 Dr. Pitch is here. He's the superintendent of 329 Wobonsie and he's got some students with him. And so I hope that you all will introduce yourselves and tell us and we're excited to hear about how you are helping to improve student achievement. We're very excited to have you. Are we on? Very good. Good afternoon Chairwoman Williams and members of the special committee on education. I believe we have a PowerPoint if we can get the slides up. And I thought you were students, you look so young. We've got them too. Yeah, we'll introduce those guys as well. We just need to get in our rhythm with the PowerPoint. Yeah, come on up guys. So guys, come on up and just introduce yourself in your grade level. Hi, I'm Rhett Perry. I'm a junior at Wobonsie High School. Hi, I'm Payton Woods. I'm also a junior at Wobonsie High School. Hi, my name's Miguel Hernandez. I'm a senior at Wobonsie High School. I'm Ava Meinhardt. I'm also a senior at Wobonsie High School. Okay, before the teachers introduce themselves, I have to say that this is probably our highlight. I think everybody loves to see the kids before the teachers introduce themselves. Can you just, the seniors, were there two seniors or two seniors? Can you tell me what you're gonna do next year? I plan to major in elementary education. I don't really know what I'm gonna do, but try to make some money, I guess. I think there are a lot of opportunities out there for you. Okay, and your staff that's with you. One up, ladies, you can introduce yourselves. I'm Callie Meinhardt. I'm the school counselor at the high school. Annie Frank, I'm school social worker. And I'm Jordan Dunn. I'm the school counselor for Pre-K through 8th grade. Just watching for the PowerPoint. All right, there we go. And you can go ahead and advance to the next slide if you'd like to. Do you want me to do like a hand signal to advance the slide? Okay. So thank you for the opportunity to address you today. I am Dr. Troy Pitch, the superintendent of schools for USD 329 Wabunsi. Alongside me are the dedicated members of our educational team, Annie Frank, Jordan Dunn, and Callie Meinhardt. I would also like to reintroduce several of our students interested in civil service who have traveled with us and are here to observe the proceedings today. We are here to share our story of how Leader and Me program has helped transform our schools, and more importantly, the lives of our students. In just 10 minutes, we'll share a glimpse into what we believe is our program's profound impact on student success and posit that a strong correlation exists between our commitment to leadership education and our students' achievements. We're excited to showcase our journey, and we hope our experience can provide insights into the possibilities of education when leadership, character development, and academic excellence align. You can go ahead. I'd like to begin our presentation by providing an overview of our district's enrollment demographics. As of 2023, our district serves 425 students. Regarding racial diversity, our population is predominantly white with 10% identifying as Hispanic, 5% representing two or more races, and 1% as either Native or African American. Additionally, one in five students qualify for free and reduced lunch. In our district, we emphasize the ABCs of student success, attendance, behavior, and curriculum. We believe that these three pillars are essential for a well-rounded education. Let's begin with attendance and see how our students' commitment to being present has contributed to our overall success. As we delve into the specifics of our district, let's look at our attendance rate. In 2021, our district had an impressive attendance rate which outperformed the state average. Even in 2022, with our smaller population, our attendance rate remained strong compared to the state's average. It's important to remember that a few students can significantly impact data in smaller districts like ours, making our consistent attendance rates more notable. Moving forward, while we don't have a dedicated slide for our student behavior data because it's refreshingly minimal, it's a point of pride for us. Just 1% of our students experience off-campus suspensions annually, and we're proud to highlight that our disciplinary actions are statistically equitable ensuring all students are treated fairly. Next slide. On our dropout indicator, our district shines. In 2021, our dropout rate was a mere 0.5%, and in 2022, we achieved a remarkable 0%. This is notably lower than the state averages for those years. Next slide. Reviewing our ACT results shows a consistent trend of our students outperforming the state averages. In 2022, our district achieved an average score of 21.6 on the ACT composite, while the state averaged 19.6. This pattern holds across multiple years demonstrating our students' commitment to academic excellence. Next slide. Our ELA and math performance data is truly exceptional. Our students consistently perform above state averages with a significant percentage achieving levels of three and four. This remarkable success isn't just a snapshot, it's a consistent trend. Moreover, it's essential to highlight that these improvements align with our implementation of the Leader in Me program. Even amidst the disruptions of COVID-19, our students continue to excel showcasing their resilience and commitment to learning. This data underlines the effectiveness of our educational approach and the dedication of our students and educators. Next slide. While we are proud of our high school graduation rates, what truly sets us apart is our student success beyond graduation. Over the years, we've maintained success rates significantly higher than the state's average, indicating that our educational programs, including the Leader in Me, effectively prepare students for life after high school. Our dedication to student success was recognized for our predicted effectiveness above 61% for the 20,022 school year. Before delving into the specifics of the Leader in Me program and its impact on our district, I'd like to emphasize that while we're proud of our success indicators and the role TLIM plays, we recognize that student achievement is influenced by a complex interplay of factors, including our unique local context, shared values, and high levels of