No Road Blocks To Riding for Focus!
There is no one left behind on the ride to full participation at Oklahoma School for the Deaf in Sulphur, Oklahoma. The school was one of the 41 schools awarded a Riding for Focus grant this past spring. Physical Education Teacher Angie Shelby applied for the grant sharing from her personal life story how she overcame the challenges of being deaf and how she wanted her students to have to the same opportunities in the arena of being physically active with no barriers. The school received a dozen bicycles, helmets and additional support gear to launch the comprehensive program this past fall for the new year. Angie used the Riding for Focus physical education curriculum to teach OSD students how to do safety inspections, check and fit helmets properly and ride their bikes safely. The students are thriving and riding today and waiting for a future pump track to test ride.
Angie attended both the Riding for Focus training during the summer at the Specialized Bicycles corporate headquarters in Morgan Hill, California and the Stanford Research Summit at Stanford University that concluded the 5-day training.
“I am very excited to provide our students the opportunity to learn about cycling, gain experience and have fun,” Shelby said. “My next goal for this curriculum is to add a pump track in OSD’s back yard so they can stay involved in improving their health, increasing their self-esteem and being independent bike riders.”
A pump track is a circuit of rollers, banked turns and features designed to be ridden completely by riders pumping or generating momentum by up and down body movements, instead of pedaling or pushing.
The students are beyond fortunate to have PE teacher and coach Angie at the helm who was awarded Teacher of Year in the spring of 2019 by Manda Chebultz, Director of Education (image below left). National Deaf Digest Sports named Angie coach of the year for her leadership skills as the top division 2 volleyball coach for all schools for the deaf in the nation. Sarah Marie Jameson, is the personal interpreter for Oklahoma School for the Deaf who joined Angie and her team at the Stanford Research Summit (image below right).
Angie’s parents found out she was deaf at eighteen months of age and received services through OSD’s then program, the Family Learning Institute, in which they were provided information about opportunities and educational programs for deaf students in the state of Oklahoma. Deciding that OSD had the best opportunities available and seeing Angie’s thrilled reaction to seeing other children with hearing aids just like her, Angie’s family moved from their northwestern home all the way to Sulphur, OK so Angie could attend the Oklahoma School for the Deaf. From age four until she graduated in 1999, Angie attended OSD, where a passion for teaching and coaching other deaf and hard-of-hearing students, grew within her.
After graduating from OSD, Angie went on to attend the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma where she majored in Deaf Education with an emphasis in Physical Education. Upon completion of her degree, Angie started working at the Arkansas School for the Deaf as a PE and health science teacher for several years before accepting her dream position at OSD in 2008.
Angie is a fitness enthusiast who enjoys spending her free time training for triathlons, being active outdoors, boating during the summer, and sharing her love for fitness with others. Her life goals are to continue competing in triathlons and to be an example for all deaf children. Angie says her greatest accomplishments in life were obtaining her college degree in her field of passion and completing the half Iron Man competition in Oklahoma City.