BonnerSprings.com

Schools across the country may have taken a major hit to their budgets over the last year, but one aspect of learning has seen tremendous growth.

The reform program Expeditionary Learning Schools added 19 new schools this year, raising the total number of schools across the country participating in the program to 165.

“It’s a model that believes in students doing meaningful projects, and teachers getting kids to do things that have a real world application,” said Corey Scholes, ELS designer for Clark Middle School and Delaware Ridge Elementary.

Scholes said the ELS program was one of several school reform programs implemented in the mid-90s when the government made a call for programs that would help get schools back on track. ELS was developed by the nonprofit organization Outward Bound USA.

“Schools were failing all over the country and (there was) a whole report (made) about how our schools were not getting our kids where they needed to be,” Scholes said. “Schools were just in a really not good shape, and the federal government was trying to find ways to get things better.”

Out of the 11 reform programs chosen by the government to be utilized in schools, Scholes said, including the Comprehensive School Reform program, ELS is one of the only comprehensive models still in use today. She said the results schools already participating in the program are seeing is why the involvement keeps steadily increasing.

“We’re getting more and more business because what we’re doing is working and there’s evidence (to support that),” Scholes said. “More and more schools are asking for our help and our professional development because we’re producing the results they want.”

In USD 204, all three elementary schools and Clark Middle School became a part of the ELS program in the 2006-2007 school year. Each of the schools received a five-year $150,000 grant from the Kaufman Foundation to do so.

“Just the atmosphere and the culture here is completely different from when I first walked into this school building in 2006-2007,” Scholes said. “There’s just lots of structures in place that were not here three years ago.”

Those structures include student-led conferences, which the students at DRE and Edwardsville Elementary have started doing, and Crew — a daily part of each students’ class regimen that involves team building and focuses on the main principles of the ELS program.

In addition, students take part in what are known as expeditions, which are projects that give them some real-world experience.

Expeditions in which students throughout the schools have worked on include a fossil dig, which sixth-graders at CMS participated in, and implementing recycling receptacles, which was a project of the fourth-graders at Bonner Springs Elementary.

“Children are more active participants in their learning. They have more of a hand in goal setting,” said BSE principal Kim Mitchell of the changes she has seen in her students since BSE became a part of the ELS program. Mitchell has been with BSE since 1996. “They take such an ownership in (their learning) now that I didn’t see in the past.”

The schools often bring in experts in any given field to speak to the students and give them an even greater understanding of what they can expect once they enter the “real world.”

Superintendent Robert Van Maren said the projects students get to work on through the ELS program have gotten them more excited about learning, and this excitement has led to more active participation in the classroom.

“It used to be education was something we did to students,” Van Maren said. “Now it’s something they’re not only actively engaged in, but they also help to direct.”

He said even when the grant from the Kauffman Foundation runs out in two years, the district would continue its participation with ELS.

“We definitely will maintain the core components,” Van Maren said. “We have to involve students in their education to meet 21st century needs.”

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