USD 457 BOE honors robotics team, gets updates on concurrent classes and foundation

Garden City, KS(westernkansasnews.com) Monday night the USD 457 Board of Education recognized the Jennie Barker Elementary School robotics team for qualifying for the International Competition.

The team competed in three of the five events at the State Competition at Wichita State back on February 23, they won trophies in all three events. They won the Teamwork Champion Award, the Robot Skills Champion Award and the Programming Competition. Jennie Barker was the only school to win multiple competitions.

The team will compete in the International Competition in Louisville, KY beginning April 29.

The board also saw a presentation on the college credit options at the high school. Currently at the high school campus they offer 14 concurrent classes through Garden City Community College. They also offer classes through Flint Hills Technical College focusing on power plan technology and wind energy, kids can leave that program ready to work in the field.

Assistant Superintendent Renee Scott explained that one problem the high school runs into with concurrent classes is schedules don’t align exactly with the college, which can cause students to miss time at the high school. It’s also hard to monitor student progress off campus, the high school can’t check grades for off campus classes, which can lead to graduation problems. Traveling to and from classes at the college also creates a safety concern.

“If we offer the class at the high school we encourage them to take it there, for one if they take it on our campus we can cover the cost of books and the college gives us $10,000 per semester in scholarships for students who take classes on our campus,” said Scott.

This year students at Garden City High School are taking 1,661 concurrent credit hours. The number is down from 2015-16 because that’s when schools switched to a seven period day and there were more early graduates.

Lastly the board received a report on the Garden City Public Schools Foundation. The foundation began in 2004 to enhance education in Garden City in partnership with Western Kansas Community Foundation. The plan is for the foundation to eventually become a 501(c)(3).

The foundation provides 10 mini-grants per year at $200 a piece to teachers. They also plan to provide 4,700 whiteboards to classrooms soon and they also fund the fee for schools to participate in the Scripps Spelling Bees. The foundation also helps sponsor the Crystal Apple teacher program.

There are a couple of fundraisers people can donate to help the foundation. The first is the 4,000 bricks in front of the high school that can be bought for $100 and engraved. The other is the Buffalo Living Legacy Fund created two years ago to provide scholarships to students at Garden City High School.