Charlene Koplin

Charlene Koplin is a special education teacher at Granite High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. She holds a bachelor’s degree in educational psychology and elementary education from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree in education (with an emphasis in epecial education and Native American education) from the University of Utah. Her teaching career began at the Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic on the campus of the University of Southern California, where she taught middle and high school-aged students with severe emotional challenges. After moving to Utah, she taught students with severe learning disabilities, communication disorders, and behavioral challenges in various junior high and high school settings. She was the lead English Language Learner teacher at an elementary school where students spoke 27 different languages. At Granite High School, she began the first Native American Student Council, for which she encourages students to develop their potential and contribute to their school. She is implementing Reading Horizons with her students with severe learning disabilities, and they are demonstrating remarkable gains in reading and written language, leading to college acceptance and scholarships.

Koplin says, “I was a little skeptical, but I went to the training and it grabbed me. I was treated as if I was a student. I was at the board the whole time. It was really fun!” Koplin and her students set goals of one year’s growth for the school year. After four weeks, they had a computer failure, and Koplin had to re-administer the pre-test. She was amazed to see three to four year’s growth in four weeks! She says, “I thought, ‘There is no way this is really happening,’ but it happened over and over and over.” Over the summer, her students kept what they learned. Some even improved because they finally had the confidence to pick up a book or magazine and read. Koplin says, “I feel really fortunate to have this program at our school. We’re now opening it to our adult community school.”