Most of the college students at Haber Oaks consider the college as a second house.
Among the many the explanation why is Anne Whitney-Tubridy.
“Anne, to me, is simply sort of our, I assume I’ll say, tradition queen,” stated Julie Duncan, coordinator of Off Campus Applications and administrator of the Haber Oaks campus. “It looks like all the pieces she’s concerned with is a novel identifier to what we’re.”
Haber Oaks is an alternate studying program in Crystal Lake, serving all excessive faculties in Crystal Lake-based Group Excessive College District 155. With lessons taught by particular schooling lecturers, the college focuses on “restorative and trauma delicate approaches to help scholar success and growth,” based on its web site.
A part of District 155 for 17 years and a part of the Haber Oaks household for the previous decade, Whitney-Tubridy teaches well being and enterprise math on the faculty and serves because the proud proprietor of Haber’s remedy canine, a golden retriever named Henry.
Amongst her many contributions by the years is Haber Mart. Principally an in-school retailer, Haber Mart started behind a faculty closet and has grown into a necessary a part of the Haber expertise. Duncan described it as an “anchor to the tradition at Haber Oaks.”
College students in Whitney-Tubridy’s enterprise math class have been instrumental in creating the shop, and others by the years have helped it evolve into what’s right this moment.
Stocked with gadgets donated from the neighborhood, Haber Mart permits college students to purchase merchandise, resembling hats, coats, sweatshirts, hygiene gadgets, meals, snacks and college provides, utilizing Haber bucks they earn as reward for constructive achievements each in and out of doors the classroom.
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The staff of Haber Mart are the scholars themselves, working jobs like cashier and greeter. They study what it’s prefer to run a enterprise, Whitney-Tubridy stated, whereas the shoppers profit from the gadgets they get to purchase.
All the time useful on the faculty, Haber Mart particularly helped households throughout the pandemic, providing necessities at accessible costs for households in want.
“It’s actually good for the youngsters. Whether or not it’s well being class or grownup residing class or shopper math class, it provides all people the possibility to be the worker and be shopper service and follow just a few job abilities and social abilities,” Whitney-Tubridy stated.
“I simply suppose for the youngsters it builds self-confidence,” she stated. “For lots of our children, they wrestle with anxiousness, … and for them to have that further follow with social abilities, I believe is de facto good.”
Alongside along with her educating diploma, Whitney-Tubridy earned a grasp’s diploma in counseling from Concordia College Chicago. For her, educating is all about serving to college students grow to be unbiased and profitable adults.
“You’re a mother and a counselor in life and a well being instructor,” she stated. “You’re all of that in a single.”
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The best reward for her is seeing a scholar working in the neighborhood.
“I used to be at FedEx and I heard my title and it’s one among my outdated college students, and the boss says he’s doing an excellent job,” she stated. “It simply makes you’re feeling good. You may not at all times see the ripple impact till years later.”
Just like Haber Mart, Whitney-Tubridy’s function as remedy canine mother developed.
She’d sometimes usher in her golden retriever Grace, who not too long ago died, simply to go to along with her college students. She noticed the constructive affect the canine and Grace’s son, Henry, had on her college students, so she went by the method of getting them licensed as official remedy canines by Remedy Canines Worldwide.
Now Henry commonly visits.
College students take him on walks or go to with him whereas doing homework or within the faculty’s sensory room.
“He simply has a chilled impact on children,” Whitney-Tubridy stated. “Remedy canines are actually phenomenal so far as relieving stress or if children are anxious. Youngsters don’t even miss a beat to go over to a canine and even lay on the ground with him. I put a rug in my room for that purpose.”
Bringing Henry to high school is simply one other method for Whitney-Tubridy to do what she got down to do years in the past when she determined to grow to be a particular schooling instructor.
“I assume I simply wish to assist children,” she stated. “I’ve at all times been drawn towards the highschool children, simply sort of wanting to assist them achieve success at life and be one of the best particular person they are often.”