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Sunday, November 29, 2015

Petition Email to USD 259

To: John Allison
Superintendent USD 259
Wichita KS
RE: Charter School Petition & Narrative

Dear John,

Please accept the attached Petition & Narrative for a new charter school in USD 259. Parts I & II are in the first file attachment. Part III [Narrative] is in the second file attachment.

In January I am retiring from a career at Love Box Company here in Wichita and, since I have grandchildren and an inherited passion for learning the truth, I want to take a shot at doing my part in promoting meaningful school choice as the only way to bring a measure of much needed competition to a state sponsored educational monopoly that is, in the opinion of many who have participated in it as well as many who have studied it, failing our children, our state and our country.

I recall being told, when we were children, by a former Finance Minister of Hungary [who fled his country with his family and was later killed while teaching at Bradley University] that "your education is one of the few things that nobody can ever take away from you, so be certain it is the best you can make it." Dr. Nyaradi was, of course, correct and knew quite well what he was talking about.

I realize there are powerful special interests which are deeply entrenched in an effort to deny "people" any meaningful opportunity to seek their education outside of the "establishment". These same forces
  • challenged my parents in the 1960's when they joined with a few other families to start Wichita Collegiate School,
  • challenged my wife and I [and others] in the 1980's when we decided to home-school and
  • challenged us again in the 1990's when we started Northfield School of the Liberal Arts.
As such, I know these forces will certainly find many "reasons" [conceived and enforced by that same establishment] to procedurally and summarily deny this petition without any review or consideration of its pedagogical or curricular merits. But my mission is not primarily undertaken to reform the establishment ... it is to do what is well within my power to show you [and anyone else who is interested in meaningful progress] that
  • there are without doubt other ancient and innovative ways to provide families and children with better educational opportunities than they have today
  • if the "establishment" will just get out of the way of those who wish and are reasonably able to pursue them.
I will follow up this email with a call on Monday, November 30, to confirm that it has been received and to be certain it is acceptable in electronic form. If paper is still required, I will drop the executed original by your office immediately.

I realize this is a public matter and am quite comfortable with that. In fact, I have created a blogsite on which the entire application process is being documented as it occurs. In that spirit of complete transparency, I will publish this email as the second posting on the blogsite under the title "Petition Email to USD 259".

I look forward to working with you to show everyone that there are many "people" outside the establishment who can and will improve educational opportunities for the children of Wichita ... if only they are allowed to try.

respectfully,
Bob Love
on behalf of Petitioner
2 Attachments

Friday, October 23, 2015

Community Support

Lynn Rogers, USD 259 BOE
[read this letter on line to enable the links]

responsible  –  from the Latin words
  • res “the thing”
  • pono “put”
  • habilem "easily handled”

Dear Lynn & Cliff,

Being “responsible” most simply means “easily putting a thing in its proper place”. It is something we all face daily when dealing with everything from our thoughts to our socks. And yet it is often hard to see where something might “fit better” when we have become accustomed to seeing it in a certain place for a long period of time. To do this often requires us to step back to find another point of view.

As things change around us, responsibility calls us to adapt … and this is certainly happening today in education … something we all three have a hand in and a heart for. But education does not happen in isolation … it happens in context … in community.

In his recent book “The End of College” [which I recently reviewed], Kevin Carey makes the following bold predictions:
“Imagine a small group of buildings or spaces run by people with a particular educational philosophy and open to anyone who’s interested in learning. The educators there focus on mentoring students and helping them form relationships with one another. There are places for people to work person-to-person or to engage electronically with peers in other cities, states, and countries. … Some of the students live nearby and spend hours there every day, learning fulltime. Others come in from their families and homes.
“Because it doesn’t cost very much money to start such a place, there are dozens of similar organizations nearby. Some may specialize in a particular subject area, offering a few extended educational programs. Other may be organized around different ideas, faiths, occupations, and philosophies of learning.
“The future of higher education is one in which educational organizations shrink back to human scale. They will be big enough to form authentic communities and not so big that interpersonal connections are overwhelmed. Think of the number of churches in a given municipality … that’s how many new “colleges” there can be.”
As we ponder Kevin Carey’s claims, let’s also remember the following facts about ourselves, our local community and others outside Wichita:
  • Northfield School of the Liberal Arts [located across the street from University Friends Church] wants to expand its current secondary school outreach to students who wish to attend but cannot, because their families cannot afford private school education.
  • Friends University [where we all gathered last week for Dr. Amy Carey’s inauguration], which has been a leader and anchor in our local community for a century, is in the process of forming its own vision for education in the future.
  • Public schools are honestly looking for ways to provide children with higher quality, lower cost education … and one path they have taken is local “charter schools”.
  • Friends University Church has the long-standing Quaker commitment to promoting learning and a physical facility in the community well suited to week-day education.
  • Heartland Community Church already houses Classical School of Wichita which is a K-12 classical school.
  • St. George’s Orthodox Cathedral already houses Christ the Savior Academy which is a K-5 classical school.
  • Many downtown churches like First Baptist [just across the River] have excellent physical space for week-day education as well.
  • Hillsdale College is actively promoting classical charter schools nationally.
I could go on … but YOU are individually perceptive. The real question is whether WE are collectively “responsible” enough to reconsider perennially good ideas and reallocate locally available resources to take advantage of the great opportunities that are hidden in plain sight at the precise moment we face great challenges that are obvious to everyone.

Does “responsibility” call us to step into new territory … outside our current boundaries [aka comfort zones] … as Henri Nouwen said “into a new land”? Yes. But if classical charter schools are to become a meaning-full step in the direction of improving educational opportunity in Kansas, somebody must go first and everybody must be willing to change.

Are we up to it?

Northfield will be filing an application in the next few weeks to open a new classical charter school in the Friends University neighborhood in September 2016. Our Charter School Petition Narrative is a work in progress which you can peruse ... but please remember, it must be completed by December 1, 2015. And charter schools must have community support to begin and to prosper according to the KSDE regulations on charter schools.

So I am asking you if the community organization YOU represent is willing to work with Northfield to open a new classical charter school in the Friends University neighborhood of Wichita?

Your thoughts and responses, both personally and/or on behalf of your organizations, [brief is OK] are vital ... and, if you would be willing to make them available for review within our community of interest, could be most helpful to others watching our progress. With this in mind, I have set up a blog titled simply Northfield Charter School Petition. This letter is the first blog posting. Replies from you on behalf of your respective organizations would be vital subsequent postings. My hope is that this blog can become a communications hub
  • for making sure Northfield's petition proceeds smoothly and is successful and
  • for avoiding a proliferation of "cc:" emails conveying comments and keeping other interested parties informed of our progress.
I am quite certain this subject is of interest to others in Wichita anxious for an opportunity to improve educational opportunity by opening new charter schools in their neighborhoods. The floodgates are ready to burst with new energy ... if we can just manage to open them for the people.

So I hope you [personally and on behalf of your respective organizations] will consider my request and then join me [on behalf of Northfield] in supporting this petition with your prayers and your active help. If the three of us can step forward together, others in our community may also want to lend their hands in what could be a ground-breaking opportunity for Wichita to once again lead the state [and the nation] in individual innovation with community participation.

tandem,
Bob Love
on behalf of Northfield School of the Liberal Arts


PS. Our next item of business would be an open community support meeting at Northfield.

cc:
Dr. Amy Carey, President, Friends University
Steve Toews, Pastor, First Baptist Church
Becky Love, Head of School, Northfield School of the Liberal Arts
Fr. Benedict Armitage, St. George’s Cathedral
Erin Doom, Eight Day Institute
Phillip Brownlee, Wichita Eagle