WIN Team supports teachers in classroom

BELLA VISTA — At Cooper Elementary School, a group of five ladies makes up the WIN Team, which provides teacher support in the classroom.

WIN stands for “Where I’m Needed” or “What I Need.” Members are Stefanie Pick, Tia Glover, Heather Roberts, Kay Mills and Robbie Stratman.

Roberts said, “We’re all over the place. We work with all the grade levels at designated times.”

Glover described the role as a “Jill of all trades” saying they provide an hour block with each grade level for literacy and math, giving kids either an extra challenge if they need it or reinforcement if that is what they need. She added they also do lunch duty and car duty and substitute teach.

“Sometimes we don’t know until the day what we’re doing,” Roberts said.

Stratman is also the STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art and Math) teacher.

Pick said she and Stratman share the duty of teaching science to kindergarten students.

Roberts does assessments in kindergarten to identify students who would qualify for TREC (Think, Research, Explore, Create).

Mills said she works with fourth graders who are “stuck” on an assignment.

“I get them unstuck and a light bulb goes off,” she said.

Pick is in charge of Trout in the Classroom, a project in which she and the students raise trout from eggs in an aquarium and then, when they are hatchlings large enough to survive, they release them at the watershed at Beaver Lake.

She said Stratman will take over the program next year. Pick is going to be a teacher next year and hopes to stay at Cooper.

The WIN Team had positive things to say about their jobs.

“I absolutely love this job,” Roberts said. “This is the first job I can say I 100% love coming to and I never dread coming. To see (the students’) growth is so rewarding, and to get to know their personalities. I feel like our goal is to help them love school.”

“I laugh every day,” Glover said.

“We just have fun,” Roberts added.

Pick said, “It’s like family here. We get to seem them from kindergarten through fourth grade. We get to make that connection with the kids and their families.”

Roberts said, “There’s seriously something special about this school. It helps when you have a great principal and vice principal.”

“To see (the students’) growth is so rewarding, and to get to know their personalities. I feel like our goal is to help them love school.”

— Heather Roberts, WIN Team member

(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Rachel Dickerson) Cooper Elementary WIN Team (from left) Tia Glover, Robbie Stratman, Kay Mills, Heather Roberts and Stefanie Pick.