'Yes ... and'

 

Kentucky School Advocate

April 2019

 

By Matt McCarty
Staff writer

Fort Thomas Independent Schools has a history of academic success. In 2018, Niche.com ranked the district No. 1 in Kentucky for the second consecutive year and U.S. News and World Report ranked the district’s Highlands High School No 2. in Kentucky.

The district boasts high ACT scores, high pass rates of Advanced Placement classes and rigorous coursework. 

 

But when district administrators dug deeper into the data, they found an alarming statistic. While 82 percent of the high school’s 2012 graduates went to college, just 39 percent of those students graduated college in four years. And only 59 percent graduated in six years. 

“That’s a staggering statistic if you think about it,” said Fort Thomas board chairman Brad Fennell. “It’s not where we need to be. There was something missing obviously.” 

So administrators called the Class of 2012 graduates to figure out why so many did not graduate from college. 

“The responses talked about some of these skills that we know our students need to have to be successful,” said Superintendent Karen Cheser. 

So, to make sure their students are prepared for postsecondary and career success, the district created a Portrait of a Graduate program to determine the competencies their students need. District officials and board members presented the program at KSBA’s Annual Conference. (See box on opposite page for more information on Fort Thomas’ Portrait of a Graduate competencies)

“Our goal is not just to get them to high school graduation, it never should be,” Cheser said. “It should be for them to be successful in whatever career they want to pursue.” 

The district engaged the community and staff to help create its vision. District staff attended an EdLeader 21 conference in Atlanta and visited several high-performing school districts across the country for inspiration and motivation.

“Each of our locations that we selected really enabled us to learn something new and different that we could bring back to the school district and talk through what it could look like for us,” Assistant Superintendent Bill Bradford said.

LAUNCH launched
One of the districts Fort Thomas administrators traveled to was Minnetonka Public Schools in Minnesota. Minnetonka, ranked 30th nationally by Niche.com, has an offsite building where students can pursue multiple pathways and learn real world problem-solving through partnerships with businesses and mentors in a business-like setting.

When they returned to the district, Fort Thomas administrators worked with a community member who owns an office building to renovate part of the building for the district’s new LAUNCH space. In the modern space with exposed brick walls and open ceilings, students can explore pathways, including app development, health innovation and entrepreneurship. The building also includes a MakerSpace, a student pop-up shop and is used by the district’s robotics team and girls STEM bike club.

The space, which the district leases, allows students to explore their interests in ways they can’t do in a traditional classroom, Bradford said. 

“We wanted to provide them with sort of a different experience and we recognized that entrepreneurism, just this way of working in a business mindset, it’s kind of an essential skill and one that our industry mentors have indicated is important for students to develop,” he said. 

Cheser said the pathways at LAUNCH, which is also used for board meetings and professional development, will be less about established career pathways and more about future-focused careers. When creating its Portrait of a Graduate, district officials met with industry leaders to determine what skills students will need five or 10 years from now.

Since the space opened in January, students at LAUNCH have been working on projects with nine businesses.

“The professional setting drives curiosity, drives creativity and so by being able to offer students with an alternative setting that is professional in nature, that not only aligns to what things might look like in their future, but also just allows them a new opportunity to expand their learning in a meaningful way,” he said. 

Fennell said it was important for the school board to provide opportunities for students to not only work away from traditional classrooms to learn independence, but also to give the students more hands-on experience to determine if they are really interested in certain careers before getting to college.

“I think it’s important to recognize where we are today and not every child is best suited for college,” he said. “We want to provide an opportunity for them to think outside the box and consider other options and not just absolutely consider that you have to go to college.” 

Often students waste a year or two of time and money going to college only to realize that they would prefer to learn a high-demand trade, Fennell said. 

“Yes … And”
Fort Thomas calls the initiative “Yes … And.” Because it’s not OK to be just the No. 1 in the state, Cheser said. There’s more. 

“And so we said, ‘Yes … And,’” she said. “Yes, we’re going to continue to excel academically. We’re not putting that away. We’re going to continue and we’re going to make sure students have these skills, because this is what’s going to help them be successful beyond the academics.”

 

But when you’re No. 1, it’s hard to get everyone to understand why change is needed, Fennell said.

“There’s always been kind of a perception of hit the scores, hit the scores; it’s about numbers in the community in general. There’s also been a level of complacency that we’re great and we’re always going to be great. Well, let me tell you, you’re not always going to be great just because you were great,” he said. “I believe that they will embrace what we’re doing, and they will recognize that this really is where education is moving and even where the business world is now going.”

Board member Jeff Beach said getting input from all levels of the district and stakeholders throughout the community was important because it “made sure those folks were part of the solution and part of the process.”

Dawn Laber, principal at the district’s Moyer Elementary, said the Portrait of a Graduate will add to the great things the district has always done.

“I think it’s important for our community to know we still have the content very intentionally at our school and these things just make us better people,” she said. “We’re looking to create better kids, better leaders, better society members and so we take them wherever they are, and we teach them those skills.”

Portrait of a Graduate

To develop its Portrait of a Graduate, Fort Thomas established committees to develop instructional frameworks to define what each component really means. 

“Instead of trying to copy anything that was already available in print, we wanted the content for those instructional frameworks to manifest within our own school district and by our own people,” Assistant Superintendent Bill Bradford said. “We wanted our own teachers, our own parents, our own staff to be able to articulate what these five competencies in our Portrait of a Graduate meant to them so then we could focus our attention on what we could do to realize the competencies.”

 

The district’s Portrait of a Graduate says that when students graduate, they will be a:

• Courageous Leader who displays high levels of leadership, optimism and hope.

• Empathetic Collaborator who not only knows how to work with others but who respects other's perspectives.

• Global Communicator who demonstrates the ability to communicate effectively in writing, verbally and interpersonally.

• Curious and Critical Thinker who values inquiry and is always seeking to learn more.

• Creative Problem Solver who demonstrates creativity and entrepreneurship.