ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is part one of the story recapping Friday’s special meeting of the USD 480 school board, and will cover discussion of FlexMod scheduling itself. Part two will share some perspectives from staff and thoughts on overall students achievement.
Liberal High School students will not see a change in scheduling starting in the 2025-26 school year, but discussions will continue on the matter, thanks to action by the USD 480 school board at a special meeting Friday afternoon.
“In discussions, Sarah [Thompson] and I have been talking, and we know the vote did not pass to change the schedule for the 2025-26 school year,” USD 480 Board President Brad Carr began. “We also know the schedules for the 2025-26 school year need to get going and be put together, and we won’t meet again until Feb. 10. Our feeling is, we don’t think we can get the schedule changed on such a short notice, and I know there’s a lot of time and work that goes into making those changes. The idea is to keep the FlexMod scheduling for the 2025-26 school year and go back to the drawing board for now as far as what things will look like.”
“We definitely agree,” Assistant Superintendent of Schools and Leadership Maria Gomez-Rocque said. “Based on our experience in working with schedules, this is the time when the schools and counselors are working on putting all of that together, and it is too late to be making such a big change for this upcoming school year. Based on the presentation that was given, there was an indication the committee would be going back to the drawing board, so we need to have those discussions as far as what all of that means. If we can have something planned between now and May and then come to a decision ... that way, if there ARE any changes, that gives us a full year to do training on changes to the schedule and address any concerns about how to plan properly for everything. We want to know what that looks like so by May, we KNOW what that schedule will be and start training on all of that if there are any changes. We agree we need to keep FlexMod scheduling for this next school year and proceed from there. We haven’t been given the opportunity to present either, so for the next meeting, we would like to present some information to the board that’s been gathered, and then between Feb. 10 and May, come to a consensus on what will be happening for the 2026-27 school year.”
FlexMod scheduling has been part of LHS since 2018, and every year has seen changes and improvements made, the board members agreed.
“Do we have, or have we considered, changes for ... if we weren’t changing the schedule, are there any upcoming changes for FlexMod for the 2025-26 school year?” board member Nick Hatcher asked.
“There are a few different things we’ve discussed, including increasing the time in English classes as well as some of the math classes, and some of that has already been done,” LHS Principal Ashley Kappelmann said. “We’ve also talked about stricter deadlines for overlaps and those students dealing with that and deciding what classes overlaps absolutely cannot be done with. We’ve also talked about continuing to work on Personal Learning Time (PLT) and our tribes, which should see some differences given what we’re planning with those English and math classes. We’re also continuing to expand our work study and internship program, which will use that PLT even more for the juniors and seniors. We were planning on that expansion anyway, but it’s becoming much more necessary since most of our freshman class has to have some sort of internship or work study in order to graduate, or else they have to take an upper-level science or math class, and most of them aren’t quite to that level. We’re also continuing working with Seward County Community College and comparing schedules so we can figure out which classes are conflicting and making sure everything goes smoothly.”
“I can’t fully remember if we actually discussed this as a board, but after talking to some people at SCCC, it was brought to my attention if we don’t keep up the same number of students participating in that dual enrollment, there’s a possibility we’ll have to go back to paying for some of those hours,” Hatcher said.
“Actually, the college gets state funding for Kansas students, and that’s how that program is funded,” Thompson said. “So if there’s a lot fewer students participating because of the schedule change, it could affect how much state funding goes into that. And a lot of those classes are the ones that take place on the main campus. And I talked to Luke [Dowell] about the guidelines for Saints Ahead, which are separate, but we can come up with deadlines for students as far as attendance and those factors so we can recommend they get into the program. And that’s not to keep students from those opportunities, but we want to give some sort of incentive to say ‘You need to be here, you’re going to be representing us at SCCC and not wasting money.”
“Another question I have is, in the earlier iterations of FlexMod, I know there were quite a few issues when it came to overlaps and things like that, and that was a particularly big concern,” Hatcher said. “I personally didn’t understand how we could have overlaps and things like that, but I’ve since gotten a better handle on it, and I understand there will always be at least the possibility of some overlaps just depending on a student’s particular situation and certain factors that prevent schedules from working out like they’re supposed to.”
