Due to wet grounds, the Hays High girls’ soccer match with Garden City scheduled for this afternoon has been postponed. No makeup date has been announced.
Year: 2016
Alvena Dietz
Alvena Dietz, age 94, of Collyer, passed away, Monday, April 18, 2016 at Trego Count Lemke Memorial Hospital, WaKeeney.
Arrangements are pending with Schmitt Funeral Home, WaKeeney.
Hays City Commission work session canceled
The Hays City Commission work session scheduled for Thursday evening has been canceled.
Community Connection: Thomas More Prep – Marian High Chess
Thomas More Prep Marian High recently brought home the 2016 Kansas State Championship High School Chess trophy and plaque. Mike Cooper visits with coach’s and students from the team.
You and Your Young Child – David Levering
Hays Legion Auxiliary will have Poppy Patch Craft & Gift Fair
The Casper J Middlekauff American Legion Auxiliary Unit 173, Hays, will be hosting the Poppy Patch Craft & Gift Fair on Saturday, April 23, at the Hays American Legion Ballroom, 1305 Canterbury. The event will be held from 9 am to 3 pm and will feature 25 different craftsmen and companies.
Represented are: Arte Sano – Columbian Handicrafts, Clever Container, Country Kitchen Craft Company, The Crafty Nut Hut, Discovery Toys, Goat Bubbles n Bunny Kisses, GrapeVine Ceramics, Jamberry, Lisa’s Mia Bella, Memory Lockets by Erika, Pampered Chef, Paparazzi, Personalize It by Rhiannon, Sassy Sam’s, Scentsy, SeneGence, Signature Homestyles, Springtime Designs LLC, Stitch’n Knitwits, Tastefully Simple, Uncle Leo’s Spark Plug Squadron, Usborne Books, Watkins, Wild Feather Crafting Co, and Younique.
There will be concessions and a bake sale. The menu for concessions will be green bean & dumpling soup, ham sandwiches, and pasta salad.
The American Legion Auxiliary is a veteran’s and active military service organization. Its purpose is to provide support to active military servicemen, their families, veterans and the communities that support them. The proceeds from this event will go to projects such as: Scholarships, Girls State, Action Alerts asking for home comforts that are sent overseas, Fort Dodge Old Soldiers Home Christmas Shop, and art programs at veteran centers across Kansas. The group also supports area programs such as the Community Assistance Center and Ellis County Salvation Army.
Neil W. NcNerney
Graveside memorial service for Goodland, Kansas, resident (formerly of La Crosse and Larned) Neil W. NcNerney, 75, will be held Saturday, April 30, at 11:00 AM CT at WaKeeney City Cemetery.
Memorial to charity of donor’s choice.
Friends may share condolences and sign the register book online at www.koonsfuneralhome.com.
SCHROCK: Is a college degree the new high school diploma?
Years ago, it took a high school diploma to get a good job. Today, some employers require a college degree. The assumption is that today’s jobs require a higher level of communication and math skills and an additional two years (associates degree) or four years of advanced study is now needed.
But there is another meaning to this phrase: that the college degree is eroding in academic rigor and may represent little more knowledge and skill than the high school diploma of the last century.
There has been an explosion in high school course work awarded college credit. When dual credit was first established, the wording of the legislation made it clear that it was for a few exceptional high school students—only juniors or seniors—who could benefit from taking accelerated course work. The image was of a straight-A high school student trekking up the street to sit among college students at the local college. School administrators had to attest that the student was exceptional—a “Doogie Howser” for those who remember the television series about the youngster who attends medical school.
However, the Kansas concurrent enrollment system was soon expanded to include students who had just completed their freshman year of high school. School superintendents added the number of students taking courses for college credit to their bragging inventory. Having a large number of students graduate high school with one or even two full years of college credits is now common. It has become a false indicator of school quality.
One large Kansas district begins students on a pathway to college preparation beginning at age 4! Ninety percent of students in this non-affluent district are admitted to college and some have 24–30 college credit hours finished at high school graduation. Under the cheerleading of moving from “encourage” to “require,” their College Plus program now mandates college course work for high school students. —Everyone is now a “Doogie Howser.”
With the annual increases in college tuition, those parents who could afford it saw the savings in paying college tuition for a high school class now, to count as college credit later.
Accelerating this trend was a change in public university funding. Formerly, Kansas regents universities were funded within a corridor. As long as enrollment stayed within this corridor, the funding from the state remained stable. The Kansas Board of Regents switched to a system where each school essentially kept its tuition. And the race for students and tuition from dual credit courses was on!
What credentials do these secondary teachers need? In 2005, KBOR passed a bachelors-with-24-hours-in-field-taught requirement. But the wording allowed community and technical colleges to do the same. Kansas found itself in the strange position of allowing teachers to teach college credit courses when they did not have enough credits to teach the course in high school. [Most Kansas secondary teachers must have more than 24 hours-in-field]. For 10 years, these underqualified teachers who lack a masters degree, at both high schools and community and technical colleges in Kansas, have generated large numbers of college credit course work for high school students.
Into this academic Wild West rides the Higher Learning Commission. The HLC’s Assumed Practices for faculty roles and qualifications requires teachers of college credit courses to have the masters degree and 18 graduate hours in the field being taught. Immediately, Kansas community and technical colleges began advertising for the master’s criteria. But as soon as the HLC policy clarification indicated it would go into effect for Fall of 2017, many re-advertised at the bachelors-with-24 level.
