Have you ever walked to your PACK class and questioned “Why I go to this leveled class?”

Terry Embleton, the former principal at Day Creek and founder of PACK at our school explained the program was made to meet individual needs of students by their specific abilities.

“You could be a math whiz, but struggle with language arts. You can meet [their] specific needs,” said Embleton.

The onetime principal shared that P.A.C.K was also designed to “ease the requirements for a teacher”  so he or she wouldn’t always have to teach every level of student in one class. Instead, teachers only teach one level of students, instead of five.

Although these classes seem like a way for students to be sorted by class rank, it actually has the opposite purpose.

“Only certain students would need to get additional help and I felt that it was embarrassing to the students because anytime they would leave, [others] would [recognize], ‘Those students are the ones that need additional help,” Embleton said.

So the purpose in creating PACK was to allow students to anonymously divide into groups to get instruction at their level.

“If all students could move at the same time, you don’t know what class they’re going to. Everyone’s equal, everyone’s the same,” Embleton said.

And now, we are asking the question no one wants to ask, does our P.A.C.K program make students feel separated? Since most students understand that P.A.C.K is divided into levels, shouldn’t it be normal for students to have a sense of differentiation from other levels? Embleton answers this way.

“No matter what you do in your life, you’re going to have different levels, whether it’s tennis, whether it’s academics, whether it’s checkers; there’s always is going to be different levels. Everyone has a specific skill or level no matter what they do,” Embleton said.

Which means that feeling different is completely normal in any situation. When talking about academics, everyone has a specific skill level. P.A.C.K is just there to improve your skill. Don’t let the braininess of some students get to you during your classes!