Brian Pekarek, USD 257 superintendent of schools in waiting, spent Monday here meeting people, asking questions and when the occasion arose adding comments of his own.
During a public luncheon, he was told that caring teachers and the Bowlus Fine Arts Center are two definite strengths of USD 257, with each observation coming from several of about 20 people.
The Bowlus Center, he was told, gives students opportunities in performance and fine arts seldom found in a school system in a town of Iola’s size.
“We started a strings program this year that attracted so many students there weren’t enough instruments,” said Donna Houser, retired middle school English teacher. She noted the retired teachers organization chipped in money to help. Others in the community also donated instruments and money.
Ruth St. Clair said her children were given a variety of opportunities — one was on a field trip Monday — that she hadn’t found elsewhere before moving back to her hometown.
An improvement to the system would be teachers not having to “teach to the test,” several people said.
That launched Pekarek into a review of state assessments to measure progress for the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which proposes to have all students performing at grade level in reading and math by 2014.
Pekarek isn’t a fan. He thinks a better means to measure educational progress is the American College Test (ACT) and said the McPherson district had received a waiver from the federal government to quit state assessments for sixth-graders through seniors in favor of the ACT.
Pekarek said, however, that before he would propose a change here he would want to make sure that the community, staff and school board were all in agreement, “so this may take some time.”
The ACT, he said, gives a better measure of a student’s readiness to advance to college level education and for those not college-bound helps with career considerations.
Another respondent said he thought too many teachers in USD 257 schools were more intent on being students’ friends than their instructors and the appropriate division between student and teacher wasn’t well defined when they dressed alike. Pekarek nodded understanding.
Pekarek, in his second year as superintendent of the Clifton-Clyde district, met with Dr. Craig Neuenswander, current superintendent, Gail Dunbar, curriculum director, and other administrators Monday morning and attended Monday evening’s board meeting. He was to have had another round of meetings today, including lunch with Iola High Student Council members.
Both days, he asked the same questions of all: What they thought were positive things about the district and what could be done to improve the learning environment. He kept copious notes for later reference.
USD 257 supt. hears from Iola
