Community Connections Matter

 

by Jessica Hanvey

LFKS Conference Chairperson

 

It has never been more apparent to me, as a long-time educator, the urgency of making the school and community connection.  After the struggles of 2020, educators and students proved to be resilient, digging to the depths of our professional being in order to meet demands of our society. It is noteworthy, at a minimum, how we responded then and are still grinding ahead today. We need to tell our story outside the building.

In much of our state, we are operating with less. Staff shortages might be the worst that many of us have ever experienced.  We are more prescriptive in our approach to meeting the academic and social needs of kids, but lack the human resources to yield results at the highest potential level.  How does our community fit in the equation?  Our survival depends on it. 

The community is the “why.”  Why should we get involved? Why should we commit our personal time and money? Why do soft skills matter? Who are we preparing our students to serve? How can we increase our capacity to utilize our students as our own resources? 

As a result of our current staff shortage, I reached out to our high school future educators instructor to see if we could engage her students  in live classroom experiences. Two future educators walked through my classroom door, did on the job training, and were a wonderful resource to have for sixty minutes. They also have developed rapport with staff, as well as loaded their toolbox with hands-on skills to succeed in class.

A developed relationship between school and community creates ownership.  When employees and every day citizens have an iron in the fire, everything matters more.  Will these students be on a pathway where they are student interns at our businesses beginning as early as middle school?  Will we have the opportunity to grow our own employees from the ground up?  Furthermore, will we have built a valuable enough bond to bring our students back to our community post secondary education? Creating an atmosphere where students feel compelled to “give back” is the goal.

 As a second grade teacher, I’ve witnessed firsthand the value of these connections being created. A few of my students have developed a relationship with a local farmer as a result of opportunities we’ve been intentional to create.  I envision them as his future employees. What a rewarding experience to watch them engage in soft starts by bringing farm equipment to use to plow fields and harvest crops.  In addition, what a valuable resource our farmer has been to serve on our local school board. 

We sure should aim to build pride in who we’re working together to develop. Our citizens and local businesses have potential to be our best recruitment and retention tool.  The way that they project what we are accomplishing in our school impacts our success.  Connections outside the school walls should begin early and expand over time.  Once community stakeholders feel the connection and have a purpose, the process takes care of itself.  

Jessica Hanvey is the 2023 LFKS Conference Chairperson and teaches in USD 382 Pratt School District.

Learning is a Process.....Inspired to Learn: One Kansas Story

By Vicki Bechard

Secretary LFKS

The primary goal of education in Kansas today is to prepare our students to be successful adults.  There are many skills, traits, and knowledge that will build that capacity.  Of course academic knowledge and technical skills will be a big part of this picture, but it will take a broader educational experience to achieve successful adulthood.  As identified in the Soft Skills to Pay the Bills curriculum at youth.gov, students will need to possess communication skills, enthusiasm and attitude, teamwork, networking, problem solving and critical thinking skills, and professionalism to be employable and productive citizens.   How will we as educators acquire, model, and facilitate these skills so that our students can practice them in authentic learning experiences to apply what they have learned so these critical skills might transfer to life after high school?

To that end, consider what professional learning might look like if we changed how educators learn, and moved toward doing something new that stretches our knowledge and skills and increases our capacity as instructional leaders.

One way we have done this at Learning Forward Kansas is to apply for and receive the Learning Forward Foundation Affiliate Grant.  This was a dream that suddenly got legs when we were awarded this grant in spring of 2015.  Little did we know about the magnitude of this undertaking until the announcement of the award made it very real and we started to put our dream into action.  What we had was enthusiasm for this project.  What we didn’t have was the technical expertise to make our dream a reality.  However, we did have some soft skills at our disposal that would lead to a greater knowledge base, critical partnerships, the ability to work in small teams, and the professionalism to ask for and accept feedback that was sometimes hard to hear.  This new learning was a process, and one that has changed my thoughts on how to present project learning to students and teachers as well. 

As traditional learners, we waited for the “how” from our partners at Learning Forward.  They weren’t sure either but had a few ideas.  We waited and brainstormed and waited some more.  Finally we created our own storyboard format instead of waiting for the perfect template to be delivered to us.  We spent a lot of time asking for ideas and examples from our colleagues and peers.  Each time we had to share our vision and convince them they had something worth sharing.  Slowly but surely it started to take shape.

Partnerships, networking, and perseverance were keys to this project.  Finding a willing tech partner that would be professional in product creation but do it for a song and a thank you was realized through the educational circles we had been a part of over the years.  Soon we connected with a few educational leaders and schools, and eventually received some invitations (and invited ourselves!) to view examples of professional learning that we could film and include in our first video.

This was a lengthy process as we turned a vision with no real parameters into a finished product.  We had to evaluate and synthesize our ideas and turn them into something manageable and meaningful.  At last, the first video was rolled out – ultimately too long and too rambling.  We were excited to have something to share, but immediately headed back to the drawing board to focus our message and reduce the length.  So we worked some more.  Soon the second video attempt was ready for feedback. We chose another group to look at this next draft.  Again, we were given feedback that was hard to hear, but specific enough that we could continue to refine the video into something that would be useful and meaningful.  The third time was the charm. 

Why Professional Learning Matters:  In Our Building It’s Everyone’s Job to Learn is the first video of the LFKS series Inspired to Learn:  Kansas Stories.  It is online ready for you to view and use with your district, building, staff, or team to create and implement effective professional learning.  There is also a resource guide to accompany this video to deepen and enhance the learning experience as one examines why professional learning matters.

And just as with any other goal attainment, we savor the moment, and then move on to the next goal.  The second video in this series will focus on What Effective Professional Learning Looks Like and is scheduled to be released before the holidays. 

The moral to our story is that in order for us to change how we educate our students, we must change how we educate ourselves. 

We used soft skills to navigate the process, with minimal outside directives, and limits that were largely self-imposed.  In the end the messiness of our initial work and the refining that occurred throughout the process were part of the reward as we produced a product that reflected our purpose and was one in which we could be proud.   We had more questions than answers going in, but we have grown and stretched our capacity as educators and as leaders.  We did that by immersion and being actively involved, not by sit and get, or being told what to do at each step along the way.  There is no better lesson for educators to learn in ways that can be passed on to students.  That is WHY Professional Learning Matters.  And as a result, we embrace the idea that it’s everyone’s job to learn!