“That’s absolutely correct. And getting into the weeds a little bit, there are some classes in what we call tie-togethers,” Kappelmann said. “Like with a Weights class, it’s tied together, and that means the same group is in the same section for a certain amount of time. That means there might be an overlap one of those sections on one of the days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s an overlap, because there could be another section of a weight class on a different day that student could attend.”
Some LHS teachers were also on hand to give their thoughts.
“Another example I have is students in my World History class. On Wednesday afternoons, when their normal section is mods 15, 16 and 17, they have another class that conflicts with that same time,” LHS teacher Kelsey Kronawitter added. “Fortunately, I teach another section of that on Wednesday mornings when they already have PLT, so we just back-schedule using Seminar. And instead of having to split that time between me and Computer Apps, they come to my other section Wednesday mornings and go to their Wednesday afternoon class without skipping a beat.”
“From personal experience, I know my daughter appreciated that a lot when she was in school, and she took advantage of it,” Hatcher said. “My sons, on the other hand, they were a different story. But I know my daughter very much appreciated that because she was someone who wanted to be in the classroom and because of that flexibility, she was able to get to a class and participate. Whereas with prior iterations, she would have been out of luck.”
“Something we did in the math department was make sure all of our classes are untied,” LHS teacher Michelle Bremenkamp said. “For example, an Algebra 1 student goes to class all five days of the week, but their five sections aren’t hooked together in any way, so the schedulers can look and see where that student has open time and bounce things around, and that helps get rid of a lot of overlaps. And since we’ve begun until now, we’ve worked and worked to where the math department is almost completely untied, and it doesn’t really have an effect because the content is the same, the teacher is the same, the only major difference is the time.”
“I know all of my English 3 classes are untied this year, and the benefit of that is, across 160 students, there are only four overlaps,” LHS teacher Caitlin Morgan added. “I think group project work can be a bit more challenging in some respects, but I don’t have overlaps. And those few students who do, they’re able to still keep up with their work.”
“Didn’t someone also tell us how many electives we would lose by changing the schedule?” Hatcher asked.
“When the discussion came up about changing schedules, I went back to what would have been my first year, when the school was on a traditional seven-period day, and I compared it to where we are now,” LHS counselor Stacy Scripsick said. “On the seven-period day, we would have to lose 17 classes somewhere, and that’s based on the number of classes we could offer during a seven-period day and the number of classes we could offer on the current FlexMod schedule. At LHS, we had around 100 fewer students compared to now. Losing 17 classes, plus having many more students coming in next year, it’s going to increase class size too, which is a concern in that building because not all of the classrooms can hold 30 students comfortably, and then there are those logistics to figure out.”
Timelines of making sure everything is put in place also came up for discussion later in the meeting.
“I would definitely agree there’s nothing to be done for the 2025-26 school year except for making some changes and improvements,” Hatcher said. “Maybe the committee meets next year and talks about what the next FlexMod iteration would look like.”
“This is not something that can be decided in just one meeting. It’s got to be an ongoing process and something that’s constantly on front burner,” LHS teacher Heather Watt said. “There’s never a finish line, but we can’t just change mid-stream and decide to get in another boat. Whatever we do, we’ve got to be constantly discussing this.”
“In terms of timeline, what do we need to be looking at?” board member Alan Brown asked. “Do we need to be looking at February of each year to make sure we as a board are keeping track of everything, or what would be the suggestion? We need to, as a board, have it on our timeline so we can have a workshop or work session and figure out what we need to have ready so things don’t get set back or get messed with. We all need to be on the same page.”
“I feel like not getting all the information out there and not being able to fully share everything has rather hurt the morale of the staff,” Watt said. “We’ve got to make some very, very large gains very quickly, and we’re all going to have to come together as a team like never before. I would say it would be around August when decisions for the 2026-27 school year need to be made, and that includes being on top of everything throughout the summer when we’re not in class.”
“To me, the vote that was taken about the change, it would be a major, major overhaul and very difficult to implement quickly,” Hatcher said. “What I’m hearing is if we don’t go with that, changes and improvements can continue to be made as time goes on. And if we’re not going to do that major overhaul, I think making those improvements a little at a time is the way to go for right now.”
