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Kansas State Board of Education members on Tuesday, April 17, learned the names of 19 school districts that will take part in Gemini II: The Space Walk Begins, which is the next round of the Kansans Can School Redesign Project.
The announcement was made in Topeka during the April board meeting by Kansas State Department of Education employees Tammy Mitchell, elementary school redesign specialist, and Jay Scott, secondary school redesign specialist.
KSDE in February 2018 began accepting applications for the Gemini II Project. With the announcement of the 19 districts, there are 47 districts and 104 schools taking part in the Kansans Can School Redesign Project.
The districts taking part in the Gemini II Project, along with the elementary and secondary schools they selected, are:
The districts had to be willing to launch a new school redesign in the 2019-2020 school year and be willing to serve as a demonstration site for other districts in Kansas to study, learn from and visit.
KSDE’s Joan Peterson, consultant for driver’s education, gave board members an overview of the Kansas Curricular Standards for driver education. KSDE’s Career Standards and Assessment Services (CSAS) team provides model curricular standards in a variety of content areas, including driver education. The standards are reviewed about every seven years.
A committee of 14 writers and reviewers was assembled to help review the driver education standards.
KSDE’s Beth Fultz, assistant director of CSAS, provided a brief update of the status of the 2018 state assessments. The testing window began March 13 and ends April 27. As of noon on April 13, 75 percent of the testing was completed, Fultz said.
English Language Arts (ELA) and math assessments are given to students in grades third through eighth and 10th. Science assessments are given to students in grades fifth, eighth and 11th grades, and history/government and social studies assessments are given to students in grades sixth, eighth and 11th, Fultz told the board members.
An alternate assessment, called Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM), was administered to 3,000 students in ELA, math and science. More than 32,000 testing sessions were completed as of noon April 13.
The Kansas English Language Proficiency Assessment (KELPA) 2 was given Feb. 1 through March 9 to students in kindergarten through 12th-grade in four domains, reading, writing, speaking and listening, according to Fultz.
The 2018 interim assessments included predictive assessments in ELA and math, which had testing windows in October and December 2017 and February 2018, and mini tests in ELA and math with a testing window of September through May.
The target release date for ELA, math, science and KELPA2 results is May 7. ELA and math score reports will include Lexile and Quantile Measures, and tenth grade will include an ACT predictive range.
Eighth-grade ACT predictive ranges will be available in October 2018, Fultz said.
Board members learned the names of 58 Kansas Career and Technical Education (CTE) Scholars. KSDE’s Stacy Smith, assistant director of CSAS, shared information about the CTE Scholars program and the names of those being honored this year. They are from 10 districts across the state. The program recognizes outstanding CTE students who have demonstrated leadership and exemplify the characteristics of a successful high school graduate.
KSDE’s Don Gifford and Jessica Noble updated the board about civic engagement in schools, including the launch of the Civic Advocacy Network Award. The first-ever Civic Engagement Conference took place Feb. 19 at the Ramada Hotel and Convention Center in Topeka. There were 324 attendees, including 159 students in grades sixth through 12th. There were 54 presenters and 32 breakout sessions.
Diane Bosilevac, a teacher at Olathe North High School, Olathe Unified School District 233, and students from Olathe North High discussed their work around diversity, equality, acceptance and respect for all students.
Reps. Valdenia Winn and John Alcala and Christina Valdivia-Alcala, director of the Tonantzin Society, presented information as a follow-up to a proposal they made during the summer of 2017 when they shared an outline for ethnic studies curriculum development. During that presentation, Winn and Alcala discussed a four-week seminar for middle and high school teachers that will enhance professional competence in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.
“A Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students’ unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the students’ cultural place in the world,” according to information provided by Winn and Alcala.
The seminar has been scheduled for June 25-July 21, 2018, at Washburn University. Up to fourteen middle and high school faculty members, who had to apply, will participate in the seminar.
Board members also:
On Wednesday, April 18, the board traveled to Olathe to tour the Kansas State School for the Blind and Kansas City, Kansas, to tour the Kansas State School for the Blind.
The next board meeting will take place May 8 and 9 at the Landon State Office Building in Topeka.
Questions about this page contact:
Ann Bush (785) 296-7921 abush@ksde.org
The Kansas State Department of Education does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age in its programs and activities. (more information...)
To accommodate people with disabilities, on request, auxiliary aides and services will be provided and reasonable modifications to policies and programs will be made. To request accommodations or for more information please contact the Office of General Counsel at gc@ksde.org or by 785-296-3201.