About Woods Learning Center
Grades: K–8
School Day: 8:10 am–3:15 pm
Principal: Faculty & Staff
WLC’s History
In the fall of 1990, five district educators (Sherry Fickes, Cyndy Novotny, Harper Park, Barbee Hallock-Stanfield and Kathy Swingle) approached Dr. Chip Zullinger, superintendent of the Natrona County School District, with the idea of beginning a new, innovative school. Zullinger was intrigued with the idea and invited them to present to a group of community business leaders interested in supporting school change. These business leaders approached the board of trustees and requested permission to oversee a request for proposal process encouraging the creation of innovative school projects. Thirty-nine proposals were submitted. Woods Learning Center was one of three selected for implementation in the fall of 1991. Once the proposal was selected, many hours were spent in the development of the project. As the time drew near for school to open in August, additional staff members were hired and parent volunteers were recruited to help prepare the new facility. Since that time, many visitors have passed through the doors, as the program continues to evolve and develop.
Staff members are proud to share the school’s story and pleased to see many aspects of its programming adopted by other schools. What started out as a dream became a reality.
Unique features adopted by the school 20 years ago are listed below. Many of these features have been adopted by other NCSD schools.
- Administrative team/shared decision making
- Teaching teams
- Multi-age classrooms
- Full-day kindergarten
- 17:1 student to teacher ratio
- K-8 program (seventh grade was added in 1995, and eighth grade was added in 1996)
- Special education inclusion
- Integrated studies
- High expectations
- Cooperative groups
- Developmentally appropriate
- Peer tutoring
- Parent participation/contract
- Performance/proficiency assessments
- Thematic units
- Projects
- Foreign language
- Apprenticeship
- Artist-in-residence
- Student-led conferences
- Experiential learning/field experiences
- Travel opportunities
- Circle groups (cross-age activities)
- Technology (1:1 computing in second through eighth grades)
- Community service
- Democratic participation for all stakeholders
In the past 20 years, Woods has been recognized as a National Education Association (NEA) Flagship School, NEA/Center for Innovation Learning Lab Site, NEA/Great American School, League of Democratic School and a Natrona County School District Excelling School.