NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Mark Tallman with the Kansas Association of School Boards is embracing a new role with the agency in 2023.
"This is something I'm pretty excited about, after 40 years of lobbying, having a little bit of a different focus," Tallman said. "It's really to try to look more in depth at, what are the issues around trying to do improvement of our schools, meeting the goals of the Kansans can vision that the state board has set out, trying to do a little more deeper research into, what are our challenges, what things are working?"
Part of that research is already happening with visits to schools, including one here in central Kansas.
"One of the things that I did over the last month or so was visit our three Kansas Blue Ribbon schools," Tallman said. "That's a national designation of being a Blue Ribbon School in Kansas. I visited Cottonwood Elementary in Andover, R.L. Wright in Sedgwick, which is in southern Harvey County and then Morris Hill school, which is actually on the base at Fort Riley. I talked to school leaders there about what they think drove the fact that they were recognized for high achievement."
One emphasis for Tallman in his new role will be learning more about the needs of Kansas schools before kids enter kindergarten.
"One of the most important things that we can do to help kids succeed, particularly if they come from kind of disadvantaged backgrounds is stronger early childhood education programs," Tallman said. "Before the holiday break, the SPARK committee in state government, with some of the federal COVID dollars that they have to spend, has recommended millions of dollars to go into some efforts around early childhood education. I want to do a little more exploring about what that's going to mean, some of the work our state has done. We've had a federal grant to try to develop and expand early childhood programs. I want to look at some of the things that districts are doing in that area."
The main statehouse lobbying efforts for KASB will be led by Leah Fliter, a long-time lobbyist and former school board member.