My name is Shay Carpenter. I am the education coordinator here at Wheatfield Academy. We try to do a variety of things here at Wheatfield Academy to make sure that the boys stay engaged. We do things like woodshop as well as animal science. They also get an opportunity to go to equine where they get to feed the horses and also pet the horses and do little chores for them as well.

There’s also an opportunity for them to have an academic environment where they work in the classroom. It’s really important to make sure that the boys are staying engaged or staying involved because a lot of times when they’re not engaged, they get distracted. So we want to make sure that they have opportunities to explore different types of learning, whether it be again the hands-on or something where they are maybe drawing or doing things where they have to talk things out or working collaboratively.

It’s really important to make sure that we’re touching all aspects of those learning types because we know we have students from all different spectrums and types of understanding, and the most important thing is make sure they’re grasping the concept and learning not only just educational skills but life skills as well.

It’s important to understand that Wheatfield – it is not your traditional school setting, but it’s definitely a great opportunity. It’s a mix of both where you can have the hands-on, the life experiences, but also the way it’s et up in the schedule, it gives an opportunity and a space for the kids to have a sense of the more of the traditional layout.

We carve out time to where we have prayer time. We start off with prayer in the morning, in our morning meetings, and we end with prayer at the end. So I think that is vital for the kids to just get comfortable in that space, and make that a normal thing. To know that when you start off with that prayer they see how their day goes a lot smoother and when you end with that. So I think that’s a key part of some of the things that we do here at Wheatfield.