ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The USD 480 school board had the chance to hear from teachers and members of the community in a special workshop Monday evening regarding scheduling at Liberal High School.
Up first to speak was LHS teacher Miriam Climenhaga, who talked about the overall process for deciding on the scheduling.
“In November, we were tasked with selecting a new schedule for the 2025-26 school year, and involvement from staff and faculty was requested,” Climenhaga said. “The committee was selected based on a cross-section of staff and students who had completed the interest/nomination form. At that time, the committee was created and volunteers were notified of their selection. Then, the committee met in order to create a rubric for the new schedule, and from that rubric, we created a draft. Staff and students were consulted during this process. After that, we presented the schedule draft to the staff and students at LHS, and then we had an open forum for students and staff, where there were able to share their thoughts and comments and ideas. That all brings us to right now, which is presenting the schedule draft to the Board of Education. In the near future, we will present the final schedule draft to the staff, and then the certified classroom teachers will vote on the final draft of the schedule per the negotiated agreement, and the results will be announced soon afterward. We will then come back to the board at its Jan. 20 meeting and share the results of that vote. We did have to expedite the timeline because pre-enrollment was scheduled to begin in November for next year, and we’ll need some time to make adjustments to IEPs, 504s and four-year plans.”
Up next to speak was LHS ELA teacher Caitlin Morgan.
“In order to gather feedback from staff and students, we designed a forum based on question prompts developed by a federal committee and organized five stations,” Morgan said. “This forum took place last Friday, and we had 438 out of 903 students attend that, and all student factions were represented. The students left feedback at each of the five stations. We did review all the feedback and spent a lot of time categorizing everything into five overarching themes in postsecondary planning, school culture and mental health, addressing student time management skills, and training and other resources for teachers should this transition be made. Everyone had the chance to share their thoughts, and we look forward to seeing how the vote turns out.”
Up next to speak was LHS social studies teacher Kelsey Kronawitter, who talked about the voting process.
“Per the negotiated agreement, any additional reallocation of time in an individual building’s schedule must have a two-thirds majority approval vote by certified teachers currently in the classroom,” Kronawitter said. “That is guiding our vote, and those results will guide our next steps. If a two-thirds majority chooses to change, that means we’ll adopt the proposed schedule and move forward in the process of picking classes, enrollment, and all of that work. If the two-thirds majority votes not to change, then by the parameters we’ve been given, we’ll be going back to the drawing board. Not every individual at LHS is given a vote in the process, but with that aforementioned open forum, we did allow everyone to have a voice because everyone will be affected by this decision.”
LHS librarian Ashley Prosser then talked about the proposed schedule itself.
“Based on the rubric created by the committee and the feedback given by students and staff, we’re proposing a modified block schedule,” Prosser said. “This schedule was chosen because of the flexibility of having shorter and longer class times throughout the week while being able to see the students four times a week in each class. This structure does not include overlaps, and it provides a traditional, consistent structure where students are required to be in a classroom all day long, reducing the learning curve for incoming students. Monday, Tuesday and Friday would be that regular traditional schedule with 50-minute classes, and then Wednesday and Thursday would have longer blocks of 85-minute classes back to back in order to help preserve course sequence. What’s now called homeroom will be changed to IPS Implementation to help provide clarity about the time periods. These individual plans of study are a requirement from the state we’ve been doing for several years. Wednesday and Thursday will feature some extra time between second and third lunch where there won’t be any students in the cafeteria, and we did that because the students will be going to a content class, starting, going to lunch around the middle of that time, and then going back to that class after lunch. Or, they’ll go to lunch then have class, or go to class and then have lunch. It’s kind of like what we do now, but because it’s harder to do when you have a content class, we tried to make it so if you have second lunch, you have a bigger time. And the lunch periods will be assigned based on those classes going on around that time.”
Prosser then talked more about some of the other changes that would come with the new schedule.
“One big change would be the enrichment intervention or collaborative plan time, which is 70 extra minutes on Wednesday and Thursday,” Prosser said. “During this time, some of the teachers will have 35 minutes of student organizations, enrichment or intervention while the remaining teachers have 35 minutes of collaborative planning. Halfway through that time, they’ll switch. We put that in there because if you have plan time during second hour, that means you don’t have any plan time at all on Wednesdays, so in order to be in compliance with the negotiated agreement, we had to have a time for that.”
Kronawitter added opportunities for taking college courses through Seward County Community College and work-based learning will continue to be made available for students, and said discussion will continue in regard to passing periods and lunch groups and how those logistics would work.
“In the end, we want everyone to know we ALL want what is best for the students, and we will continue working toward that,” Climenhaga said. “This scheduling committee has exemplified that, especially since one of our core values is being a champion for all students while expecting excellence.”
After several minutes of questions and other discussion, the board then heard from members of the community on the matter. Among the speakers was community member Summer Stafford.
“I was an employee of USD 480 for 10 years, and I currently work for K-State Research and Extension, but I’m here as a parent and community member,” Stafford said. “My concern would be, how many people who aren’t here are under the impression that getting rid of the FlexMod scheduling would prevent students from taking college courses? As we’ve seen from these presentations, that is not true despite what’s been shared on social media lately. Prior to a vote, I hope all students and teachers are given the ability to be made aware of all the facts surrounding this change – no propaganda, no personal agendas, strictly the facts.”
Also among the speakers was Sergio Borjas.
“I graduated from LHS myself back in 2015, and I’ve also worked as an interim teacher,” Borjas said. “My addressing the board is to ask, with the proposed schedule change, I feel like a lot of it is to help prevent students skipping, which I know has been an issue for a while. I would also like to see the board more involved in the classrooms and working with the teachers. I actually remember when I was a student, I saw multiple school board members who would be in the schools and taking everything in, and I got a lot of smiles, handshakes and other positive feedback. I had no idea who those people were at that time, but I remember all of the whispers about someone from the district office actually being in our building, and that was really neat. I very, very strongly urge the members of the board to visit the schools and the classrooms and really get a feel of what’s going on throughout the district, which could ultimately spark some change. I’m proud to be in Liberal and work in USD 480, and I know what this district is capable of.”
Also among the speakers was community member Arlo Ratzlaff.
“I appreciate anyone and everyone serving on any of the governing boards, whether it’s with the city, county, school board, etc.,” Ratzlaff said. “That being said, there are always changes and improvements that can be made. I don’t understand why there’s a desire to get rid of these interim teachers, they seem to be doing an excellent job. I feel like we have an excellent education system at LHS and the other USD 480 schools. I’ve always said teachers are woefully underpaid, and I know many of them are truly there for the children, but they do still need to make a living. My daughter works as a teacher in central Kansas, and I know they’ve also got an interim system they use, and I know there are other schools that also use it. I think we should help our interim teachers reach their goals, because we’re going to lose a lot of good, good people if there aren’t some changes made. These board members were elected to do a job and take care of the students of this community and the teachers, and as a taxpayer, I want that to be the focus.”
