Comanche Academy: A Day in the Life

At Comanche Academy Charter School, students begin their day with an assembly where they dance, speak Comanche and round dance.

But one class stays behind and talks about how they feel for the day.

That’s Linette Steele and Deanna LaRue’s Pre-K class.

After the students explore their feelings, they explore the school.

While at the library, they find books with the letter J and have story time.

Back in the classroom, the students learn about the things around them that start with the letter J, including jumping jacks.

They also learn the days of the week and the months of the year.

The student’s next assignment is to pick the next assignment. They started with making jellyfish.

After that, it’s time to play. There are various activities for the students, from shaving cream art to playing house to building blocks.

There’s even time to meditate.

Then it’s back to the alphabet and finishing the other assignment before lunchtime.

After recess, which is always active, it’s nap time.

Then it’s an introduction to science class and then off to language.

Students will come back to science class and then pop the balloons.

Snack time was also a learning experience, with students trying to figure out how to open their Gold Fish using critical thinking.

Math begins with some extra help, but there’s eventual understanding.

After all that, it’s playtime again, which includes different activities.

While some students go home after a dance lesson, others go to Wrap Around.

But this classroom wouldn’t be the same without the teachers in charge.

Steele has her associate's in early childhood and is working on completing her bachelor’s. She began at Head Start while her daughter was attending.

“And they saw how I was and interacted with the children and they encouraged me to begin my journey in the field,” she said. “And I was totally against it because I never wanted to be around small children. Head Start actually paid for my schooling through OU to get my associates. Then I became one of their teachers and then I was certified and I became a Head Start director.”

Steele eventually moved to Utah for 18 years, where she was director of early childhood. Steele said she wouldn’t go any further than third grade.

“The connections that you see, the learning, you see how you can instill critical thinking in their minds. And you don't teach them what to think, you teach them how to think,” she said. “It's a different type of mentality. When you see them at that age, they're just so accepting and receptive to what you have to show them. They take it and they put their own spin on it.

It's a brilliant, brilliant age.”

LaRue began as a janitor at the school; however, she and Steele worked well together in the classroom she became certified to be an assistant to the class. This is also LaRue’s second year in a classroom.

“…Little kids, they just bring me so much happiness,” she said. “I'm genuinely a very happy, bubbly person. I'm that person in the hallway singing and dancing and greeting each kid good morning…I feel natural. It's just, ‘Hey, high fives,’ going down the hallway…I like seeing them smile.”

Both agreed the success in the classroom begins with teamwork. 

“Realistically, 24-7 we can't expect to be happy, go lucky, Penelope, rays of sunshine,” Steele said. “So, when either one of us were very verbal about it and we were very verbal about it inside of the classroom, in front of the kids, that, guys, I'm not feeling well today. So, tag, you're it. You're taking over this role I'm taking over this role.”

Mindfulness is also important to the classroom. Stelle said being mindful every day is living with intention.

“And we tell the kids every day, ‘What's the purpose of that chair?’ ‘What's the purpose of the table?’ ‘Find your purpose,’” she said. “Because if you don't have a purpose or if you don't feel that, you're aimlessly walking around with no…oomph. When we explain to them this, by the end of the year, when they leave our classroom, they have this sense of, ‘I have a purpose,’ ‘I have a meaning here in life.’ But ‘When I get to a place that I need to be rerouted and self-regulate,’ they know what they can do.”

 LaRue will sometimes join in on the activities.

“Usually, I'm down there on the floor…just doing [it] with them. Breathing in and relaxing. And that calms me down, too,” she said. “Like, she does different… attention grabbers. And I'll be in there doing the motions with her. And I'll be like, ‘Okay, wait, one more time, one more time. Let's go over it one more time. I need one more time.’ And we'll go over it one more time. And, I mean, it helps me as an adult.”

The goal for the students when they leave the classroom is to become independent, according to Steele. 

“We have the five principles that we lead by in this classroom. It's we allow them to struggle. We do…we don't come in and we don't fix everything for them because they have to go out there one day and they have to fix it for themselves,” she said. “We allow them to play and explore and figure that out for themselves.”

The students are still taught the state-mandated curriculum that also includes culture and choices.

“By giving them even a choice of what they wanted to do first, they still were going to have to accomplish the same things,” Steele said. “Still, in the state standards, you still have to accomplish those same things. But if you give them the choice and you empower them that they chose that, you see how intentional they were and that, ‘Hey, this was my voice.’ So, I think a lot of it, this curriculum is about those basic three things; power of words, intention and choices.”

The Comanche Academy Charter School is located at 1701 Northwest Taft Avenue.