Rutherford County Virtual School students thrive with clubs
In-person meetups an opportunity for students to explore, give back to community
Wendell Porterfield spent the first part of his career traveling the globe as a musician, but when the economy turned in 2007, a friend encouraged him to go into education.
“I’d never thought about education (as a career) until then, but I knew how important music and music education were to me when I was younger,” he said.
While living in Arizona, Porterfield earned his teaching certification to go along with his music degree from Middle Tennessee State University. He began teaching general music, strings and guitar.
A few years ago, he moved back to his hometown of Murfreesboro and landed a job as Rutherford County Virtual School’s fine arts teacher.
On a recent Friday, Porterfield met with four of his high school guitar students and members of the middle and high school glee clubs. Fridays at RCVS are known as Connection Fridays because they give students and parents a chance to meet in person, sometimes outside of school.
“Connection Fridays really set us apart because so many virtual schools don’t do that. Every student needs to join a club or two or three. For the high schoolers, it helps with resume building,” Principal Jessica Supakhan said. “For elementary and middle, it’s good for social interaction and they need to have a say in doing things they are interested in.”
This year, RCVS serves approximately 360 students in grades 3-12.
Porterfield’s high school guitar class generally meets via Zoom on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“It’s nice to get together on Fridays. It’s an easy way for me to check their form and technique, which is hard to do on Zoom,” Porterfield said.
Sophomore guitar student Elijah Sowder enjoyed learning songs for the spring concert, which included “Closing Time” by Semisonic and “Don’t Wanna Fight” by Alabama Shakes.
“We started out playing folksy songs (as beginners), but he’s fostered that kind of environment that he gives us more and pushes us,” Sowder said.
Later in the day, Porterfield met with a half dozen middle school students for Glee Club.
“We don’t call it choir because I don’t know that we’ll ever see 30 or 40 students in here at once. But with glee, we can do a little more — pop, jazz, standards,” he said.
After leading students through vocal exercises and offering tips on posture and, he handed them a page of lyrics to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” to test their range as an ensemble.
Once a couple of run-throughs were completed, Porterfield encouraged the singers to pat themselves on the back.
“That was an A minus, but we are going to make it an A plus before we leave this room,” he told them. “We’re all making progress.”
Porterfield has performances planned for winter and spring.
Music groups are just two of the nearly 30 clubs RCVS offers.
The Community Service Club meets at local non-profits, for example.
Students also can choose from clubs such as fishing, golf, gardening, e-sports and self-care, among others. Last year, the high school Beta Club received dual honors from the national organization based on its commitment to academics, character and leadership.
To learn more about RCVS, visit https://rcso.rcschools.net/.
