our own children who would say hey, we're thinking about taking two or three internationals.

Are you on board?

Yes.

Yes, we want to do that again bring them on You know there was never a time where they said no, we don't want any more international students

because they had fun.

They had fun getting to know them, getting to know their culture.

Sometimes they kind of made fun of each other with language idioms and so forth.

So it's been a very enriching experience.

All my children in my home have been exposed to the world through having international students from all over the world come.

And many of them have traveled to other countries because they maintain the friendships after the

kids go back.

I have two children that married international students and one that is in a long-term three-year romance with a boy from Spain.

So this is like very interwoven in our family.

They do become family literally.

When you call them son-in-law or daughter-in-law then that's pretty much family.

My, yeah, you are, speaking the truth there.

And another thing we wanted to hit was the electronic free environment.

I think we've talked about that a little bit with Eagle School before.

This is not a new initiative, but something that you're pretty proud of, Mike.

Yeah, so we've been at this for several years.

I know that in many schools, the push has been electronics, no paper books anymore, no pencils, no pens, you know, have Chromebooks, tablets, cell phones,

Several years ago, I started reading studies that were saying the kids are not learning as well or retaining as much when they're doing it on electronic screens.

So the first thing we did is say no cell phones in the school.

Well, now that's a big movement and there's states that are passing bands against cell phones in the school, but we've been doing that for 10 years or so, maybe more than that.

We do have Chromebooks and tablets, but we rarely use them if they have to write a paper or do some research.

They can use them.

Otherwise, we have them use paper, books, pens, paper, write things down.

The tests are on paper.

Why do we do that?

Because all the studies show that there's a greater cognitive engagement for the kids when they do that.

I don't want to get into too much of the technicalities, but there's the left brain is kind of the cognitive intellectual side.

The right brain is the more creative side.

And when they, when they use their hands and write on papers, it actually activates part of the right brain that would not be activated if they're just, you know, pushing buttons on the computer or the tablet or the cell phone.

So every study that I have read,

over the last 10 or 15 years have said this.

The kids will learn more.

It's longer lasting if they use paper, pencil, and so forth.

So it might seem archaic to some.

I had one guy say, you know, you need to get with the 21st century here and put the electronics in the classroom.

And I said, no, no, this is intentional because we believe and we have seen a greater cognitive engagement and critical thinking skills

are easier to develop when they can't instantly go to the computer and especially can't instantly go to AI and say, well, write me a paper on this or tell me about this.

And AI answers all the questions instead of them thinking through, well, what's the consequences if we believe this or we accept this proposition?

What's the result of this?

So I'm really big on teaching critical thinking, logic,

you know, rational thought, and it's very much easier to do that with a little older system of paper, pencil, pad, those kind of things than it is with electronics.

We're not anti-electronics.

We still use them.

We just don't use them as the primary means.

Yeah, moderation, obviously.

Yeah, because

if you don't get this early,

By the time you graduate from high school, if you're not using pen, paper, text, books, et cetera, when you go to college, you are going to be 100% electronic, almost always 100% electronic devices.

So if you don't develop those critical skills by the time, you know, we have kids from kindergarten to 12th grade, you know, we've got a number of years to expose them to this critical thinking concept.

If you don't get them before they're out of high school, it's going to be extremely difficult.

Mike mentions AI.

I mean, I know

Good and bad depends on how you feel about it, but you know, like I said earlier, I really wasn't a fan of math.

And so I'm amazed at what you can do with AI if you don't know math.

You know, I can tell AI, I have a room that's 10 by 17 and the walls are, and it'll tell me how many gallons of paint I need, how many square footers of carpet I need.

You know, I can see where that's beneficial, but I still like just sitting there with my pad of paper, you know, and I'm thinking, well, yeah, you know, I'm going to need 14 square feet of 14 square yards, et cetera, of this and that.

I like being able to do that because they'll become the time when, you know,

Maybe someone you can't do that.

And that's sad.

I like to tell the story about Gordon Cooper.

He's an astronaut.

Okay.

In 1963, this was part of the original Gemini 7 or Mercury 7 program.

