The new vision for the State Board of Education was unveiled during an annual Kansas State Department of Education conference in Wichita last week.
Among the more than 1,000 educators in attendance was the Superintendent of Schools in Geary USD 475, Dr. Corbin Witt. He noted the Commissioner of Education, Randy Watson, has sought input from thousands of people around the state.
The goal is to see what they would like in their K-12 education system, explained Witt. “He’s now putting that together and kind of saying I think the focus that we’ve had on the state assessments and strictly looking at academics is not what the people of Kansas really want in their accreditation system. So now they’re looking at a new accreditation system called the Five R’s, and what that would look at is all aspects of a school district.
Witt added it would range from instruction, assessments and results to relationships and how the behavior and health needs of students are met. “So I think it’s really exciting the direction that they’re going with education and how they want to accredit the school districts.”
One of the outcomes for the state board of education deals with readiness for kindergarten. Witt noted he’s excited about the fact that USD 475 already has an extensive early childhood program. “So that’s one of the things I do feel like we’re out ahead of everyone. We’ve got great programs, and a lot of the focus on career and technical aspects our high school is well aligned to that with our career academies. So a lot of things I do feel like we’ve got a step up on the game and we’re doing the right things.”
During the Community Conversations, Kansans said children need quality pre-school including all-day kindergarten.
They also favored changes to address school culture, with the student who purses a technical education or a two-year college as valued and supported as much as the student pursuing a four-year degree. They also favored businesses playing an important role in the education of students with internships and job shadowing, community service playing a larger role in education, and new roles for counselors and social workers. The belief was that they should be able to focus on helping students explore career paths and development of individual plans of study.