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A group of Warsaw Community Schools teachers will have most of their expenses paid for to travel to China this year to provide professional development to teachers there.
Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert explained the out-of-state travel request to the school board Tuesday. The board will vote on approving the two trips at its regular board meeting Monday.
He said he was invited by the Chinese Education Connection (CEC) a year ago to join Grace College President Dr. Bill Katip in traveling to China. Due to a lot of things going on at that time, he couldn’t work it into his schedule.
“They’ve been our partner with Partner Schools for the last 10 years here in Warsaw. Every year, (board member) Randy (Polston) has been actively involved, he’s been a bus driver and a tour host as they bring over a number of their students and principals into our schools,”?he said.
In talking with the Connection more, Hoffert said WCS has learned CEC is creating a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) center in China with some of its partner schools from things they’ve learned at WCS.
Chinese Education Connection LLC Director of Operation Phil Boley, a 1968 Warsaw Community High School graduate, reached out to WCS, Hoffert said, “And they would like to pay to have our educators come over and spend some time with professional development. Usually this is a very expensive trip. They are willing to pay pretty much almost all of the costs for our teachers to be able to go over there.”
This summer the three teachers that would go over there include Sandy McClellan, Jefferson Elementary; Angela Luecke, a math instructional coach and former elementary teacher; and Abbi Richcreek, Edgewood Middle School.
“All of who are just absolutely phenomenal teachers. They’re going to be leading two weeks of professional development during the summer,” he said.
In October, another nine teachers will travel to China. Hoffert said the trip is trying to be scheduled over fall break and the final list is being compiled.
“So, just being able to spend some time with their teachers. They’re excited to teach us about their mathematics practices. They want to learn as much as they can about our STEM practices,” he said.
WCS is combining its efforts with Bartholomew County schools to be able to go forward with this initiative. The two school districts are “earmarked” by CEC because of Cummins Diesel in Bartholomew and the orthopedic companies in Warsaw.
Hoffert said WCS?is very excited about the opportunity, and “the (WCS) teachers that we met with were very much hand selected because of their great work and their great reputations that came from their principals. These are truly leaders.”
