WINGSPAN WINS GALLUP AWARD
The student staff of Wingspan, Nixa High School Journalism's quarterly news magazine, won a George J. Gallup Award from
the Quill and Scroll International Honor Society.
The Gallup Award is the organization's top award for scholastic news publications. Wingspan was evaluated on these four
categories: General Practices, Writing and Editing, Coverage and Visuals.
The judge's comments summarized Wingspan's scope of coverage: "Your newsroom is putting out a publication that lives up
to the highest standards of scholastic magazine journalism. The variety of issues covered is impressive, and the writing and
visual presentation is strong."
The award is based upon Wingspan issues completed during the 2018-19 school year.
Students who were part of last year's Wingspan staff include the following:
Raegan Allen (editor-in-chief), Kaitlyn Byrd, Camlen Carlile-Davis, Lucy Cave, Macie Clark, Riley Harris, Kaitlyn Jones, Nadia
May, Carli Snyder, Alyssa Stewart, & Madalyn Tuning.
PAGE 16 EAGLE EXPRESS | WINTER 2019
The district has been using professional learning communities
(PLC) for several years, but a greater focus has been put in
place across the district.
According to the Glossary of Education Reform, "Aprofessional
learning community, orPLC, is a group of educators that
meets regularly, shares expertise, and works collaboratively to
improve teaching skills and the academic performance of
students. The term is also applied to schools or teaching
faculties that use small-group collaboration as a form
ofprofessional development."
The communities allow schools to share best practices and
help share strategies to make sure all students learn and
succeed, and when a focus needs to be placed in a particular
area, the entire school, grade level, or district can focus on
what needs to be done.