Liz Hofreuter Wants Students To ‘Learn Fearlessly’ At WCDS
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WHEELING - When Liz Hofreuter sat as a student at Wheeling Country Day School, she had no idea that her future would one day include leading that school.
From childhood until halfway through her four years at Princeton, a career in education wasn't her plan. Yet, between her sophomore and junior years at Princeton, she began a journey that ultimately led her back to Wheeling Country Day and into the role of its head of school. Now, she can't imagine doing anything else.
With an anything-is-possible attitude and a devotion to ensuring each child under her care is growing as a student and person, Hofreuter has pushed Wheeling Country Day forward and continues to search for innovative ways to help kids learn.
Hofreuter's original plan when she arrived at Princeton was to advance in the business world. Halfway through, she realized that wasn't her passion.
"When I thought about what classes I enjoyed and what I liked doing and what I wanted to do for the summer, none of it had anything to do with sitting in an office," she said. "I wanted to be outside, I wanted to be influencing other people and inspiring other people."
Hofreuter ended up working the day camp at The Linsly School that summer, and weeks into it, she told her mother that this might be her new plan because it didn't feel like work.
She went back to Princeton and asked to join its teacher prep program. She was told she had to eschew all her electives for the next two years to catch up. She did so gladly.
Hofreuter returned to Wheeling to teach at Linsly, and also worked at Bethany teaching education majors.
"Suddenly, I felt like the influence in education could be exponential," she said, "because for every senior in college that I could influence, they were going to influence 30 more and so on and so on."
Ultimately, in 2009, Wheeling Country Day's board of directors asked Hofreuter to become its head of school. It was then a calling, she said. The school was in jeopardy with just 80 students enrolled.
"I felt it was my turn to give back to the school that had really started me on the path of 'I could do something with my life,'" she said.
Since then, Hofreuter has led Wheeling Country Day with a few tenets at the front of her mind. One came to her on her first day as head of school. As the students had gathered around her on that first day, she sent them off to their classes with a mission - learn something new. Another is that "good enough" will never be good enough on her campus.
At Wheeling Country Day, Hofreuter wants to harness the energy and excitement of the school's students and their desire to explore and evolve. Learning, she said, isn't about product, it's about process. The main topic shouldn't be what grade a child receives, but how that child has grown. And creativity isn't stifled, but embraced and promoted.
There is one word that Hofreuter wants all of her students to use when talking about what they're learning: yet, as in "I can't do algebra yet," or "I'm not a good speller yet."
"So there is that feeling that I will," she said. "With enough effort and enough guidance, I will."
It is Hofreuter's belief that all students should be able to say that, even those who struggle in their learning. That's why Wheeling Country Day has developed the Center for Multisensory Learning. The center provides instruction for students with language-based learning differences such as dyslexia, auditory processing disorder or attention deficit disorder.
The center uses the Orton-Gillingham method, which breaks down reading and spelling into smaller skills of letters and sounds and builds from there. Hofreuter started the Center for Multisensory Learning after her own child had trouble recognizing letters. It includes both remote and summer learning programs.
Hofreuter sees the influence of Wheeling Country Day and the Center for Multisensory Learning expanding past the walls of the school's Woodsdale campus. Already, the school is holding classes in other sites around Wheeling - the Stone Room at Wheeling Park and the Scottish Rite Building. Hofreuter is talking with West Virginia Northern Community College to possibly use space on Northern's downtown campus.
She also sees the Center for Multisensory Learning's influence expand into other states like Michigan and Ohio. Country Day learned that remote learning can be effective when done correctly, and the school can use a remote option to reach students hundreds of miles away to help with their learning differences.
"We want to change the way we do school," Hofreuter said, "so that everyone can learn fearlessly."