Kathryn Pilcher Edmonds found herself teaching some of the most challenging pupils in some of the most challenging times, yet she found successes she hopes other teachers can learn from.

She was a special-education teacher with only a year's experience when two of her fellow teachers approached their principal at Dutchtown Middle School with a plan to address the needs of schoolchildren who had fallen behind and were a year or more older than their classmates. Dutchtown Middle is in Geismar, a small Louisiana town along Interstate 10 between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

The children had already struggled, and nationally, middle-school-age children prove to be particularly challenging. On top of that, half of the older children were special-needs pupils. The two teachers, Monique Wild and Amanda Mayeaux, asked whether Mrs. Edmonds, a 2000 graduate of Westside High School, could join the team.

"They said 'OK. Well, we want to try the new girl that's been here this year. We think she is young enough and maybe naive enough to buy into it," recalled Mrs. Edmonds, 26.

The 44 pupils were coming out of the sixth grade at age 15, but the team set out to teach them seventh- and eighth-grade math in one year so they would be back up with their peers.

The eighth-grade "challenge program," as it came to be called, was particularly crucial. In Louisiana, as in Georgia, eighth-graders must pass state testing to auto matically advance to the next grade.

Summer was spent preparing to launch the pilot program, but only three weeks into the school year, something unforeseen made the job even more difficult. Hurricane Katrina struck, knocking out power for a week and sending waves of southeast Louisiana residents through Geismar seeking refuge.

Mrs. Edmonds said many of her pupils had relatives in areas left devastated by Katrina.

The school took in new pupils, including one abandoned by family.

"That was our first battle, the first of many that year," she said.

However, the hurricane didn't dampen the spirits of the teachers, who stuck to their goals throughout the school year.

The test results came in. Of the 44 eighth-graders, 40 had passed, Mrs. Edmonds said. After a retake, all 44 scored well enough to move on to high school.

"Don't get me wrong. It wasn't a fairy tale," she said. "It was all about support."

That support included a mentoring program for young teachers such as herself. The administration supported the team's efforts, and the team's success led the school system in Ascension Parish to adopt "inclusion" teaching as the norm, pairing up general-education and special-education teachers.

"Everybody likes data. Everybody likes numbers. When those test scores shot through the roof for the special-ed students, they knew there was no turning back," Mrs. Edmonds said.

The team's successes didn't go unnoticed by schoolchildren or educators nationally.

Based on their pupils' nominations, their essays and judges' evaluations, the team earned the 2006 Disney Teacher of the Year award, the first team to be recognized with the honor.

While at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., the team was also recognized with the award for Outstanding Middle School Teachers of the Year and the Youth Service America Award, a list of achievements Disney called unprecedented.

This spring, Mrs. Edmonds and the team documented their successes and detailed their strategies in a book titled TeamWork . The team has taken its success on the road, speaking to school systems and conferences, including the National Middle School Association.

Reach Greg Gelpi at (706) 828-3851 or greg.gelpi@augustachronicle.com.