LSIC Presentation Shows What Marshall County Schools Have to Offer
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Marshall County Schools students demonstrated their baking, coding and other skills during the Local School Improvement Council showcase.
The event, held at the Moundsville Center, invited each school in the county to showcase unique aspects of its curriculum to members of the public. Each school's LSIC encourages the school community's involvement in activities inside and outside the classroom.
State Code requires an LSIC at each public school in West Virginia. Each school's council is made up of teachers, service personnel, bus drivers, parents, and business and community representatives.
LSICs meet to discuss the operations at each school in the county and how each school can improve. They also consider grants they want to write or innovative ideas to bring to their schools.
Marshall County Board of Education members and the community could browse the various innovative ideas and activities each school brought to display at Tuesday's fair.
Board member Brenda Coffield was impressed with each school's offerings, noting that before 2020, board members visited each school individually to see what the LSIC had to showcase.
"This is just a great event because it's open to the public and allows everybody to see the good things happening in our schools," Coffield said. "I'm very excited to see the Cameron High School band play and sample some of the refreshments schools have brought."
The Sherrard Middle School steel band kicked off the event, followed by a performance from the Moundsville Middle School strings quartet. The Cameron High School choir and band finished the event with their performance.
The offerings at the fair went beyond the ear, with Marshall County students conducting robotics and drone demonstrations. The Cameron Middle and High School table drew attention with its freeze-dried goods made by the high school's agriculture department. Various freeze-dried foods could be sampled from the "CHS" shaped charcuterie board, including caramel bits, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin spice yogurt bits and dried vanilla yogurt bites.
Kelly Pettit, Cameron High School counselor, said the freeze-dried items tied into the school's food preservation class, where students figured out different ways to preserve food items.
"We're always looking for ways to help our students and community by getting the community members involved to see what we offer at Cameron High School," Pettit said. "It helps build that culture in the community and gives Cameron High School a family feel to us."
Central Elementary School students gave attendees a live demonstration of their coding skills using the VEX Go Robotics Design Systems. Fifth grade teacher Heather Stillion said the program gave the students a task to complete, such as building a robot with batteries and sensors. The students then used an app on their iPads to program the robot to do "particular jobs."
Cameron Elementary School fifth grade teacher Emily Rodgers said the demonstration tied into the school's STEM club, which includes coding activities. The activity also tied into the school's designation as an Apple Distinguished School, which means each student is equipped with an iPad for learning throughout the school day.
"They do an assortment of activities at the club, sometimes as complex as this," Rodgers said.
Stillion added the coding activity gave students a "better foundation" for more advanced coding activities later in their education.
"We don't want our students on an iPad for the sake of being on an iPad, they're on an iPad to advance their learning somehow," Stillion noted. "This activity helps them with problem-solving, team building and just getting along with each other to solve a program. They all spend time working on coding, and they love it."