Judson STEAM Academy Student Advisory Board and Special Needs Students Learn at the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler with Funding from the Longview ISD Foundation, Inc.
 
Kay Ray, Longview ISD Executive Director, interviewed the students to learn about their learning experience.
 
When the Longview ISD Foundation’s John W. Harrison, Jr. Academic Field Trip Grant committee members read Laura Johnston’s grant application titled “Taking Our Crew to the Zoo,” the members were immediately impressed with the learning opportunity it described. 
 
Mrs. Johnston, eighth grade English/language arts teacher and faculty advisor for Judson’s Student Advisory Board, asked for funding of $908.84 to offer a unique opportunity for the campus’s special needs students taught by Sandy Langford and for students serving on the advisory board, two groups of students who had formed a bond over the school year.
 
Elected by teachers, the Student Advisory Board members are leaders and role models on the campus.  Serving as liaisons between the student body and Melanie Pondant, principal, the board members offer suggestions for school improvement.  By listening to and acting upon the board’s suggestions, Mrs. Pondant believes the students become stakeholders in the campus who have a voice in decision making.
 
At their first meeting of the 2021-2022 school year, Mrs. Johnston asked the board members for suggestions for projects.  JaBeverly Calico-Peoples, eighth grader, had worked with the special needs students and developed friendships among them, so she suggested that the board members actively work with them throughout the year.  Working with them was such a success that the 2022-2023 advisory board wanted to continue.
 
Together, Mrs. Johnston and Mrs. Langford arranged meetings between the two groups of students during Judson’s club time on Thursdays.  For the students to meet and build relationships, they worked puzzles together and talked.  One of the goals was to encourage the special needs students to engage and interact with others.  The student advisory board celebrated Christmas and Valentine’s Day with Mrs. Langford’s students and brought gifts for them, making their holidays special.
 
Working with the special need students was such a success that the 2022-2023 advisory board wanted to continue. The relationship between the students then led to the idea of an academic field trip to the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler.  On Monday, April 17, the students loaded buses at 8:30 AM and headed to the zoo.  Special needs students, some of whom had never been to a zoo, were paired with students from the advisory board.  First, the students attended an animal habitat class where they learned about the habitats they would see throughout the zoo.  After learning about animal habitats, students received a bucket filled with plastic animals and other materials and were asked to build an animal habitat, reinforcing the lessons they had just learned from the zoo’s docent and from classroom instruction. 
 
Then, acting as guides, the student advisory board members led students throughout the zoo.  As Mrs. Johnston had intended, serving as guides reinforced the students’ leadership and interpersonal skills while also giving them an opportunity to act as teachers. 
 
All the students enjoyed the zoo’s animals, especially the monkeys, the sleeping bear, and white tiger roaming his habitat, although some were a bit scared when the tiger roamed close to the edge of his habitat where the students stood.
 
The favorite exhibit, however, was the herpetarium, the zoo’s collection of reptiles.  The favorite reptile there was the salamander. 
 
Eighth graders Jadah Pitts and Alyssa Grissom said the trip was exciting for all.  They enjoyed seeing how excited the special needs students were to experience the zoo.  To them, their excitement was contagious.
 
Jadah was especially excited that the trip provided students with an opportunity they might otherwise not have experienced.  She pointed out that the students were impressed too with the aviary where students fed the birds.  As she said, “I enjoyed seeing everyone so happy as they learned about animals and saw ones they had not seen before.”
 
Mrs. Langford said the trip was “out of this world.”  She said her students love Mrs. Johnston and enjoy the student advisory board members.  To her, the field trip gave her students a feeling of independence as they traveled throughout the zoo under the advisory board students’ guidance.  While teachers and chaperones stayed nearby to provide supervision and safety, they also allowed the students to experience the day freely together as one.
 
Mrs. Langford’s student Jackson Hughes was impressed with the black and white monkeys.  He was excited to say that these monkeys had no thumbs.  He also enjoyed the alligators’ habitat.
 
Anthony Ryncarz loved the otter exhibit, especially watching the otters swim and play.  The penguins impressed him too.  He was also quick to say that the roaming white tiger was impressive.
 
True Freeney was also impressed with the tiger, but he also loved watching the elephants grabbing food with their trunks.
Seventh grader Korvi McCray carefully watched the lizards’ movements and enjoyed seeing bobcats. 
Both teachers agreed that the academic field trip met its goals:  providing social-emotional learning to all students on the campus to improve student morale, social well-being, and mental well-being and promoting social-emotional learning by bringing the students on the student advisory board and special needs students together to form lasting relationships.  With the help of Mrs. Johnston, the student advisory board also saw its idea become reality, teaching them that their ideas are valued.
The Longview ISD Foundation, Inc. is proud to have made this learning experience possible.
Thanks to community-wide financial support, the Longview ISD Foundation, Inc. has funded fourteen academic field trips since the program’s inception in November 2018 for a total of $61,733.74. Judson STEAM Academy has received three of the fourteen academic field trip grants for a total of $5,311.84.