Newton Visit

(Debate presentation by Philip and Katie)

Visiting Newton was enlightening in so many ways…their professional development in teacher-leaders came through loud and clear. Touring the Newton District Office we were inspired by the passion of their TWO curriculum directors and the work they do with instructional coaches and team leaders. Afterwards, we had the opportunity to discuss teacher recruitment, legislative issues, and professional development with the Human Resources Director Michael Clagg. He shared with us how difficult it is to get the state of Kansas to recognize other states’ highly qualified licenses. There is some proposed legislation that may ease those requirements.

We visited South Breeze Elementary School and Chisholm Middle School where Mary Bradshaw teaches ELL. All of us really like the way the school uses pods and teacher teams. Each pod houses four content area classrooms with a flexible space in the center with a computer lab. Mary then showed us her classroom and overflow area when she has larger groups of students who are all Latin American with a geographic range from Honduras and El Salvador to northern Mexico. Chisholm will be entering a huge change in two years when they transition from a 6th-8th middle school to a 7th-8th center. The support of education is evident in this community as their bond issued passed and will reconfigure middle school to an intermediate 5th-6th model with a 7th-8th middle school. As we were leaving Chisholm, a Sara Lee bread truck forgot to close its back door. It deposited bags of bread and bread trays all over the road for a couple hundred yards in front of us. Check us out “cleaning up!”

One of the highlights of our day was a brief visit to Walton Rural Life Center. Walton is a unique agricultural/technology charter school located in a small, rural town that is part of the Newton school district. We toured the building followed by two exemplary presentations by the fifth grade students. We heard 2 proposals on a worm-composting project and about the aphid problem they discovered last week in their greenhouse. This group of eager learners quickly brought us up to speed on the many different ways to dispose of aphids in your garden! They are using the scientific method to discover which of five remedies will cure their problem. We’re putting our money on the ladybugs (literally—we were so impressed by this group’s professional presentation and the need to raise money for their science experiments that we took up a small collection to donate to their cause). We ended the tour by visiting the greenhouse which is powered by a wind turbine. The students showed us the aphids on their pepper plants as well as the white flies that are infesting some of their tomatoes. Knowing these fifth graders, these little garden pests don’t stand a chance against their horticultural ingenuity.


The Kauffman Museum was our lunch stop. This museum highlights the history of the Mennonite community (the Mennonites form a large constituency of the Newton area). We had the chance to discuss higher education with several staff members associated with Bethel College’s Department of Education.

Newton High School was next on the agenda. Barb Umschied is the math department chairperson designing a math program and getting results! Cindy C. truly enjoyed this conversation, and developed a great colleague with whom we are sure she will keep in contact. It was very impressive to find out Newton garners the Standard of Excellence status in math consistently and that almost 100% of Mrs. Umschied’s AP Calculus classes of 30 plus students get college credit through the AP Calculus exam. We were then treated to a visit by the nationally ranked Newton Robotics team. This is a great application of math, problem solving, and teamwork. Newton is definitely exposing students to 21st Century Skills. Some of us wonder if Pixar consulted with these great students while creating Wall-E. National qualifying debate and forensics students then treated us to some fast talking. Mary’s son, Philip, and his debate partner, Katie, participated in the National Debate Tournament in Las Vegas last year. They taught us the difference between fast and slow debate styles. When we say fast, we mean faster than an auctioneer fast. Katie’s speech was amazing, and we can hardly believe that people can become accustomed to understanding the fast speech style! Jimmy then demonstrated the poetry/prose event of forensics with a touching poem about teachers and their contribution to society.

Our day ended with a Chamber of Commerce reception at the Carriage Factory Art Gallery. It was nice to see the community support that represents why both our very own Mary Bradshaw and the Newton Public Schools are so successful!

We look forward to our next visit to Gardner on February 2nd. In the meantime, we will be working in Topeka next weekend.

"Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without."

William Sloane Coffin, Jr.