Their thrusters, their stabilization and control systems went out on the capsule as they were going to reenter Earth.

no way to get back in using any type of assisted devices.

He used the grease pencil that he wrote on the glass of the windshield of the capsule, a slide ruler, and his watch to determine what angle he was going to enter, how long to fire the thrusters.

I mean, he did that, and he did that, and he said, because I knew it.

I just knew it.

He had no opportunity to Google, how do I get back in the earth's orbit, right?

You're not going to do that.

I mean, now our children, our kids at Eagle, are going to go on to be astronauts, calculating a grease pencil problem on a space capsule.

I don't know.

You never know.

I think the odds might be slim, but nonetheless, for many other things that they're going to go on in life, we think that between kindergarten and the senior year of school, we can prepare them to think critically.

I've seen that capsule at the Smithsonian and it looks like sticks with aluminum foil stretched around

it.

I'm not sure how they,

how they ever figured it out, but somebody did.

Yes.

Amazing stuff.

As far as healthy eating, Kelly, we wanted to turn it over to you a little bit.

Tell us about the clean eating program.

Yes, we have a clean eating program and that just says that we offer foods with no preservatives, organic when we can, whole foods, everything made from scratch.

We have

have breakfast, egg sausage, hash browns, I think we had.

French toast.

Yeah, French toast.

Really hearty meals.

The kids can have seconds.

It's great.

They love to be fed.

That's part of loving them, is feeding them.

And so that's one of the ways that we just show them love and to try to teach the whole person and to get them to be healthy mentally, healthy physically.

emotionally, spiritually.

And so part of that is the clean eating program.

And that's a part of learning,

right?

Not being

hungry and

being able to concentrate.

Right, exactly.

And you can think more clearly when the preservatives aren't in your food.

You can self-control a lot better when you don't have all the preservatives and the sugar and all of that.

And it's just so normal in the standard American diet to have all of the

Like red 40 and you know all that sort of thing and so we we ban that we don't allow soda or candy And it even for my own children I can tell the difference when they've had skittles and when they haven't you know just because of The experience in the brain from those things so anyway, that's just one way that we can Help them to do better just in their own lives

I just want to say that you might think well the kids probably hate it eating all this healthy food when they can go get junk food and

But it turns out they actually like eating healthy food if the meals are made well.

They line up to come and get seconds and they often times rave about the meals.

So it's better than eating monosodium glutamate and sodium benzoate and oh, I think I'll eat some more of

that.

As part of resource officer, are you the taste tester than Jeff?

But I don't mind taste test.

I don't officially have that title, but I've had many a good meal there.

But one of the things about the...

It's regular maple syrup, and sometimes we have organic maple syrup there.

And yet, maple syrup does have a high sugar content.

But we try and limit that as much as we can.

Because what, as you know, and maybe many of you listeners are parents, when your kids are hyped up on sugar, they're just bouncing off the walls.

And we don't want that at school.

But one of the things that I do like about the environment at Eagle is, and I'm reminded of the term, we're a wiggly environment.

Our children, when they're in the classroom, we're not

standing there at the front of the classroom slapping the ruler on the table and saying, eyes front, don't move a muscle.

You know, I'm here to instruct you.

We allow them to have that little bit of wiggle, because we do have children that have, you know, some attention deficit problems, and they're challenged with that, and that challenges the teachers.

But we try and work in that environment.

We let them wiggle a little bit, you know.

If they need to sit on the floor, if they need a hug, if they're more comfortable going and sitting in a soft chair in the room, we allow them to go sit in a soft chair.

The whole emphasis is that they can still wiggle and they can still learn, okay?

And so we try and do that.

We try and, you know, we try and let them wiggle a little bit when they need to, and we try and hold that down by having a clean food program.

Indeed.

We'll come back after the break and talk more about Eagle School during their first week of school here on The Morning Show.

Welcome back to the morning show at WRC already.

We're focusing on Eagle School during our morning show get together today.

First of all, Kelly, we wanted to talk a little bit about the culture at Eagle School to kick off the next segment here.

Yeah, that's my favorite thing to talk about probably because I feel like that's where my heart is.

finds the most joy is when we can meet the student where they're at.

