A free email newsletter breaking down the issues that affect Wichitans the most.
Delivered every Tuesday and Thursday morning
LATEST NEWS
Vaccine mandates, teacher pay and scholarships: Kansas education bills to watch
Kansas legislators have introduced more than a dozen bills regarding K-12 and higher education in 2022, covering topics such as teacher pay, COVID vaccines and course materials. The Kansas Legislature went into session Jan. 10 and lawmakers will likely continue to add new legislation to the list. The mix of education-related legislation also includes some…
Get our free newsletter every Tuesday and Thursday morning. We share our in-depth reporting and the best local stories to help you understand what’s going on in Wichita.
MORE STORIES
This program is helping more Kansas students graduate, and it’s expanding
Tony Evans stands at the entrance to his Wichita Heights High School classroom each morning and greets each of the nearly 40 students in his Jobs for America’s Graduates – Kansas classes. He makes small talk with some or jokes to get the attention of others – especially when the students might not be fully…
Students are back at Wichita colleges, but the COVID-19 picture remains murky
It’s Olivia Compton’s sixth spring semester in college, her third in the COVID-19 era and her first at Friends University. At this point, she has an air of having seen it all, even as the omicron variant shatters what looked like the light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic during the fall…
Cutting through ‘the chaos’: What happened at Wichita’s school board meeting on Monday
The Wichita Board of Education is off to a rough start for the new year. The board had been set to ceremonially swear in three new board members and one incumbent at its first meeting of 2022 on Monday at Wichita North High School. But that meeting never happened after the three new board members…
Why Wichita USD 259 is fast-tracking repairs to this 99-year-old high school
Wichita East High School students and teachers are back to class for the spring semester, but some of them are returning to different classrooms. After discovering structural issues in the building’s science wing in the fall, school officials are shuttering the wing’s 18 classrooms until repairs can be completed. Teachers from those classrooms are continuing…
School lunch is a food and people business. Wichita USD 259’s challenge is finding either.
Rows of racks in Wichita USD 259’s vast School Service Center on Hydraulic Street in northeast Wichita are the second-to-last stops before distribution to the district’s dozens of schools. In the adjacent industrial kitchen, pizzas roll through conveyor-belt ovens, while enormous mixers pipe mashed potatoes into a machine that seals the food into large plastic…
Wichita teens want a bigger voice in meeting their mental health needs
Editor’s note: We updated this story on Dec. 20 to show that Truc Dao and Andrew Le are director and vice director of Students Empowerment, respectively, and members of ICTeens in Mind. One of the things Truc Dao has relearned in 20 months of high school during the pandemic is how to catch her breath.…
How you can snag a spot for your student at one of Wichita’s magnet schools
Students are wrapping up the fall semester at Wichita USD 259, but enrollment for the 2022-23 school year is already starting for the district’s 24 magnet schools. The district’s magnet program offers schools that focus on subjects like science, leadership and performing arts, with some specializing even further into fields like aerospace engineering and health…
A KU Wichita Pediatrics pilot program brings health care into schools, and it’s keeping students in class
Editor’s note: We updated this story on Dec. 8 to clarify that Krista Weaver is an advanced practice registered nurse. On Dec. 9, the story was updated to clarify that KU Wichita Pediatrics operates the school-based clinics. There’s no telling who or what Krista Weaver will see every day in her classroom-turned-clinic in Haysville USD…
How to find your student’s Kansas state assessment scores and what they mean
Kansas teachers, education leaders and policymakers are starting to get an idea of the pandemic’s toll on student learning across the state with the latest results from the Kansas Assessment Program. Results from the spring 2021 state assessments show that students generally performed more poorly on the standardized tests after a year of disrupted learning.…
‘Our kids are grieving’: Children’s mental health is a national emergency, and Wichita isn’t immune
In his job as a Wichita East High School social worker, Samuel Paunetto knew he’d be dealing with all the traumas teenagers routinely go through. But he’s been floored by the amount of grief he’s seeing in students every day — not just from the loss of family and friends to COVID-19, but from the…
There’s a Kansas substitute teacher shortage. Here’s how you can get a license.
Update: On Jan. 12, 2022, the Kansas State Board of Education declared a state of emergency and created a less restrictive path to becoming a substitute teacher. With that action, the board established a Temporary Emergency Authorized License (TEAL), which will generally allow anyone over the age of 18 with a high school diploma to…
What’s the key to better classroom performance? Haysville thinks it could be more recess
One of the hardest decisions 6-year-old MacKenna Darling makes each morning is picking what she’ll do at each of the four recesses her class has every day at Freeman Elementary School. Some recesses, the first grader prefers going down the slide — fast most of the time, but sometimes slowly. Other times, a game of…
This nontraditional center is breaking school norms, and Derby students are thriving
Charli Campbell had two life goals when he was 5 years old. The first was to be a princess, but given the logistics of that, the second seemed more feasible: to be a musician, a writer, an actor — really, anything in which he could be a creator. Somewhere along his time in school, though,…
Falling through the (sidewalk) cracks: Why it’s so hard for Wichita students to walk to school
The five minutes Margaret Shabazz and her daughter Essence spend walking to Park Elementary School every morning are some of the best moments they share. On their way to the school on North Main Street, the mother and kindergartner pass neighbors and other students and parents. It’s pleasing to see everyone each morning, Shabazz said.…
Young people are some of the least likely to vote. These young Wichitans are working to change that.
Dione Ramos didn’t think her first time voting would be special. She certainly didn’t expect a live band, a DJ blaring Ariana Grande and Camila Cabello, free tacos and recognition of first-time voters. But that’s what Vote Mob provided on Oct. 26. The annual celebration of voting is organized by local youth-led civic engagement group…
Loading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Join our Founding Members
The Wichita Beacon listens to diverse perspectives and shines a light on systemic issues and grass-roots solutions through original fact-based reporting.
If you can, we hope you’ll help keep our journalism free for all readers by becoming a monthly member.