Jacob's Story

Our special story and student that has benefited from NASP:

The school is Summit Academy in Louisville, KY, a school for students in grades K-8 who have learning differences. Our students are smart and are of average to above-average intelligence, but they learn differently and have had experiences of failure in the "normal" school learning setting.

The student we have nominated for your consideration is Jacob Kapp, a fifth grader who came to us in the middle of the fall semester. Things were not working out for him at the public school he attended, both academically and socially. He is small framed and was the object of bullying. He came to Summit Academy afraid and unconfident, but the first day I was asked if he could join archery club. He started off doing well and has continued to progress. He is always one of several students who volunteer to shoot extra whenever we have an open space in practice. He is consistently good at shooting, but has been a few points behind our "champion of the day."

I wrote to our parents last week asking for any positive feedback they have from their child's participation in archery. I let them think that it was just an end-of-the-year report to the Archery in the Schools program. Mrs. Kapp wrote back that Jacob was proud that Summit Academy had an archery club that he could join and that he told everyone that his school has archery. She felt like his attention level increased since his participation in archery and that he had more self esteem. He was also interested in the Fish and Wildlife Camp Earl Wallace, something that he may not have been confident enough to try before this.

I asked the teachers a similar question about the archery club students, asking them to note improvements that could include archery as a help. Jacob's teacher for homeroom, Mr. Joe Wight, wrote that Jacob's schoolwork effort had improved and his socialization skills were also better than when he started at Summit Academy.