accountability. We don't claim a one size fits all solution, nor do we presume to offer a silver bullet for school improvement. Instead, we're here to share our journey as a case study, highlighting how TLIM, combined with our local environment, has contributed to our students' exceptional outcomes. Jordan? Next slide, please. The Leader in Me is a social emotional curriculum that we adopted six years ago. This curriculum is taught in pre-K through 12th grades. Next slide. What sets the Leader in Me apart from other social emotional curriculums is its focus on creating student mindsets. This program focuses on more than behavior. It highlights the underlying beliefs, thoughts, and feelings of the individual and creates a framework for our students to follow throughout their lifespan. Next slide. The five core paradigms of the Leader in Me drive the development and delivery of its concepts. The first paradigm, everyone can be a leader, explains that even students can be leaders in their schools, not just adults. The second paradigm, everyone has genius, highlights other strengths of students, not just academic ability. It asserts that there are many other forms of genius, we just need to help students find what theirs is. The third paradigm, change starts with me, identifies real changes occurring within ourselves. It helps students to understand that large-scale changes can't occur without changes within the individual person. The fourth paradigm, empower students to lead their own learning, explains that students are the pilots of their own success. They are in charge of knowing their strengths, areas for growth, their goals, and their progress. The fifth paradigm, educators and families partnered to develop the whole person, concludes that we are not separate entities in the development of each student. It is a collaborative effort between families and the school. Next slide. The seven habits tree is a visual and tangible representation of the habits themselves. This helps our students to understand how the first three habits begin within us and that the last four habits are dependent upon the successful execution of the first three. If they are successful in implementing habits one through three, then they are set up for habits four through seven to manifest successfully as well. This slide provides information about the concepts within each of the seven habits. This information is shared through signage in all of our buildings, is referenced by staff and other school adults throughout the day and is reinforced by consistent use of the language both in and out of school. For example, our food service staff uses habit two beginning with the end in mind when they are preparing to scrape and dump their trays. And our coaches remind athletes to use habit six synergize when identifying the strengths on the team and ways to improve team performance. The curriculum offered through the Lead Army program goes from pre-K all the way through college level activities. Depending on the grade level, these lessons are formatted as either direct instruction delivery or as self-directed navigation. The Lead Army is evidence-based and data-driven. Each year, the measurable results assessment, AKA the MRA, is given to students, staff, and families of our district. In order to develop the goals that are specific to each level, we have each building take theirs separately. The results of the assessment are used to set goals and track progress for the subsequent year. Specifically, it measures the beliefs and feelings around the academics, school culture, and leadership. The goal at the elementary level is to teach the framework, language, and concepts associated with the Lead Army program through direct instruction. We also expect that our students are able to articulate their academic strengths, their areas for growth, their goals, and what they are doing to track the progress of the goals that they've set. This information is shared by the student every fall during their parent-teacher conference. The final goal of elementary programming is to help students feel that they are active participants in their schools. They are given specific leadership roles within their classrooms, as well as provided leadership opportunities in leadership groups in their buildings, such as our elementary building's kindness crusaders. Our junior high level consists of six through eighth grades. At the junior high level, we shift focus from predominantly direct instruction of habits to a more focus on application, practice, and processing of the application of these skills. Early years of applying Leader and Me at the junior high level consisted of the formation of student lighthouse teams, which is leadership teams. There were three lighthouse teams formed, which students would participate in for one quarter, then rotate to a new team in order to experience all teams. One of these teams was the bulletin board or information lighthouse team. This is where students created bulletin boards for the school building and created newsletters to go home to their parents in order to share activities going on at the junior high. Community service lighthouse team, this is where students planned non-perishable food drives. They planned community cleanup efforts, such as picking up trash and raking leaves for the community. They participated in beautifying flower buds around the school campus, planting flowers and pulling weeds. Another lead at lighthouse team was the event activity planning team. They organized learning strategy or learning celebrations at the school, which are academic reward parties for students' academic achievements. The goal of the lighthouse teams was to put the habits into practice, applying problem solving strategies in the moment, discussing how when we synergize, have it six or cooperate and share ideas, we are truly better together. Students also had an opportunity to practice leading others, setting goals and finding or realizing their unique genius or special talents only they can contribute to the whole group. It's amazing to watch students find themselves on this journey. They developed this deeper understanding that some are more artistic and that makes them a great member of the team. And maybe my genius is my writing skills or maybe I'm truly really good