While there are some well-qualified high school teachers teaching a college level course, the vast majority of current high school dual credit teachers lack the master’s degree/18-graduate-hours-in-field-qualification.
Kansas has been issuing college credits for over a decade for courses taught by underqualified teachers. And Kansas officials have asked HLC for more time, another 5 years, to implement the qualifications requirement.
Meanwhile, for many Kansas students, a four-year bachelors degree has already become only three or even two years of genuine college course work. Indeed, the college degree may become a high school diploma.
Another Kan. school district ponders charging for all-day kindergarten
NEWTON, Kan. (AP) — Another Kansas school district is considering charging parents for all-day kindergarten.
KSNW-TV reports that the Newton district in south-central Kansas is looking into a $200-a-month charge. Half-day kindergarten would remain free because the state funds it.
Newton Superintendent Deborah Hamm says expenses are rising with no new money. She says districts can’t continue to do the same things with fewer resources.
Newton parent Ashley Horchem says the proposal is “frustrating” and that “education shouldn’t be that costly at a young age.”
But Hamm says there are no other areas to trim the budget. School board members haven’t made a decision yet.
Among the districts already charging for all-day kindergarten are several in the Kansas City area.
Partly cloudy, warmer Monday
Normal temperatures for mid April will be in store for the next several days as an upper low continues to move out of the Rockies region and into the Great Plains. We will experience near normal temperatures most most of the week. Today will be mostly dry outside of a few isolated morning showers. Additional rains are expected on Tuesday as the upper low moves out over Kansas. Light to moderate rainfall amounts are all that are expected with the next round of rain Tuesday, on the order of around a tenth of an inch to a quarter inch.
Monday Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 61. Northwest wind 11 to 16 mph.
Monday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 41. Northwest wind around 7 mph.
Tuesday A slight chance of showers, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 64. North wind around 7 mph becoming east southeast in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 50%.
Tuesday Night A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 43. Northwest wind around 7 mph.
Wednesday A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 66.
Wednesday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 43.
Kansas man dies, 3 hospitalized after car, semi crash
FORD COUNTY – A Kansas man died in an accident just after 4p.m. on Sunday in Ford County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2014 Hyundai Elantra driven by McKayla Webb, 21, Wichita, was eastbound on U.S. 400 four miles north of Bucklin.
The driver lost control and the vehicle’s passenger side tires dropped off the roadway.
The Hyundai re-entered the eastbound lane, went left of center and struck the second axle on the driver’s side of a westbound semi
A passenger Loren E. Webb. 45, Wichita, was transported to Western Plains Medical Center where he died.
The driver and two other passengers Mandy M. Webb. 40, and Marissa Webb, 19, Wichita, were also transported to Western Plains Medical Center.
The semi driver Robert G. Wanzer, 34, Watonga, OK., was not injured.
All were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.
Justices hear challenge to Obama’s immigration action, deportations
MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up an important dispute over immigration that could affect millions of people who are living in the country illegally.
The Obama administration is asking the justices in arguments Monday to allow it to put in place two programs that could shield roughly 4 million people from deportation and make them eligible to work in the United States.
Texas is leading 26 states dominated by Republicans in challenging the programs President Barack Obama announced in 2014 and that lower courts have put on hold.
The high court is expected to decide by late June whether the efforts can move forward in the waning months of Obama’s presidency. A ruling will come amid a presidential campaign that has been marked by harsh Republican rhetoric over immigration.
Former Kan. Senator recognized for devotion to the Flint Hills
MANHATTAN – The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation recognized Nancy Kassebaum Baker as the “2016 Friend of the Flint Hills”, Saturday night, according to a media release.
The award honors significant time, effort and resources devoted to the cause of conserving the Flint Hills of Kansas and northern Oklahoma and to the Flint Hills Discovery Center. The award is given to an individual(s), nongovernmental organization or public institution each spring since 2012.
“Nancy was chosen for her exemplary leadership role and commitment to the Flint Hills as an elected official,” said Bruce Snead, President of the Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation.
Kassebaum’s love of Kansas and the Flint Hills region was exemplified by her efforts along with that of others in the establishment of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Strong City, KS in 1996. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and the 100th anniversary of the U.S. National Park Service.
The significance of the 20 year anniversary is that this was the first time a public and private entity came together and formed a partnership dedicated to preserving a portion of the last remaining stand of tallgrass prairie in North America. The Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service partnered in order to foster preservation, provide a venue to interpret local cultural and historical features, provide visitors with the opportunity to become inspired and to explore the ecological, geological and historical aspects of the property. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve is the only one of its kind in the National Park Service system.
Kassebaum served three terms representing the state of Kansas in the U.S. Senate from 1979-1997. She returned to her permanent home in the Flint Hills in 2014 following the death of her husband, former U. S. Senator Howard Baker.
Former U. S. Senator Kassebaum Baker accepted her award at the annual recognition event on April 16, 2016 at the Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan.
The Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation functions to advance the mission of the Flint Hills Discovery Center by providing support for its programs and initiatives, ensuring stewardship of the region’s tallgrass prairie. The Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, serves as an active local, regional and national advocate by creating opportunities to give to the Foundation and provide for the long-term financial success of the Flint Hills Discovery Center.