Business professionals gathered at the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce Wednesday afternoon to hear Blue Valley Schools superintendent Tonya Merrigan’s take on leadership and community issues.
What happened: For the Chamber’s Overland Park “Fireside Chats” Series, Merrigan participated in a one-on-one discussion with chamber president Tracey Osborne Oltjen that focused, in part, on Merrigan’s vision for the future of the Blue Valley School District.
Below are some key takeaways on what Merrigan said Wednesday:
Changing with the times: One area the district is always looking to improve upon, she said, is keeping Blue Valley’s curriculum up-to-date with the standards of today’s world.
- “If we leave school exactly how it was when I graduated, the kids are not going to be prepared for the world we’re living in right now,” Merrigan said.
- This, she said, included not only preparing kids academically but also with good work-place skills through avenues like the district’s Career Ready Programs, which offer tracks in fields from Culinary and Hospitality to Fire Science.
- Merrigan said the district has found it important to listen to colleges and businesses to see what skills they are looking for in order to find ways to implement them into the classroom.
Moving forward: Instead of focusing solely on “learning loss” from the pandemic, Merrigan said another way Blue Valley is working to improve is by concentrating on how to “accelerate learning” for students who have struggled the past two years amid COVID-19.
- Throughout Kansas, more than 30% of students fell behind their grade level in math and language arts in the 2020-21 school year after COVID-19 shutdown in-person learning the previous year, according to NPR.
- “We’re working a lot after school or with summer school to get those kids back up to speed,” Merrigan said.
- Additionally, rather than judging a student’s success primarily through state assessment scores, Merrigan believes students need to be evaluated through several means, including ACT scores, reading assessments and market-value assets, such as certifications, at school.
Policy shift: When looking to the future, Merrigan said she also saw a need for a shift in policy, especially in the case of leaving educational decisions to experts.
- “I’m not an expert in early education, so I don’t think I should make the decision on what kindergarten curriculum should be,” Merrigan said. “I think that teachers in public education across the country have kind of been bombarded with criticism.”
- In the past two years, polarizing topics, such as mask policies and challenges to books in school libraries, have created a divide between educators and parents.
- According to Merrigan, this has been a factor in why schools are struggling to maintain staff, with local districts like Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools facing a major teacher shortage this school year.