at organizing events. In the last couple of years at the junior high level, our MRA survey data showed our focus needed to change, to be on our focus on our school culture and students feeling more of a sense of belonging to the school building. Therefore, we started trust huddles. Trust huddles are student led group projects consisting of four to six students in each group. The goal of these trust huddles is for students to form deeper connections with their trust groups and refine their knowledge of trust concepts while working together to review habits as well as process how to apply the habits in their lives. Students practice public speaking skills. They take turns leading the group and they practice creating and monitoring group goals. A leadership council has also been formed at the junior high level. Students must apply to be on the leadership council as well as interview with school staff. This council practices leadership, decision making and planned school events. The junior high continues to review leader in me habits with weekly lessons with the school counselor, reviewing habits and practicing creating personal wigs which are wildly important goals and leadership notebooks are created for each student which consists of items to contribute to their individual plans of study when they get to the high school level. Next slide. So at the high school, we put an extra emphasis on adding habit eight to our curriculum which is find your voice and students focus more on self-advocacy skills. We also continue to remind students the importance of self-care at all times by sharpening the saw or brainstorming different coping strategies for managing stress and frustration. We continue student directed learning modules which happen monthly during students study hall times and where students watch a video online and answer questions about different leader in me habits. Service learning is still going strong at the high school with many opportunities to volunteer such as club activities, community cleanup events, open door project where our students serve food to the elderly in our community. Our teenagers also serve students at the elementary and the junior high by reading books or even teaching their leader in me lessons to our younger students. They also get an opportunity to put habit six synergize into action as they perform community service and have to better understanding of their own unique contributions. Next slide. Our high school students have been seeking first to understand and then to be understood which is habit five since elementary school. They practice empathetic listening and using I messages and kind words to solve problems with others. And our students are refining their skills as they practice on the job training through their coursework where they work with certain classes at the high school. We have students out working in our elementary classrooms and in our local businesses in our area as well. Students are practicing putting first things first as the majority of our high school because we're such a small school. We have students participating in two or more clubs and two or more sports on average. They're very busy. So they must be proactive managing their emotions when they're under pressure academically or with extracurricular activities. We watch our students think win-win as they consider their talents, contributions and the roles that they play in their clubs and their activities and their sports. Finally, we begin with the end in mind at Wabunsi schools. As each student has had access since junior high to college and career readiness programs. This program helps students from form an individual academic and career plan as well as discover relevant college, university, trade, military and career skills and opportunities based on their personality, their skills and their knowledge. Students create an online portfolio also to take with them once they leave high school where we hope that once they leave us that these leader and we have its continue helping them to find success outside of our doors. Thank you. Excellent. So at this time we're prepared to take questions about our programming. Well, very good job. We appreciate you sharing about your school and seeing all the good results. So it's not just a program that makes people feel good but your kids are actually performing better and they're staying in school. So that's good news. Committee, what questions do you have? Yes, Representative Stocksdahl. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your presentation. This to me was the best presentation we've had all day. And for a number of reasons. One, we talk about academics and academic achievement and that sort of thing but these kids face so much societal problems in our society today that they need a safe place to go to school. They need a place that is attractive for them to go to school. And here we have a small school district and yet we have an elementary counselor and a high school counselor and a social worker. My wife was a counselor in the school districts from Shawnee Mission for 40 years. She was head of counseling at Shawnee Mission East. And she would tell you if she was here, she said, if you wanna eliminate problems at the high school level, hire more elementary counselors. That's where you solve the problems. And what do we do up here? One of the first things we ever cut, it seems like it's counselors, art, music, those sorts of things. Those are the things that attract kids to the school and give them the services that they need. So I think this is something we really ought to take a look at not only through this interim committee but when we get back in January. Are we providing enough money, enough services for folks like you to be spread across all of our schools across Kansas? So thank you for what you do. Representative Stocksdale, I wanna give you the opportunity to clarify. We don't cut counselors. We just add more money. We've added 118% more than the CPIU in the last 20 years. So we don't cut. I think we added like 180 million more last year. So do you wanna clarify? Well, when I was teaching in Shawnee Mission, every school had a counselor. Every school had a school nurse. Most schools had social workers. And most people, we had band, we had music, we had art, we had PE, all