Five new members of the Kansas State School Board will take office in January with a variety of issues on their plates; from parental rights to teacher shortages to increasing student achievement.
We reached out to each and asked what challenges they saw ahead for K-12 public schools in Kansas and their ideas on improving student outcomes:
State School Board District 1 – Amy Cawvey
‘I would like to focus on increasing student achievement. Every decision I make I plan to ask myself if and how this will increase student achievement.
“The board needs to focus on the literacy crisis, increasing student achievement, getting students reading on grade level by third grade or potentially holding them back, and utilizing the funding we currently have efficiently instead of demanding more funding. More funding is not the answer. Other states have proven they can increase student achievement with few dollars. Kansas has proven achievement can decline despite increase funding. We can’t keep doing the same expecting different results, and I ran on and wasn’t elected to keep the status quo.
“The state board needs to utilize current law and ensure districts follow tools already at their disposal like the building needs assessment, at-risk funding going on to at-risk students, along with reducing administrative bloat both at the state level along with local. We need better scrutiny on bonds and to have accreditation mean something.
“The state board also needs to work with and not against the legislature so that Kansas students come first. I hope to do that while focusing on what will benefit Kansas students in the classroom and not the system.
“I believe the voters elected me to champion these beliefs and I promise to work hard for my constituents and Kansas students.”
District 3 – Amy Diediker
“I believe one of the biggest challenges facing K-12 education in Kansas is funding. School districts are being forced to make difficult decisions, including cutting programs, reducing staff, and even closing schools due to financial constraints. I sincerely hope our Legislature will prioritize adequately funding public education so our schools can focus on meeting the needs of students rather than continually struggling with budget shortfalls.
“Another significant challenge is recruiting and retaining excellent educators. We need to think creatively about teacher licensure pathways, recruitment, and retention while maintaining high professional standards. We must find ways to attract talented educators to Kansas and provide the support they need to remain in the profession.
“These challenges go hand in hand. Providing adequate resources and supporting our educators are essential to ensuring every Kansas student has access to a high-quality education.”
On increasing student achievement:
“Kansas has made significant strides in improving reading instruction through the Blueprint for Literacy, and I want to build on that important work.
“One of my priorities is ensuring that schools with higher percentages of students reading below grade level have the resources, training, and support they need to help those students succeed. We need to identify where students are struggling and provide educators with the tools and evidence-based strategies necessary to improve reading outcomes.
“I would also like to see us expand our focus on literacy into middle and high school. While much of our attention has appropriately been on early literacy, we cannot forget about older students who continue to struggle with reading. These students also deserve access to effective interventions grounded in the science of reading.
“Improving student achievement means meeting students where they are, supporting our educators, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to succeed.”
District 7 – Alana McWilliams
“I ran on a strong literacy platform. The most urgent challenge is closing the gap between what our teachers know and what happens in the classroom every day. We’ve retrained more than 15,000 Kansas teachers in the science of reading, and that’s real and important progress. But retraining is not the same as implementation. There are over 194 new science of reading laws passed across the country, but very few laws are impacting outcomes for kids. Kansas needs to ensure that structured literacy is happening in every classroom, in every district across the state, not just where the right administrator happens to prioritize it.
“But fixing Tier 1 classroom instruction alone will not get all our kids reading. We also need to elevate the reading specialist roles, title reading positions, and special education teacher roles to ensure those teachers are trained in programs designed to get 95% of our kids reading. The Blueprint for Literacy mandates that our state adopt a universal screener and write individual literacy plans for struggling readers. This is critical to transforming outcomes and making sure we catch struggling readers when we can have biggest impact. Early intervention is always less costly than remediation — in dollars, in time, and in what we ask children to carry.
“The second challenge is teacher preparation. We need to continue our work with the Kansas Board of Regents to ensure our Kansas teachers are still entering classrooms with the practical foundation in how reading works and the skills to apply it readily in the real classroom. Until our universities align their preparation programs with the science of reading, we will keep producing the same gap downstream. We also need to ensure that knowledge extends beyond K-8 and make a plan to close the skills gap that exist for our middle and high school learners across all subjects because all teachers are reading teachers in some capacity.”
On increasing achievement, McWilliams would look to successes in other states:
“I look to the states that have actually moved the needle for kids: Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee. They didn’t wait for perfect conditions or more funding. They focused on three things they could control: training, knowledge-building curriculum, and accountability.
“First, they invested in teacher training grounded in the knowledge and practice standards from the International Dyslexia Association. We have to ensure we meet that standard to get all of our kids reading. We need to ensure our professional development contributes to better classroom-ready educators.
“Second, we need to start a discussion with local districts on curriculum. Knowledge-building curriculum isn’t optional. Reading comprehension depends on background knowledge, vocabulary, and language across every content area, not just reading class. We also have to ensure we’re not purchasing materials marked aligned with the science of reading that include poorly aligned or designed materials. Kansas must set a higher standard for what goes in front of kids every day.
“Third, we need to have strategy for accountability for our school districts. We need to ensure the universal screening data is reported publicly and credentialed experts are responding to support districts and teachers who need additional resources. We need to ensure outcomes-based contracting should tie education dollars to whether students actually learn, not whether a contract was signed.
“The research tells us 95% of children can learn to read with the right instruction. The job of the State Board is to make sure Kansas is investing in the training and programs that deliver on that promise.”
District 9 – Destry Brown
“The biggest challenge I see for education will be working through the school finance formula update and improving the accountability system in Kansas . The current formula sunsets soon and the legislature will need to re-up the current system or establish a new formula that will fairly fund all schools. The accountability system needs to be more relative to schools to engage school staff at higher levels.
“I believe many of the instructional reforms in the area of reading are working and we will continue to see achievement growth happen. I think that changes also need to be made to our assessment system to include measures to show student growth. Our current system does not do that. Our teachers are working hard and learning new methods that are already making a difference. We need to stay on that track of improvement and implement a system of support for schools in order to effectively implement these instructional practices.”
Jean Clifford, newly elected in District 5, did not respond to our questions.
The new board members will take office in January.
