The FAPE Site

Wyandotte High School

Kansas City School District
Kansas City, Kansas

The Challenges

Wyandotte High School, located near downtown Kansas City, Kansas, serves more than 1,100 students; more than 90 percent of whom are African-American and Hispanic. The school had the highest dropout rates and lowest reading scores in the Kansas City, Kansas, school district. The parent income level is the lowest in the entire state.

The School Environment

The high school is housed in an elaborate historic building with marble pillars, grand fireplaces and crystal chandeliers. "It's the most beautiful building you'll ever see. Up until about 20 years ago it had a rich tradition of being an excellent high school," says Dave Oland, a social studies teacher who has been at the high school for nine years. "But until four years ago, what was happening inside the building was masking the physical beauty: bloody fights between students, kids roaming the halls, students urinating on the building. It was awful. I kept thinking, 'If it's bad for me, what is it like for the kids?'"

Oland says the teaching conditions were just as bad as the physical conditions: "I barely made it through the first four years. There was no leadership, no direction, no vision, no support. It was an absolute nightmare," he says. "When I went to turn in my resignation before my fifth year, I found out we were getting a new principal. I decided to give him one year to help shape things up."

Actions to Improve

The first thing the principal did was implement a Zero Tolerance Tardy policy, which helped the teachers feel for the first time that they were in control. "We finally had a tool to do something," says Oland. Shortly after, the district and local Association-the National Education Association-Kansas City Kansas (NEA-KCK)-organized roundtables of parents, teachers, administrators and students to talk about implementing a school-wide reform program known as First Things First (developed by Philadelphia's Institute for Research and Reform in Education). Some 400 people were involved in discussions during this time. After consideration, it was decided that Wyandotte would be the first school in the district to implement this "building-by-building" program.

The program focuses on seven "critical features" which have proven to help students succeed in urban schools, including lowering the student-adult ratios to at least one adult for every 15 students during core instructional periods, with an emphasis on reading and math. Another feature involves keeping groups of students with the same teachers for at least two years, with a focus on high, fair and clear academic and behavioral standards.

During the initial year of planning, school staff and students decided to restructure the school, breaking it down into eight "communities." Each community-which consists of no more than 200 students and eight to 10 teachers-is based on a shared interest of students. For example, school "learning communities" include health/medicine, the humanities, performing arts and visual arts and technology. Students remain in communities with largely the same teachers throughout their high school years. "There were so many kids falling through the cracks before we implemented this," says Oland. "Now school is based on what the staff calls 'the one true thing'-relationships. The students feel like they are part of a family."

Subsequently, all schools in the district spent at least one year conducting research and planning, and are in various stages of program implementation. Each school's approach to the reform effort is based on that school's specific needs.

Association Involvement

From the beginning, the local Association was an equal partner in the reform effort. NEA-KC helps coordinate the program by sitting with district administrators on the District Leadership Team. This team keeps the program on track by identifying potential problems, collaborating on solutions and providing staff and resource development.

Both the Association and district also collaborate in a "Teaching and Learning Committee," which is composed of 12 members and 12 administrators. The committee's purpose is to research and identify best practices in urban education and learning, as well as develop and implement a framework for training all staff members in its findings. This training takes place through the district's Teaching and Learning Academy, which provides all staff with at least one day per month of training.

Biggest Successes

In the beginning of the reform effort, teachers and administrators developed three objectives: higher student achievement, a lower dropout rate and improved attendance. As of the 2000-01 school year, student achievement was on the rise, the dropout rate was down more than 20 percent, ninth-grade attendance increased by nearly 15 percent and suspensions of ninth-graders dropped by 40 percent.

"I'm so glad I stuck through the hard times," says Oland. "I wasn't happy about the reform. In fact, I was probably the most outspoken critic. I went from teaching upper-classmen to teaching back-to-back 90-minute classes of freshmen. I think the change hit me harder than most."

Oland now says he, along with the students, is thriving: "We are definitely cutting-edge; we're thinking way out of the box and it's having a huge impact on our students," he says. "We're doing real reform here. The energy and excitement is in the air-everybody feels it."