“And I would add, we need a full-time position to work on the schedule,” Kronawitter said. “All of us have other work, so it’s really difficult to fit in all of this scheduling work as well. I’ve personally dedicated what would amount to weeks outside of my contract time just to helping with the scheduling, and that doesn’t count the time I’ve spent responding to e-mails from parents and guardians and helping the students who have come to me with questions. If we could dedicate one person to working on the schedule, I know our counseling department would greatly appreciate that so they can focus on their counseling work full time, and we teachers could focus more on our teaching duties. Having one direct contact for that work would be hugely helpful instead of bouncing around to multiple different people, and it would be such a benefit to the building as a whole. We really need that one chief to get in there and take control, and Stacy [Scripsick] does that now along with her counseling.”
“I create the master schedule, put it in PowerSchool and handle all those requests.” Scripsick said. “I run the load, I fix all the errors to the best of my ability, and I’ve done that year after year. It’s a truly time-consuming process, and for one person to build everything and maintain it, it is a full-time job on its own that would eliminate a lot of the stress of what we do now. My concern, however, is there will be someone needed in that role going forward. I’ve done it for seven years, and I’ll be retiring, and I’m concerned about coming in, building a FlexMod schedule for next year and make those adjustments only starting now. Typically around this time, I’m already running a load and fixing errors so we can start looking at schedules. We haven’t even started pre-enrollment yet. We’ll be lucky to have a master schedule ready to go by the beginning of May, and my contract is up May 29. I hope to have run all 1,500 schedules, but then I would be leaving everyone in a bad position, and I never want to do that. There are no certified counselors at LHS after I leave, and to hire a certified counselor, I don’t know where you’d find one. You have two ladies who are trying their best and taking classes to become certified, but it’s going to be a summer project. In order to have schedules ready in August, it’s going to be hours upon hours. I’ve done it in the summer for years, and very rarely have gotten compensated for it, but it’s a situation where, if you had someone doing that full time, they would be able to take on a lot of that, and the counselors will stay longer since they’re not dealing with such a large added burden. We all do this work for the children, but we’re there at 6:30 every morning and staying until 6 or 6:30 every night and even taking that work home on the weekends. Having someone responsible for the master schedule will help retain people. I’ve done it for seven years, I love what it can do for the students, but for the counseling department, we give up a lot of time and effort. It scares me knowing I’m leaving LHS and the teachers with essentially an incomplete project, and that’s not me.”
Other LHS staff members also shared their thoughts about FlexMod.
“I am a proponent of FlexMod, and I’ve experienced all of its iterations,” LHS Head Librarian Ashley Prosser said. “It’s great for the library, and I was a fan of it when I taught and when I worked in the office. I feel like FlexMod is what’s best for the students. However, it is so, so much more work for the staff and administration, and I’m so angry about some of the comments on social media along the lines of ‘Well, the teachers don’t want to go back to the regular schedule because they don’t want to work,’ but those people absolutely do not understand how much more work the schedule is for the staff and administration. The board can support us by helping us get the people we need and paying for all the work they do, because it’s way, way more than people think. It’s been a bit of a mess the last few months with all of this happening, and we would certainly appreciate the extra help and support not just from the board but also the community.”
“The work the staff does is extremely, extremely important, and I would agree a lot of the community probably doesn’t fully understand these issues and what you’re all going through, and part of that is probably because we haven’t done the best job of communicating all of that to the community,” Hatcher said. “Hopefully, this process will help with that, and maybe people will have a better understanding of it all, because I have had people in the past complain about FlexMod, but they were rather isolated incidents. This year, however, I’ve had overwhelming response in favor of FlexMod from students and staff and others in the community, and it’s encouraging for me to know we’re on the right path and continue just making tweaks as needed as time goes on. I can’t express enough appreciation or thanks for your time and work and everything you do. We’ll do whatever we can to help you.”
After some more discussion and comments, the board ultimately voted to keep the FlexMod schedule at LHS for the 2025-26 school year by a margin of 6-0, with board member Kaylee Lopez absent.
