By MARK TALLMAN
Kansas Association of School Boards

What do Kansans want for their children?

Commissioner of Education Randy Watson and Deputy Commissioner Brad Neuenswander told 600 educators at the Kansans Can and Do Symposium on Tuesday that the State Board of Education tried to sum it up as follows: they want kids to be happy, have a sense of fulfillment, give back to others and have at least two educational credentials: a high school diploma and a postsecondary degree or certificate that allows them to earn a middle class living.

Those goals are embodied in the State Board’s Kansans Can outcomes, which call on all school districts to raise the high school graduation rate, increase postsecondary success, improve kindergarten readiness, provide each student an individualized, career-focused plan of student, and address social and emotional needs.

Those goals reflect the input of over 2,000 Kansans in meetings around the state four years ago, when 70 percent of community members and 81 percent of business leaders said non-academic skills are the biggest needs of students, as well as the on-going responses when parents, educators, community members are polled.

The problems: suicide rates by youth are rising. Thirteen-percent of seniors last year failed to complete a diploma. Less than half of Kansans are completing a credential beyond high school.

The reason, said the two leaders, is not a lack of effort, but that schools “are out of balance.” Schools are still structured around academic content with too little formal attention to the non-academic skills parents and employers says are important and leaving too many students unengaged or damaged by non-school factors.

The answer, they said, is the Kansas school redesign process. “The system is begging us to do something different,” said Watson. “It’s not the students that have to change. It’s the adults.”

The first wave of the State Board’s school redesign process, the seven-district, 14-school Mercury phase, launched this year. The second round, Gemini 1, 21 districts launched this year or no later than the spring of 2020. In February 2018, KSDE announced the third phase – Gemini II: The Space Walk Begins. Nineteen school districts were selected as participants for Gemini II in April 2018. With that announcement, Kansas has 47 districts and 110 schools taking part in school redesign. Applications are underway for the Apollo round, which will be begin implementation in the fall of 2020.

To address the five Kansans Can outcome, the schools in the redesign process must address the following four principles: (1) Student success skills, (2) Personalized learning, (3) Family, business, and community partnerships, and (4) Real work applications.

According to the Commissioner, those four principles will eventually be merged in the still-new state accreditation system called KESA (Kansas Education Systems Accreditation). “At some point, redesign stops being redesign, because it is what everyone will be doing,” he said.

The two leaders cautioned that there is no single path to effective school design. “We (at the state education department) don’t have the answers,” said Neuenswander. “Our goal is to remove roadblocks and help lead you through a process that matches the goals of your community with your students’ needs.”

“Look at models for ideas, not to copy,” advised Watson.

Mark Tallman is associate executive director for advocacy and communications for the Kansas Association of School Boards.

The day before, he had received one of those emails—the kind that you open up and your computer is instantly filled with a virus. He has warned me about those emails.

Despite that, after looking at the email he decided to open it. It contained an attachment. After examining it closely, he decided to open it as well.

At dinner Josh read us the email. It was from a woman in Michigan. Her son is in the first grade, and he had brought home a book from school that he was to read to her for his homework. The attachment to the email was a photograph of the inside of the book. In it was a note that said, “To Josh Clinkscales, Valentine’s Day 1990, Grampy and Grammie Stucky.”

When all of us sitting at the table looked at the page, we instantly recognized Grammie Stucky’s handwriting. Grammie was my wife’s mother, Josh’s grandmother.

There was just a moment of silence and pause, of astonishment, but also of reflection.

In my office, we work with a lot of families dealing with significant chronic illnesses. With those families, a care coordinator (usually a social worker or registered nurse) works with that family to help deal with the aging or chronic illness progress. Usually, we work with those families for the remainder of their lifetime. At the passing of a client, we meet with their family for a final meeting.

By this point, we have become in many ways part of the family. I am always astonished at what I hear from those meetings: reflections of the joy of remembering, stories, and lessons. While there is certainly a sense of loss, there is also a sense of recognition of the importance of the person in the family, and the warmth that brings.

So many of my clients have had such strong, positive influences on not only their children, but their grandchildren as well. They live on through the lessons they have passed on. They live on through their expressions of kindness during their lives. They live on through the moralities that they have taught, both in words and by deeds. They live on through their influences that will not only affect their children and their grandchildren, but generations to come.

When we were sitting at the dinner table looking at that book, with the handwriting of Grammie Stucky, we really felt the presence of Grammie and Grampy in the room as if it were 1990 all over again. It was as if they were standing over us, smiling. We could feel the warmth of the glow of their presence, and we all knew that they were still with us.

Our lives mean more than the property we pass onto our family on our death. Our lives are those lessons, experiences, and stories that we pass on. My lesson from Grammie and Grampy is that the way that I treat my family greatly influences how they will remember me, and how they will treat others.

How did the woman find out about Grammie and Grampy? Apparently the book had been purchased on Amazon. When she read the inscription she started doing some research and found Grammie Stucky’s obituary and it all made sense. She even noted that they got the book in February, the book was from February of 1990, and Grammie had passed away in February of 2017.

The world sure seemed smaller and warmer than it did the day before.

Randy Clinkscales of Clinkscales Elder Law Practice, PA, Hays, Kansas, is an elder care attorney, practicing in western Kansas. To contact him, please send an email to [email protected]. Disclaimer: The information in the column is for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Each case is different and outcomes depend on the fact of each case and the then applicable law. For specific questions, you should contact a qualified attorney.