USD 234 Superintendent Ted Hessong spoke to the Fort Scott Chamber of Commerce Thursday, during the weekly coffee, about the need to match what is needed in a society with what schools actually teach.
To get the community involved in the school district’s education redesign, USD 234 is sponsoring what is being called Community Conversations.
Community Conversations dates and locations:
• January 22 –Fort Scott High School
• January 24 –Eugene Ware Elementary
• January 29 –Fort Scott Middle School
• January 30 –Winfield Scott Elementary
All times starting at 6:00 PM.
“Businesses need skilled talent and those are the hardest jobs to fill,” he said.
“We need to make education fit us,” Hessong said. “We need to make changes in education, do something we’ve never done.”
From statistics Hessong presented to the attendees, the top skills that high school graduates lack are: work ethic-professionalism, teamwork-collaboration, verbal communication, ethics-social responsibility, critical thinking-problem solving, and information technology application, among others.
Some of the school redesign principles that Hessong presented were:
- an integrated approach to develop student socio-emotional learning.
- teachers support students to have a choice over their time, place, pace and path.
- family, business and community partnerships based on mutually beneficial relationships and collaboration.
- project-based learning, internships, and civic engagement to make learning relevant.
At the Community Conversations, USD 234 is seeking feedback from parents, guardians, business, and community members in these areas:
• Emergency Operations Plan
• USD 234 Mission and Vision
• USD 234 School Board’s Areas of Focus
• What is the role of USD 234’s Preschool –12th-grade educational system in developing an independent, responsible, and productive adults?