Friday, March 23, 2018

Wichita Visit - 5th Visit

Visiting Wichita started at the Administrative Center, enjoying breakfast with Superintendent Dr.Alicia Thompson and several school board members. We then traveled to Brooks Middle School a STEM Magnet School.


Dance, guitar, violin, art, band, theater - there were SO many electives! I really appreciated that students are given 2 electives per day and students are not allowed to be pulled from those classes.




Next we traveled to Gammon Elementary. Gammon focuses on The Leader in Me, with a focus on the 7 desirable character traits. Each student sets weekly goals and documents those goals and whether they achieve their goals or not and why. All students keep leadership notebooks. There was artwork EVERYWHERE! I may have this number wrong, but there is a flag for every country their students were from - 126 countries total! They had some interesting programs to help the non-English speaking students be successful.







On to SouthEast High - this brand new school was open this year and the hallway is 1/2 mile long~ We started by visiting their Buffalo Store, then went to visit several other classes. The FFA class had animals everywhere - really cool! I loved the wide hallways, huge windows, and inviting seating everywhere. They were even painting a Keeper of the Plains sculpture to be placed somewhere in the city.








Our last stop for the day was Christa McAuliffe Academy. This is a K-8 school that's been open for 6 years. They are an AVID school, and each student has an organizational binder that they were very proud to show off. Two adorable Asian kindergarten girls dressed in traditional clothing gifted us with paper fortune cookies and and good luck envelopes. The 4th grade put on quite the debate for us, arguing for or against trampolines. Their maturity in their discussions was impressive. We saw some students creating a walking tour website of their school, and ended the day with a violin symphony that was phenomenal! 











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