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Show I Iron County School District Initiates Unusual Homebound Teaching Plan What do you do when illness or an accident strikes your child? I That is, what do you do besides provide the besi medical attention atten-tion available? Many times the illness is severe and requires that the child lay almost motionless. motion-less. However, often this is not the case and there is little for the child to do while convalescing. convalesc-ing. He has time on his hands. The Iron County School District Dis-trict in cooperation with the state has initiated a new service which may help to answer this question for parentd. The new service is the Homebound Teaching Program. Pro-gram. School people have known for a long time that a problem exists when a child is out of school for an extended length of time, that Is, if he misses more than a few days of school. Often the student is isolated from his school work. At best his parents, brothers, or sisters may pick up a book or two and if the child knows what to do he can go ahead. Sometimes Some-times a dedicated teacher visits the student without thought of remuneration. Quite often there has been a gap in the student's learning program during illnesses. illness-es. In serious cases, this gap has been sufficient to require the -jtudent to spend an extra year making up the time lost. The new Homebound Teaching Program is designed to teach students stu-dents who are homebound yet are able to do limited amounts of school work. When a student has been absent for three consecutive days this absence is brought to the attention of the principal. Ei-tner Ei-tner tne students teacher or another an-other designated teacher prepares pre-pares material and an attempt is made to make a visit that evening. eve-ning. These visits are usually preceded by a telephone call to the home to make sure that a vkit would be profitable. The student would then be visited every other evening until he is well enough to return to school. Homebound visits are not just the deliverance of books and an assignment. Teachers spend from thirty minutes to an hour on each viait and may use such audio-visual presentations a s maps, drawings, flannel boards from the classroom. The teacher, In addition to giving individual Instruction, may give the parent some direct helps in working with and helping the ill student. stu-dent. The possibilities of the program are almost unlimited. The imagination im-agination and ingenuity of the forward looking teacher combined com-bined with the acceptance and concern of parents can help the student to continue his progress and provide contact with the school even during an extended illnes-j. Perhaps one of the most desired outcomes is to help the child maintain a happy "get-well" "get-well" attitude and to assure him that he need not worry about missing his school work. Then, too, he can sense the concern of , the school and of hia parents for HIM. This program is already paying pay-ing dividends in iron County, it has been organized and is being carried out by all the schools in the dstrict. Luring the month of December, 44 students were taught in their homes. Some stu-dentn stu-dentn received only an hour of teaching while others received up to eight hours of instruction. 1 teachers or 17't or the Iron County teachers provided a total of 96 k hours ol homebound Instruction. In-struction. The success of the program depends de-pends to a great extend on acceptance ac-ceptance by parents. This fine service is available through the schools, but close cooperation with the public is most necessary. neces-sary. It Is another step forward in providing for the needs of the individual child. The Iron County School District Dis-trict urges parents to provide their children with this opportunity opportu-nity by encouraging teacher visits, vi-sits, and by maintaining a closer contact with the school during student illnesses. |