McAuliffe Curriculum

Art, music and physical education are an important aspect of education at McAuliffe.

Students attend classes on a rotation schedule. 

Challenger Choir

The choir is a fourth and fifth grade select musical group. They perform at community and district-wide ceremonies as well as school-based concerts. Students involved in the Challenger Choir practice before school.  

McAuliffe Elementary has incorporated the Character Counts! program into its educational curriculum in an effort to encourage the development of moral character in students.

The district's character education program - Character Counts! - includes six character qualities taught and reinforced during the year. Each site develops its own program around these character qualities.

The Character Counts! traits are Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Trustworthiness, Fairness and Citizenship.

McAuliffe offers an English Learners curriculum to those students for whom English is not a primary language. Students participate in small group instruction that focuses on the English language.

The Extended Day Program (EDP) provides safe, alternative educational child care, enhancing the child’s extended day. Recognizing the busy lifestyles of today’s family, the district attempts to work in partnership with home and parents by providing before and after school supervision at the school site.

Children who are identified as “gifted and talented” may participate in additional academic studies, having demonstrated potential abilities of high performance capability and needing differentiated or accelerated education or services.

Union Intramural Sports provides Union students opportunities to participate in athletics at a recreational level in flag football, basketball, and volleyball.

Student Council

McAuliffe provides leadership opportunities for students in grades 3-5. 

These students are selected by their peers and teachers to lead McAuliffe in school wide community projects. These projects include a school wide improvement plan where student council focuses on one project throughout the year that will benefit the school. 

Student council also coordinates community service projects that include a school wide recycling program and the annual Salvation Army canned food drive.  

Balanced Literacy is a research-based approach that provides students a wide variety of ways in which they will become skilled readers and writers. Children are exposed to a strong reading mentor who instructs on skills, strategies, and discussions about reading. Students engage in high volumes of text that will require high levels of comprehension.

Mastering this will then allow students to move to more complex texts. Balanced Literacy is greatly enriched through the use of the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model.

This is a scaffolding instructional approach modeled first by the teacher (I do), next students practice through active engagement (we do), which is further practiced in a partnership (2 do), followed by independent practice (you do) of the focus skill or strategy.

Balanced Literacy Framework

Literacy Assessments

• Reading Workshop
• Small Group Instruction
• Shared Reading
• Writing Workshop
• Shared/Interactive Writing
• Interactive Read-aloud (to include accountable talk)
• Word Study

Multi-year class placement (Looping)

At McAuliffe Elementary, we are interested in students, teachers and families developing long-term relationships to better meet the needs of individual learners. 

McAuliffe is participating in multi-year relationships by having many teachers stay with the same students for two years.  For example if a child is in kindergarten, he or she will stay with the same teacher for kindergarten and first grade.

Teams of teachers will also loop from second to third and fourth to fifth. We know that the relationship of teachers to student, to the parents, to other teachers, and to the curriculum is critical throughout a child’s education.  Some of the benefits of a child staying with the same teacher for two years are:

• The teacher develops a deeper understanding of students’ learning styles and needs, both academic and emotional.
• In year two with a teacher, the teacher knows exactly where the child is academically so there is no need for extensive review.
• The teacher understands the students’ family dynamics and the parents’ needs and expectations regarding their children’s education.
• The teacher can approach the curriculum in more depth, knowing that there is more time to help students make connections in their learning.
• Students already understand classroom procedures, rules and expectations.

My Math is a resource utilized in grade levels K-5. Additionally, Jarman teachers collaborate to plan and implement math units designed around essential standards and concept development. 

Discovery Science and Project Lead the Way (STEM curriculum) are utilized in grades K-5.

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) at Union Public Schools is an interdisciplinary approach to learning that encourages students to inquire, explore, and problem solve. 

CNN (Challenger News Network) is produced by fifth grade students under the supervision of media specialist Kirby Mackenzie.

The broadcast is designed to inform the students and staff of important school information such as menus, specialty schedules and upcoming events as well as other special bits of news.

TCI is utilized by K-5th Grade.

Even kids can help prevent bullying say fifth graders at McAuliffe as they take part in a program called Steps to Respect. 

The school counselor visits students in grades 2-5 in their classrooms and takes students and their teachers through role-playing games in which students act out scenes and learn the steps to ending conflict/bullying in a respectful manner.

Fifth graders exhibiting leadership capabilities are able to participate in the school’s safety patrol.  This group aids our staff in supervising the safe arrival and dismissal of students throughout the school on a daily basis.

Union students showcase their art work during YouthArts!

YouthArts! is one of the longest running festivals of its type in the state of Oklahoma. 

Visit the District Fine Arts page.