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Show Wed/Thurs/Fri, May 24-26, 2017 The Park Record A-8 District starts new chapter Teacher Continued From A-7 goodbye BUBBA BROWN/PARK RECORD Jeff Greiner is set to become principal of the Silver Summit Academy, a blended-learning school the South Summit School District plans to open in the fall. He says the school’s approach will be beneficial for many students. The school will house students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Administrator says academy will give students control By BUBBA BROWN The Park Record The South Summit School District will begin a new era this fall. That’s when the district will open the doors of the Silver Summit Academy, a blendedlearning school for students in kindergarten through 12th grade that officials say represents a leap forward in the district’s pursuit of offering the type of 21st-century education students need when they head off into the modern workplace. Jeff Greiner, who will be principal of the school, described the learning environment as giving students the autonomy to fit their education into busy schedules that often include work or athletics, while also providing enough guardrails to ensure the students are actively engaged and absorbing the concepts. Students will learn some lessons online, but will also meet regularly with teachers at the school to complete coursework. Students, who may choose to attend Silver Creek Academy instead of the district’s other schools, will also be able to utilize the labs and collaborative spaces in the school, which is located at 6407 N. Business Loop Road in Silver Summit. “Let’s say you’re a chemistry student,” said Greiner, who is currently a vice principal and athletic director at South Summit High School. “You can follow along online and learn the basic lessons. But you also need labs. So a teacher can say, ‘Hey, on Wednesday at 10 a.m., meet me in the lab at the academy.’” The overriding philosophy of the school, which is based on the model of several other blendedlearning schools around the country, is to give students the opportunity to direct their own learning. Crucially, it will also give them the freedom to make mistakes. Describing the philoso- phy, Greiner used the analogy of teaching someone how to juggle. “If you try to learn with eggs, you’re not going to get anywhere because the punishment is too great,” he said. “That’s a little bit like how we do education now. We sort of put them in the position where, if they make a mistake, we hammer them for it. Here, we want them to learn with bean bags. If you drop it, you pick it up and try again and you learn something.” The model will work exceptionally well for students who are smart but who don’t necessarily thrive in a traditional school environment, he added. He’s optimistic that both students and the South Summit community will embrace the idea. “I think people see the value of it in the Wasatch Back for a school like this,” he said. “It meets a lot of the needs that our students have.” The South Summit School District is expected to begin accepting students into Silver Creek Academy in the coming weeks. For more information, visit the district’s website, ssummit.org. with the technology, but I’m not innovative with it. That’s where it’s going and that’s what the kids need. They need to know how to use it in new ways. I think that’s a brain I don’t have.” Nonetheless, she still finds joy in the day-to-day life of a teacher. More than anything, she enjoys analyzing and creating new approaches to connect with students she’s not reaching. She describes the moment she breaks through to them, and they read a sentence or correctly solve a math problem, as being “just like magic.” “That’s the most work but it’s the best part,” she said. “There are endless ways to keep presenting something, so what do I do when a particular child isn’t responding to the norm? You invent and you create.” Amid the myriad happy mem- ories Davis will take with her, though, is one regret. A major shift in education between when she started and now is the amount of support schools give students who are struggling to learn. In recent years, she’s watched those students flourish with the help of the additional aid, but lamented the students in the past who didn’t get the same opportunity. “Now, I have several children who we would have called disabled in the past that are functioning wonderfully,” she said. “Everybody’s got their own timeline. They may not be on the same timeline as another student, but growth is happening every day. And we used to leave them out. It breaks my heart to think of the potential we didn’t get to because we thought we were doing the right thing.” How struggling students are handled is not the only thing Davis has seen change throughout her career. She said she has been around long enough to watch educational philosophies die off only to return decades later, and students she taught years ago have become parents and grandparents. But the town itself has undergone the biggest transformation. Davis joined the district when Park City’s lone elementary school was located in the Marsac Building and recalls students trick-or-treating down Main Street on Halloween and how the community would rally for school events like art festivals. While the district now comprises four elementary schools -- with another proposed for fifth- and sixth-graders -- and the town has grown in ways few in the ‘70s could have imagined, the community atmosphere is one thing that remains. “One of the things that I’ve really liked is that, both within the district itself and also the community, everyone really supports education,” she said. “Education is important to people here. And I’ve taught where it isn’t. It’s not to say there aren’t difficult situations -- people struggle and people have difficulty learning sometimes -- but the fact that there’s always somebody that’s going to try to back you up is wonderful. They’re very willing to give up their time and resources, anything they can, to make it a better district.” BUBBA BROWN/PARK RECORD Patti Davis, a first-grade teacher at Jeremy Ranch Elementary School, is retiring after 44 years of teaching. She says she will miss many things about teaching, including the support from the Park City community and her peers. Vote for the Saltz Team! Best Plastic Surgeon Dr. Renato Saltz, M.D., FACS Best Botox Saltz Plastic Surgery Best Facial Saltz Spa Vitoria Best Massage Saltz Spa Vitoria DISCOVER ALL THAT PARK CITY HAS TO OFFER FOR Best Spa Saltz Spa Vitoria Best Nonprofit Image Reborn Foundation Best Fundraising Event THURSDAY Image Reborn Foundation With your help we will continue the tradition of being Park City’s Best in 2017! 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