We have a standard for them to act and to respect the teachers, respect one another.

We have 12 equal values that we're talking to the kids about.

But they come with things that they either bring from the home or bring from the bus or whatever they're going through.

And just being able to be

They're with them and to help them see their situation the way Jesus does and what Jesus would do in that situation.

Just an example would be we had an incident where there was one student making fun of another student and so we're like, okay.

That's not all right.

So I went down and I did an anti-bullying campaign where I got to unfold 1 Corinthians 13, where it's like, you know, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but don't have love, I am nothing.

If I can speak to this mountain, you know, if I have the faith to speak to this mountain, say, move from here to there, but I do not have love.

It's, you know, it's worth nothing.

And so I was being able to tell them, you know, love is patient, love is kind.

And one time I had a youth pastor tell me,

If you can put your name instead of love and then see if that's the truth.

Then you're on the right track.

So can I say Kelly is patient Kelly is kind Kelly, you know So we went over that and we unpacked what it is to be kind what it is to show love what it is to be patient not be envious now and so I Love the fact that we can dive right in we don't have to use vague generalities We don't have to say well.

This is just the better way because it is it's like no Jesus has a better plan for you He wants you to feel loved feel like you belong he wants you to also share that with others so that your class

classmate feels like they are loved and that they belong no matter what they're bringing in from home or like I said the bus or just the way life happens we go through hardship that we want it to be an environment where everybody feels free to grow and to find out who they are in God and their identity and they don't have to be swayed by their inner critic or you know because we all we all kind of have that where it's

whether low self-esteem or just things that we've been through in life and so I feel like I want to be what I needed when I was younger to these students and so whether they're in kindergarten or 12th grade it's an amazing opportunity that we have to be a part of their story and so we have chapel every Tuesday and we talk about either our values or

A teacher will give their testimony or we talk about biblical concepts.

We also have homeroom every morning when we don't have the chapel and that has a devotion time where we're learning about the Bible and learning about if God is who he says he is, then what does that mean for me?

And if I'm going through this hard thing, what does that mean?

Because sometimes we go through hard things to be pressed a little bit to seek God in our difficult times, because we won't naturally seek God when everything is fine.

We usually pray the hardest and the strongest when we're going through a thing.

And school time, these kids are going through things.

So I love to be able to be there and to help them through

that.

Indeed.

You find it works, Mike.

Yeah, so one of the things that is education kind of goes through various stages of examining new ways to make education better, to make the environment of teaching better, those kinds of things.

And there's, in a lot of the educational literature right now, there's the model of what might be called institutional rigidity.

That's the model that has been used for generations now where kids come to the classroom, they sit up in their seats, they pay attention, they raise their hand, they answer the question.

And we test them based on the information they've gotten.

And if they can regurgitate that back, then we declare that success.

We give them an A and move them on to the next grade.

And when they go to apply for college, of course, if they've got a 4.0 average in their grade point, they're perfect candidates for going to college.

There's been some thought now and quite a bit of writing that that really doesn't develop the child into who they are to be as an adult human.

And so instead of the institutional rigidity, there's kind of the whole child development concept that we're

examining in the whole educational world right now, and we have actually been down this path at Eagle for some time.

So we think about the developmental domains that people have.

Everybody has, you know, you have emotional

relational, mental, intellectual, spiritual.

So we believe the kids need to be developed in all five of those domains.

So we don't just focus on intellectual development, academic achievement, although that's important.

We're not dismissing that or

declaring that that's a minor one.

It's still important for the kids to learn things, but we also believe they learn by an enriched environment.

So sometimes they do things together as projects, but as Kelly said, we try, or alluded to anyway, we try and have the teachers relate to the kids relationally.

Are you feeling okay today?

Why aren't you?

How can I help you with that?

How do we pray together, the spiritual?

uh the emotional okay so you had a little bit of a meltdown today what's going on that you had the meltdown i'm not saying this has never been done in in other classrooms before i'm just saying there's a kind of a holistic approach that is being viewed today as a better way to educate a child we believe that that's a good idea and and institutional rigidity is