THE WCHS JOURNALISM CLASS, taught by Renee Boss, an English teacher and STLP advisor, who will be “winning” with the Woodford Sun. (Photo by Renee Boss)
Woodford schools Portrait of a Learner partners with business community
On August 8, 2023, Woodford County schools Superintendent Danny Adkins announced a major policy initiative called Portrait of a Learner (PoL), which is the fulcrum for all that the school system does involving curriculum, training and assessment.
In partnership with the PoL program, the “Woodford Wins Community Partner Network” program (Woodford Wins) is a mechanism that has been designed intentionally to integrate partnerships between the schools and the businesses, nonprofits and other organizations in the community.
“We have always been lucky that the business community engages with the schools in all kinds of ways,” Ryan Asher, chief academic officer, said. “We now want to align those with what we are doing in PoL . . . and this is (Woodford Wins).”
PoL implements the Kentucky Department of Education’s statewide policy for school districts called “United We Learn,” which per its website is the department’s “vision for the future of public education in Kentucky.”
As both Bob Vlach and I have written before, PoL in its roll-out materials says it seeks to create a “collective vision for student success seeking to establish a set of competencies, skills and qualities a school community believes every student should possess, which provides a foundational tool to shape all school design work.”
PoL began here in 2022 through a two-year $56,000 grant from the state as part of this United We Learn project. Importantly, 70 percent of the funds go to teacher stipends to devise and implement new instructional tools.
This is a BIG deal . . . and this system-wide policy demonstrates the skill and talent of administrators and educators to truly equip our children for life.
Nearly any business or organization can participate.
Asher along with Adkins, Public Affairs Officer Elaine Bailey, Susan Tracy, director of Student Achievement, along with teachers and administrators have given presentations about the Woodford Wins project twice to the Woodford County Chamber of Commerce, along with holding several meetings. This is how we at the Sun are involved.
One example Asher gave is the school’s annual Industry Day. “We always put on the Industry Day for seniors in the spring, giving them exposure to job opportunities in regional and local businesses. But this didn’t make sense to wait till spring. So now we are doing it as they go into their senior year,” he said.
Another new partnership with Woodford Wins is with the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) whose leadership approached the schools. This led to a mentoring support program in the middle school which will integrate into an existing structure like Tiger Time and other clubs.
Our partnership is similar. First, we signed up online at https://forms.gle/ERiudo32hSFzu3Bi8 as is required. Then, I met with Asher to talk about our idea.
The high school has long published a school paper known as “Jacket Jottings.” When I was a student from 1973 – 1977, it was mimeographed in the office and put in our lockers about once a month. Now, it is online. My idea was that the Sun would work with the staff of Jacket Jottings for a student to report, write, edit and publish a story every two weeks or so in our paper.
And, this is what we are going to do.
Last week, teacher extraordinaire Renee Boss invited me to present the idea to her journalism class. (With only a few absences, the class is pictured left.) Working in teams of two to four, the students will choose a subject and then report it. Then, they will send it to me at the Sun where it will be edited again and published under the students by-line.
We are going to start with feature stories, which often “tell a story” about some person, event or historical occurrence that we think helps the community know about Woodford County. An example would be this week’s story written by Bob about long-time national sports journalist and Lexington native Tom Hammond. We will eventually get the students to work on hard news stories, like government meetings, weather events and such.
We hope you both enjoy and learn from these remarkable and talented students as you read their stories. And, if you own a business, run a non-profit or are a part of a community organization, then we hope you will join us in becoming a Woodford Winner.