Outdoor classroom dedicated to late Center Township Elementary parent
CENTER TWP — Michelle Roudybush had spent hours volunteering at Center Township Elementary School and working with its Parent-Teacher Organization, up until her death on June 20, 2022.
The new outdoor classroom space at Center Township Elementary opened this year, and it’s dedicated to Roudybush, which came as a slight surprise to her parents, who were at the grand opening in August.
“We were touched, because we didn’t even know they were doing it,” said Bob Keil, Roudybush’s dad. “It was wonderful of them.”
A previously unused courtyard at Center Township Elementary has been populated by picnic tables, as well as a garden space and birdhouses, so teachers can take their students outside for class. Tanya Lewis, principal of Center Township Elementary, said the PTO helped craft the space and make it accessible for all students at the school.
“Last year we recognized the beauty of the space and wanted to have the ability to use it,” Lewis said. “It’s intended for everybody in the school.”
The space isn’t just reserved for outdoor science lessons, and teachers can take students outside to read or learn other lessons.
Jayce Johnson, a fifth grade student at Center Township Elementary, said he enjoys having class outside, as he peered through a microscope at a dandelion leaf he picked from the ground.
“It seems more relaxing out here,” Jayce said.
Fifth grade teacher Rob Takacs took his class outside Thursday, Sept. 28, so students could look closely at different plants and draw them in detail.
Takacs said the outdoor classroom has helped him to better engage his students in science lessons, because they can see and touch different plants to gain better understanding of them.
“If it’s here, if it’s present, it just brings it more to life for them,” Takacs said. “Anything you can do outside like this really gets them involved.”
The outdoor space is also a different learning setting, which Takacs said makes it a good spot for students to read or do math work.
Each school in Butler Area School District has a different educational focus, and Lewis said creative arts and thinking is the theme at Center Township Elementary. She said the school is in the process of coming up with a three-year plan kicking it all off, and the outdoor classroom is involved in that plan.
The PTO is also helping to maintain the outdoor space, Lewis said. Keil said he was touched that the school dedicated the outdoor space to his daughter, and that the PTO is still helping drive new initiatives at Center Township Elementary.
“She was there every day helping with the school,” Keil said. “She was amazing. She dedicated her life to her kids and the kids at that school.”
Lewis said that when she was teaching at Center Township Elementary, she knew Roudybush and her children.
“She spent a lot of years as a PTO mom and volunteering in the school,” Lewis said. “She was just such an incredible person and always doing things to volunteer and help the kids.”
