Murphy – When 13-year-old Riley Thompson sat in a traditional school classroom, she felt defeated.
“It was hard trying to keep up and that made me feel anxious,” she said.
According to Jacqueline Egli, a state-certified special education teacher with a master’s degree in education and educational leadership, Thompson is among “the 17 percent of Cherokee County students who identify as special educational students.” Thompson has been working with Egli for more than a year and loves learning today.
“She makes it easy because she knows different ways to teach it so it makes sense.” Thompson said.
That’s exactly what Egli intends to do for any K-12 student who may need a fresh approach to reading and math. Egli opened her Bridges to Learning Tutoring Center’s new location at 762 U.S. 64 W., next to the Waffle King, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday.
Students and community members celebrated with pizza and sweets. Mayor Tim Radford joined in saying, “We didn’t have anything like this when I was a kid.”
Radford is referring to the tutoring center’s multiple avenues to learning that may not be available in more traditional settings. Egli is certainly qualified, with more than 40 years of teaching experience.
“I want to help children in our community succeed,” she said.
The tutoring center provides an important extension to classroom or homeschool learning environments, especially since the pandemic.
“Students experienced a ‘COVID slide’ in the schools’ early attempts to navigate online learning. This interrupted their learning trajectory” Egli said, adding, “This created a learning gap with inconsistencies.”
As a member of the Council for Exceptional Children, Learning Disabilities Association of America, Egli feels qualified to guide students toward success with her one-on-one bespoke teaching curriculum. She is guided by the truism tidily printed on her white board: “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, we need to teach the way the child learns.
For details on the tutoring center and its services, call 828-516-1779.