By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays USD 489 school board heard an overview of new state accreditation standards for Kansas school districts at its meeting Monday.
The new standards move away from scores on achievement tests to five main focus areas: social and emotional growth, kindergarten readiness, individual plans of study, increased graduation rates, and post-secondary success. This is the first year for the new accreditation process.
Although the main objectives for the accreditation, which the Kansas Department of Education has dubbed Kansans Can, are the same for all districts, the means to achieve those goals will be different for each district.
Research has indicated more than 70 percent of Kansas jobs will need a college degree or some type of post-secondary certification by 2020.
Kansans Can seeks to have high school graduates academically prepared, cognitively prepared, have the technical skills, employment skills and civic engagement that will prepare them to be successful in post-secondary education or attainment of an industry certification without remediation.
The state has launched a school redesign program around these principles that will include seven schools. The program is titled after the Mercury 7 space missions.
The schools included in that redesign include Stockton, Olathe, Twin Valley, Liberal, Wellington, McPherson and Coffeyville. Each district has agreed to include an elementary and secondary school in the program.
Twenty-one more schools are part of the second phase of the redesign project that has been dubbed the Gemini Project. Hays schools are not a part of this project.
Kansas Education Commissioner Randy Watson in a video he made to roll out the program said the redesign is aimed at making schools more student centered. He sees learning being focused around students learning styles and needs and not around set class periods, age groups or grade levels.
Board member Paul Adams said one of the pilot schools has added a firefighting program. By the time the students graduate, they will be able to serve as volunteer firefighters.
He said career planning needs to start in kindergarten.
Shanna Dinkel, assistant superintendent, said children as early as kindergarten can begin to explore different interests that will ultimately help them choose a career when they are older.
Dinkel said the district already has identified the need to add an elementary counselor to meet the needs of students and the new accreditation system.
To learn more about the Kansans Can initiative, visit the KSDE website. Videos and fact sheets are available.