ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
An agriculture pathway at Liberal High School took a big step forward thanks to the USD 480 school board at its most recent meeting Monday evening.
For the agenda’s penultimate item of new business, the board engaged in discussion about the logistics of putting the program together, including the required classes and the necessary budget, with the discussion being led by LHS teacher Tasha Ebeling.
“With agriculture, it’s going to be a new pathway at LHS, but agriculture overall is not new to this area – it’s something that’s been around for a long time,” Ebeling said. “There are four parts I think make for a successful pathway, and they are the courses, the work-based learning, the Career & Technical Student Organizations (CTSO), and the certifications. The first strand is the Animal Science strand, which is very important because animals are all around us, and we review a lot of that science, which is what we use to test the students with their career and aptitude and what they’re interested in and what levels they’re at. That data shows a lot of students were taking veterinarian tech classes and working with small animal care and dog-owner businesses, etc. Those numbers were really popping out to me, and I started thinking about how we really needed to implement some agriculture classes for the upcoming year. The plan is to start off with a general Introduction to Agriculture, and then the students would more to a more technical level, which would include classes in animal science and agriscience, and then at the application level, those classes would include Equine Science, Small Animal Care, and an ag internship. We would love to start an articulation agreement with Seward County Community College so our students can gain college credits by finishing our pathway applications. This year, for the first time we sent it out, we had 75 students enroll in Intro to Agriculture and another 75 enroll in Animal Science. We obviously can’t offer the application-level courses first because you have to work your way up and gain the necessary knowledge and skills and experience in order to make that progress. All those students make up an estimated six sections a day, and it fills up a student’s schedule really quickly.”
The second part, Ebeling continued, includes the work-based learning.
“With work-based learning, the students have three options – internships (non-paid), work study (paid), and job shadowing, where the students have to go to three different places for two to three weeks to really gain some experience and figure out if agriculture is really the path for them,” Ebeling said. “Being part of the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) team at SCCC this year, we looked at the needs assessment for Seward County, and something that really popped out at me was how there is a projected 12 percent increase in agriculture and engineering in new positions by 2030. That number isn’t taking into account the people who are retiring, these are brand new positions being projected, and there will be a lot of those jobs just in Kansas. Agriculture is a high-need and high-demand field, so this pathway is a great way to bring agriculture to these students and give them these opportunities.”
The third part, Ebeling said, is the involvement in the CTSOs.
“With the CTSOs, we are planning on starting an FFA chapter, which is a huge deal for us,” Ebeling said. “We’ve already been in contact with people at the state level to get this started, and we’ve been receiving the necessary information and handbooks and everything else we need in order to start our chapter. FFA focuses on projects in and around agriculture, so it’s not JUST our agriculture pathway that will use this. Kelsey Kronawitter teaches our Intro to Public Administration and Government pathway, and there’s a lot of legislative-type work in FFA, so she’d actually be able to take advantage of some of this for her pathway. A CTSO is also required by the state to have the pathway approved, so there’s also that. Starting out with competitions, we’re looking at participating in one to two per semester just to get our feet wet and get a feel of how the competitions run and what the standards are and everything else, so there’s definitely a lot of learning by watching others.”
The fourth and final part, Ebeling said, is pathway certifications.
“In this proposed pathway, students will have three options to earn their certification, or they can go for all three if they so choose,” Ebeling said. “The first option is the Animal Science & Competencies Certificate through the Kansas Department of Agriculture, the second option is the cPass: Animal Science Assessment, and then the third option is through Beef Quality Assurance, which is really handy given how National Beef is right here in town, and that certification is something management really likes their employees to come in with.”
Ebeling then presented the board with the proposed budget for the new pathway.
“The grand total would be $27,547.90, with $1,710.20 coming from the Perkins Foundation and the other $25,837.70 coming from other sources,” Ebeling said. “There are some things the Perkins Foundation will take care of, such as certain specialized classroom equipment, but everything else would have to be funded by other sources, like regular classroom supplies and things like that. As we’ve gone through this process, we’ve made connections in Dodge City and other similar school, and we recently went to the annual CTE Conference in Manhattan. We’ve also been learning about how the programs and Sublette and Hugoton work, and there is a lot of support that’s been seen in Liberal for us getting such a program started. Students are a little hesitant nowadays to jump into new things, but I think once they get into a groove and see all the interaction and take part in everything, it’s going to really pique their interest and help this Agriculture pathway bloom into something HUGE for the district.”
Ebeling also talked about how the pathway’s classes would have a ripple effect into other career paths, and discussion continued with the board, including some concerns about how much staff would be required for the program as well as who would be in charge of everything.
“With so many students wanting to be part of this, I just want to be sure it’s not going to be overwhelming for whoever is in charge of everything,” board member Sarah Thompson said. “It just sounds like it’ll be A LOT, and I want to be sure there’s plenty of support.”
After some more discussion, the board ultimately approved the agriculture program and budget at LHS, and also approved one new position for an Agriculture instructor and FFA sponsor at LHS for the 2024-25 school year. Local citizen Evan Winchester also spoke to the board in support of the program.
“Thank you all so much for this, you wouldn’t believe how over the moon I am about this happening,” Winchester said. “To have 150 students enrolled already is just amazing and puts me beyond what I thought was possible, and that’s thanks to everyone who’s helped with this. At the end of the day, I think we all have the same goal, which is wanting to teach these students about agriculture and how to get from here to there through this pathway.”
In other business, the board approved a quote from Convergint Technologies in the amount of $33,670.27 to purchase spare inventory of their access control hardware to be utilized throughout the district and a quote from DH Pace in the amount of $14,155 to repair the corridor fire doors at LHS. The board also approved a bid from DV Douglass to repair the soffit and flat roof sections of the old gym area at LHS East Campus for $82,428.
