NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — As Hutchinson USD 308 Superintendent Mike Folks watches the last day of school unfold, it's important for him to acknowledge the effort of his staff not only this year, but ever since he came in 2019.
"Probably the biggest accomplishment is this year, we got through the pandemic," Folks said. "I think we were the only school in the county that didn't have to shut down. That's an accomplishment in itself, really. I'm pretty proud of that."
Folks said the change over in accreditation methods is a big highlight of his tenure.
"When I got here three years ago, we established our wildly important academic goals," Folks said. "Then, we made the change from advanced ed to KESA model for accreditation. We adopted rigor and relevance as our two main goals. Encompassed in that change of focus, we've got seven of our buildings that are in the redesign process and we're really excited about the fruits of the labor of our staff and connecting with the community on that redesign process and we believe that's going to pay great dividends."
The hope is that the school district can continue to look at numbers as it decides how best to go forward.
"We've tried to become much more data driven," Folks said. "We've got HUSAC and RSP and we're looking at enrollment and facilities capacity and efficiency and all of those kinds of things. We're really trying to do a deep dive into our data, academic improvement and those things."
Dr. Dawn Johnson will take over as superintendent in USD 308 as of June 1.