Center Community News
January 2024
The phrase "Unlocking Potential, Igniting Minds" is the Center School District's new tagline to help keep our obligations to our students, families, and community front and center as we work to improve each and every day.
Be Great Together recently awarded our Elementary Gifted Teacher, Mr. Scott Bounds, with a $10,000 check to allow him to expand technology opportunities for his students at all four elementary schools in the Center School District.
Be Great Together is a relatively new non-profit in Kansas City that is focused on improving educational opportunities for KC area youth. Their initial focus has been on the Kansas City Public Schools and the Center School District. This is the second year that Center has been a beneficiary - last year Jarusha Geringer and David Moore at Center Academy for Success received a $10,000 donation to support STEM programs at CAS.
What is unique about the giving approach for Be Great Together is that it's not just about the money. In addition to the funds, they also engage with the recipients to find out what else they need to reach their goals for their students. As an example, this past year at CAS, Be Great Together have used their contacts around Kansas City to bring in mentors for the CAS robotics team, Steve Kraske from KCUR, and David Yi, an Architectural Designer to share their stories with students.
We are grateful for the support provided by Be Great Together and we look forward to many years of helping students reach their highest potential!
Caring for Kids Network (CFKN) starts with a simple question for school Principals - "How can we help you achieve your goals to equip students to reach their highest potential?" That question starts a conversation between community partners and the schools. The conversation leads to service. The service leads to relationships. And relationships lead to mutually beneficial results for both the school and the partners.
Caring for Kids Network, with offices at Colonial Presbyterian Church, works with Center along with six other districts in the Kansas City area. Their role is to find churches, businesses, and community organizations who are interested in supporting schools, and giving them a framework to do that in a way that maximizes benefits for the schools while providing a rewarding experience for the partners. In 2023 over 7,000 CFKN volunteers worked on over 4,000 projects at 96 different schools.
A wonderful example in the Center School District, is a partnership between A.L. Huber, a leading KC-based construction company, and Center Academy for Success.
Click here to learn more about their small acts of kindness.
Justin Reid, star defensive safety for the Kansas City Chiefs, visited Center High School a few weeks ago to share wisdom on the topic of character development. As a dedicated Director of Communications for the District, my job was to take a few pictures to share with our community. The group he visited with are students in the Elevate program. I had heard of the Elevate program and knew that it was very well respected by students and staff, but I didn't know much about how it works.
What I saw was a group of students energetically engaged in learning about themselves and their roles as leaders in the school (not necessarily by position, but by the strength of their character). This is a group that is truly living the motto "Unlocking Potential, Igniting Minds".
I wanted to learn more.
I followed up on that visit by having conversations with site director Tiffany Green, Elevate KC Executive Director Chris Jehle, and a group of students in the program.
Click here to read more about what I learned.