Redesign meeting was held at the WHS auditorium Wednesday.

by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Wellington Superintendent Mark Whitener said last year when school administrators were preparing for the Mercury 7 Endeavor Redesign project at USD 353, he warned there would be growing pains. Those growing pains were exemplified Wednesday night at the high school auditorium.

A group of 120 parents, teachers, students and others were on hand for the first public forum since the redesign project was implemented at the start of the 2018-19 school year for freshmen, sophomores and Kennedy Elementary students. Unlike the previous Redesign information meetings held last year, this meeting was much more acrimonious.

The intention by high school principals John Buckendorf and Stephanie Smith was to make a power point presentations and answer questions thereafter.

It turned out to be the opposite.

Several parents, and a couple of students, decided to ask questions first. For the first 30 minutes into the presentation there were some harsh words and criticisms. Parent John Brand finally stood up and said, “let’s listen to what they have to say first then we can answer questions later.”

Once that occurred, the presentation pretty much went without a hitch.

It’s hard to gauge just how popular/unpopular the Redesign program is with the public at large. But for those parents and their children on the right side of the auditorium who attended the meeting, the project has been a disaster.

Perhaps, the biggest concern among the vocal parents in attendance, was the lack of mentoring between teachers and students.

Buckendorf stated at the meeting that each student should receive 20 minutes of mentoring per week. But one parent stated that isn’t happening. He would be surprised if his daughter has received 20 minutes of mentoring since the school year started.

There were also concerns over the lack of availability of computers, the inability of students without Internet at home to get assignments completed, the grading system, the testing system, and the fluctuation of hours which seem to put both student and parents at an inconvenience.

Wellington is one of seven schools in Kansas introducing this revolutionary curriculum in which individual students take core subjects at their own pace using a confluence of digital platforms and teacher guidance. See full stories here and here. The program is being sponsored through the Kansas Department of Education.

While the first part of the meeting seemed like something out of the Jerry Springer Show, the latter half was rather tranquil – more like MacNeil/Lehrer Report. At the end of the presentation, the parents were invited to the commons and speak with individual mentors. If there was acrimony there, Sumner Newscow wasn’t in attendance to witness it.

“This is by far the most exciting thing that has happened to education in my years of teaching,” Buckendorf said near the end of his presentation. “I want to emphasize that every parent is invited to come to the school and see how the program works for itself. It is exciting to see how these students are learning in a new way.”

Buckendorf and Smith spoke on the various methodology of redesign from grading to how a student progresses in the classroom.

“There is an 80 percent student drop out rate when students attend college,” Buckendorf said. “Part of the problem is they don’t have mom and dad there to push them to class. The great thing about this program is it teaches students how to develop these life lesson skills on their own time.”

But several parents and students in attendance weren’t buying it, saying that isn’t how colleges are taught. They still have to go to lectures in college in classroom settings and they either sink or swim as a result of it. Some fear that Wellington students won’t be able to learn the standard classroom methodology of teaching and it will hurt them later when they do go to college.

“One of the complaints we here are that students are just sitting on a computer all day and teachers aren’t doing anything. That is a fallacy,” Buckendorf said. “You can come to a classroom and oftentimes you are seeing only one out of five students working on a computer. The other four out of five people are engaged in seminars, discussing projects, or working with one another.”

Karla DeFore, a social studies instructor at the Wellington High School, spoke about how her redesign classes are now able to have the flexibility to have group discussions on complex issues, the kind she remembers having in college but not being able to teach in a regular classroom setting.

“It is hard to hear these harsh words, but I am really sold on this,” DeFore said of Redesign.

Smith emphasized that if students are falling behind, they can attend mini workshops to catch up. She said the beauty of the program is it allows students to learn at a pace that they are no longer feel left behind.

But some parents are calling the presentation, “window dressing” and doesn’t address the project’s flaws. Many parents said they would like the option to return to classroom instruction.

Perhaps, the biggest question was how the program was implemented. Some parents were under the impression that it was optional the first year meaning some students could be in the new Redesign program and others be in the classroom setting. Buckendorf said through surveys conducted last school year that 90 percent wanted to participate in Redesign and thus it was determined to start all freshmen and sophomores in the new curriculum.

One parent, who wished not to be named, said afterwards he was glad to see the information being presented and he had several questions answered. But he didn’t particularly care for the way some of the parents were behaving. Others reported they didn’t think their questions were being answered.

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