of that sort of thing. But it seems to me like it's those programs that we sometimes undervalue. And I think that we need to, pardon? Is that us? Because we don't do any of the hiring. We don't tell school districts what to do with their money. But I think we should encourage them to look at these things that bring those kids into school, make them feel safe, give them the guidance and the activities that bring them in and make them successful. All right. Thank you, Representative. He has changed it to encourage. Okay. Representative, we're gonna go to win. And then I think there was Senator Blasey and then Senator Sykes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I have about a hundred thousand questions for you, Dr. Pitch. Good to see you again. Good to see you again too. Just a joke. No, congratulations. And Dr. Pitch and I used to work together in KCK. So good to see and congratulations. Bye-bye. Thank you. Senator Blasey. When did you say the program was administered again? This curriculum program? When did we enter it? Yeah. 2018. 18, okay. Well, I think your test scores are absolutely phenomenal, obviously. I mean, they're clearly on the up and the leading force in the state. Would you say that this curriculum is the sole reason why though, that those scores are going up? No, sir. I believe we have multiple elements going on in our community. As a small rural community, there is a very much a collective mentality when it comes to raising our students. Additionally, the accountability is shared across the spectrum, including the families, the students, the schools and the community at large. We're all responsible for students being successful. So it's that shared fabric of what's right for kids that I believe is contributing it to, but the leader in me is very much an integral part of that. I think you hit the nail on the head. That's what I was trying to make the point is, I think you have a great community where the fabric is sewn very tight, where we see across our state and our country, we see the fabric is unwinding everywhere and so we're having a lot of problems, rising crime and numerous other issues. So I applaud you guys, I think that's great. I come from a small rural community where, same thing. It's not just parents raising the kid. It's the school, it's the church, it's the community, it's the neighbor, right? Everyone looking after each other. So I think at all, having strong families, strong schools and strong communities that was key to raising children in our state. So I think you guys are a great model for others to show, thank you. I'll just quickly add to that, Senator, is that I was reading some research on smaller communities versus larger urban communities. Smaller communities tend to know their neighbors more and they have a higher percentage of knowing and trusting their neighbor and that sense of connection also creates that additional layer of accountability. So I think that you may be onto something there. Senator Sykes. Thank you for being here. I, again, one of my top favorite comments here, but, and I wish we were doing more of this, but your school district, my son's senior class last year was larger than your school district, but I do think there's takeaways, but how could we scale this in other schools across our state? And again, it has to be that buy-in of your community. And so many times I think social and emotional learning has been targeted and I think maybe for bad reason, cause they don't have that buy-in. There's not that communication. So how would you suggest scaling something like this across other districts in the state? That is an extremely difficult question. I have about 25 years in education, most of that's in the urban core. And so I've seen essentially all educational environments and I don't know the answer to that. I know it gets much more challenging as you move up into the larger and larger populations, essentially when you go into the urban core and you deal with the context of that setting and all the difficulties that those students face. I wish I had that answer. I'm hoping that we can provide us some data and some examples and maybe further the research in academic study in that area to see if there are solutions. Okay, and no one else on this side, correct? Senator Erickson. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you so much for being here. I've actually gone through the Leader in Me training. I flew to Kentucky. I was part of a grant when I was at a magnet school and we brought it back to, but unfortunately, due to the cost of the program I'm hoping you're telling me it's gotten more affordable but we were only able to implement it in our eighth grade. I was at a middle school, middle school principal and we saw an immediate impact. But unfortunately, I mean, the cost was prohibitive. We just didn't have the funds to scale it to some of my fellow committee members point. So has it gotten more affordable I'm hoping or do you know? I think we're always having to make choices with our budget overall. What is the most important thing? Currently it's an expenditure like many others but it's not one that rises above to make me say, we probably should get rid of this. And in the condition where it was to become unaffordable for our district, we've got the playbook so we're sticking with it. Do you still have your talking stick? I still have mine. Talking logic. Yeah, yeah, I got mine. All right, we'll have to do that some time. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, Senator Baumgrenner. Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you so much for the presentation. I think one of the things that I like most that you mentioned was that intrinsic value of service learning. It's not just we're gonna go volunteer but it is truly service learning and I think that kind of is that special sauce in there of the program. So thank you so much for sharing. All right, well, I think you have wowed our committee. We thank you for being here today. Do not feel like you need to stay one second longer and I'm sure the kids are ready to get to their next activity and thank you so much for being here. Please stay in touch, share with your other districts. We always are open to schools and especially kids coming in and sharing. And so stay in touch with us.