By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — USD 308 has an opportunity this week to show off Hutchinson to school superintendents from around the state at a meeting of the Kansas School Superintendents' Association.
"Any superintendent in the state can come together bimonthly," said USD 308 Superintendent Mike Folks. "We have an agenda and we come together and cover some of the pressing things that we're dealing with, with public schools. Usually, our commissioner of education and other officials from the Kansas State Department of Education come. In the past, most of those meetings occur in Topeka at the Kansas Association of School Boards, but they opened it up to see if anyone wanted to host one of those in their community, so I volunteered."
For those who are coming in from out of town to attend Wednesday, there will be a reception tonight.
"Our high school vocal music group, the Xpressives are going to sing," Folks said. "We're going to take a tour of our career and tech center at Hutchinson High School and kind of showcase that facility. Tomorrow, we're anticipating maybe 100 superintendents from across the state. We'll gather, and we'll have some professional development and we'll go over the agenda and listen to our commissioner."
It's important for school leaders to meet and share ideas on how they can use best practices to make their districts better.
"I think now, more than ever, during this pandemic, there's been a need to connect and first of all, stay abreast of what's going on related to the pandemic and other legislative things," Folks said. "Just the socialization piece, where people can get together and network is important. Sometimes we commiserate and other times we try to talk about the positive things that are going on in our district. It's been essential for leaders across the state to have the opportunity to do this."
September's event was in Wichita and KSSA day is in November in Overland Park, with another board meeting in Colby later that month.