ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The USD 480 school board had a busy agenda for its first meeting of the 2024-25 school year Monday evening.
Up first in the meeting was the administrators’ reports, starting with Superintendent Stephen Linkous, who recapped the first day of classes.
“It was a lot of fun talking to everyone, and it was really cool at Liberal High School seeing the senior sunrise and then seeing all the other students coming into school,” Linkous said. “It was great, and we had a lot of positive reports from the people we talked to. We really wanted to talk to a wide variety of people from students to faculty/staff, and we were glad to hear everyone seemed to have a great start to the 2024-25 school year, and I want to also give a shoutout to the janitorial and maintenance staffs for all the work they did to make the buildings ready for everyone.”
For the first item under new business, the board heard about the district’s Kansas Assessment Program (KAP) data from Assistant Superintendent of Academics Dr. Maria Gomez-Rocque and District Intervention Coordinator Jennifer Hyde.
“To start off, the Kansas Assessment Program is a variety of tests that align to the Kansas statewide curriculum. When I say variety of tests, we’re talking about English/language arts, math and science,” Gomez-Rocque said. “It’s an evaluation tool that provides a level of student learning, and each student receives outcomes for those content areas. KAP supports a federal and state requirement for accountability, and it is somewhat of an assessment. This school year’s KAP window will be from March 24, 2025 to April 25, 2025, and it is part of the accreditation for the district as well. With the English/language arts test, that is given to students in 3rd through 8th grade and 10th grade, the math test is given to students in 3rd through 8th grade and 10th grade, and the science test is give to students at 5th grade, 8th grade and 11th grade. The students’ outcomes can come out at either Level 1, which means the student shows a limited ability to understand the content skills and knowledge needed in order to be prepared for postsecondary success, Level 2, which means the student shows a basic ability to understand the content skills and knowledge needed in order to be prepared for postsecondary success, Level 3, which means the student shows a effective ability to understand the content skills and knowledge needed in order to be prepared for postsecondary success, or Level 4, which means the student shows an excellent ability to understand the content skills and knowledge needed in order to be prepared for postsecondary success.”
Gomez-Rocque talked about the overall goal of the KAP.
“The goal is to have the majority of students at Level 3 or Level 4, because that shows us they’re college and career ready,” Gomez-Rocque said. “The state accepts Level 2, but that’s going to require additional intervention in order for the student to be ready for postsecondary success. The goal is always to decrease the number of students in Level 1 and Level 2 and move them to those higher levels, because that means there is that positive growth going on.”
Gomez-Rocque then showed the board several graphs and comparisons to past years’ results and comparisons to other area districts including Dodge City High School and Garden City High School.
“I do like how we’re seeing steady increases in multiple areas, but just like anything else, we do have that room to grow, especially in math, because that’s not what we’re typically seeing across the state,” Gomez-Rocque said.
After the graphs and comparisons were shown, Hyde then talked about what can be done in the future.
“I know I’ve been before the board talking about data from iReady and CKLA and all of that data we’ve used in the past. We started using those curricula four years ago, and I think having that cohesive curriculum throughout the elementary schools is really paying off with this data,” Hyde said. “We’re seeing everyone teaching the same curriculum, and we’ve got pacing guides put together so everyone’s hitting the same benchmarks at the same time. It also helps us to make data-driven instruction for students and their interventions. Professional development is also a huge piece of having that curriculum – it’s not a situation of ‘Here’s your curriculum, go,’ we constantly have professional development coming in, and we have professional development days every year where people from the company come in and do walk-throughs with certain things. This summer, we actually had a lady from iReady come in, and she said USD 480 was one of the only districts in Kansas where she saw the professional development happening and actually being used in the classrooms, which she thought was amazing. Last year, we really focused on attendance, and every building had some type of goal in that regard to improve on that because if the students aren’t here, they’re not learning. There is still some minor chronic absenteeism, but for the most part, we’ve made some big gains in increasing attendance and making sure the students are actually in school and receiving instruction.”
Another very helpful factor, Hyde said, is the scheduling.
“The scheduling we do is very intentional. We have daily interventions built in, it’s definitely not a ‘if you’ve got time’ situation,” Hyde said. “Every day features 30 minutes of intervention time, and that’s very important for the students. Looking at the data, this is our baseline, and we can only go up from here. Something else to keep in mind is how the state is giving the opportunity for all of our teachers to get science and reading instruction, which is part of LETRS training, which is really great considering the number of interim teachers we have. We’re getting a proposal ready for that to share with the teachers, and we’re going to emphasize how that is on their own time, and it takes two years. We are looking at ways to possibly offer some incentives or something similar for teachers interested in that.”
“I actually just completed the first year of that training for administrators, so this is a great way for us to support the teachers,” Gomez-Rocque added. “And we also have a requirement from the state to have science and reading professional development for everyone, so on our next professional development day, CKLA will be coming in and doing that training with all the elementary schools, and then soon after that, training for the secondary levels will happen.”
Gomez-Rocque and Hyde then took a few questions from board members before concluding their presentation.
“Do we actually have the right tools in place for everything?” board member Nick Hatcher asked. “Do we have the right curriculum, and are we doing everything possible to prepare our students?”
“Something I’ve discovered since I started is we don’t always know what curriculum is in place throughout the district, so I’m in the process of putting together a curriculum audit form,” Gomez-Rocque said. “With that form, I’ll be asking what resources are being used, where they’re being used, and how they’re being used. I don’t have a complete list of everything that’s in place currently throughout USD 480. We also don’t know when those curricula were purchased, so we don’t have a rotational schedule for adoption purposes. That audit will drive a calendar, which will allow us to put everything on a rotational schedule. We also have to make sure we’re aligning everything with the rigors of the state standards so everything is on the same page.”
In other business, the board approved a quote from Southern Office Supply in the amount of $66,215 for new bookshelves for the Liberal High School library and the Student Accident Insurance in the amount of $85,486 from Al Shank Insurance. The board also approved the Employee Handbook for the 2024-25 school year and the Microsoft Renewal in the amount of $57,005.42. The board also approved a pair of contracts and concluded the new business by approving worker's compensation insurance for the 2024-25 school year in the amount of $228,713 from Kansas Association of School Boards.
