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What I believe is common sense, I'm learning is not that common. The public has been left out of so many conversations on community issues, and as a publicly elected official, I want to change this. I want to invite my community in a new space, where you can listen in behind the scenes to the discussions that lead to the decisions that are impacting our lives. In a podcast I named Common Sense, I'm inviting the whole world to see these conversations happening in real time! Subscribe to listen in on these conversations!
What I believe is common sense. I'm learning it's not that common.
Education is often said to be the great equalizer in society,
meaning that the greatest catalyst for social and economic mobility is
a good education. In many ways, I believe that to be true and I'm a
strong advocate for education. But I also see the
challenges in today's environment and the need for these systems
to be more adaptive in meeting modern needs. So
I brought in the two individuals in our community that can help shed some
light on these questions and so much more. Sheree Utash from
WSU Tech Kelly Bielefeld from Wichita Public Schools and
we covered a lot of topics and including state of public education,
workforce needs and the role that their two organizations play in the
economy. What opportunities are out there. What's on
the horizon. It was a fascinating discussion that left me eager and
optimistic. I hope you enjoy my conversation.
Sheree Utash Kelly Bielefeld, Dr.
Utash Kelly Bielefeld, thank you. I'm so grateful that you're here
in this conversation because I know that I'm asking two of the busiest people in
our entire community to carve out some time and have conversations
about some things around education and education in 2025 and what
that looks like and workforce and these pipelines. So I'm,
I know that I'm asking you to give up time and you're here graciously
because you're busy. So I just want to thank you for coming in. This means
a lot to me and I think we're going to have a good conversation. I
want to tell you a story. When I first got into office, this is
2023, I think I've been there a month. I'm sitting in
a meeting at Greater Wichita Partnership and, and, and they have
their list of speakers that are coming in the itinerary. And
I'm not dilly-dallying trying to study and learn. And you two gave a
presentation that literally I have not stopped thinking about in
over three years, roughly three years. And you gave a
presentation on things called Future Ready Schools. And to be honest, I had never
heard of the concept. I had known there was something going
on in front of North High, but I didn't know what this was. And you
two gave a presentation jointly on Future Ready Schools that
literally it's like a light bulb went off in my mind. And I bet
I have text each of you independently a hundred times
since then wanting you to know more. How can I help? What do we need
to do? So we're going to talk about some of those things but before we
get to that, I really want to know this trajectory, like, how did you get
superintendent, Wichita Public Schools, CEO or president
of WSU Tech? Like, how did you get here? What was this
trajectory to get you here to where you're at today?
Kelly? Oh, you want me to go first? I think so.
So thank you for being, inviting us. This, I love this conversation.
This is fantastic. So I've been superintendent three years now.
Began in 2023, but prior to that I started with the
Wichita public schools in 2020 and I was in charge of CTE,
which is career and technical education. So I worked with Dr. Utash and her
team for, from day one in the district. And I
was part along with Dr. Lucas, Dr. Scott Lucas at WSU Tech.
It was the two of us that really got together to create this model of
the Future Ready Centers that we've. That we know today. And
so that's a bit of how I ended up
in the right spot, in the right position to apply for the superintendent job.
Because I was, you know, I've been on the partnerships strategic
advisory team, part of the chamber, part of, you know, city to city trips. I,
I developed a lot of community connections because the whole, the whole
premise of the Future Ready center is that we create entry level
a path for entry level jobs for kids, for jobs that are in our community.
That's it. So to know the people in our community that are hiring our kids,
that was a pivotal part of what we were trying to do. So began my
career as a teacher out in Goddard. I've been in Sedgwick County pretty much my
whole life. School administrator for 21 years now. Mostly a principal.
But yeah, that's kind of how I ended up here. There's days I still
ask myself how I ended up here. I mean, it's, it's such a big district,
such a big undertaking to care and to
be responsible for so many kids and their futures. 46,000 kids. Yeah,
46,000 kids. It's humbling, it's meaningful
and there's a lot of responsibility to it. So. Yeah. Bless you, man.
Appreciate the service that you give to this community. Dr. Utash, like,
yes, sir. I tell people we're gonna build a statue of you one day
around here. This is. You've been
in this rodeo for a bit and you've shaped a lot of different things. Like
help me understand this trajectory. How did you get to this role at WSU Tech?
And there are big things happening out there right now. Big
things happening. Tell me about it. So I came to education
very non-traditionally, I came from business and
a corporate business and private business. So entrepreneurship,
those are probably two of my real strong suits. And I came
into education so non traditionally. My first job
was at Wichita State University and I was an assistant
director for marketing at the west side Center. When it was next to Biggs Bar.
Yes. Okay, I took the job. I'd been in the job just a couple
of days and the director came to me and said, I really don't need an
assistant director of marketing, I need an assistant director of this center. And I go,
what does that mean? And she said, well, you know, I
need you to kind of help me run this place. I said, I don't know
what that is, but I'll be really good at it. And that started my career
in higher ed. And I'm 31 years
in now. So I've been at what was WATC now
WSU Tech for 17 years. 11 years as
president. Never thought I would be doing what I'm doing. That was
this. I'm kind of the same way and I've been doing this for a long
time. And I kind of think how did I get here? But I've
had, I mean I love the intrinsic value that you
get in changing people's lives. And I
think, you know, my, my love for business and
entrepreneurship and education kind of landed in the
perfect place to be able to take those three passions and be able to blend
them together at WSU Tech. And it's just, it's been a
huge blessing. It's been fun to
grow. When I got there 17 years ago, we
had 700 students. We'll
touch over almost 11,000 this year. That's wild. So it's
huge growth, economic growth as far as for this
city and county. We had about 100
employees. We have 400 full time, 800.
What all happens at WSU Tech? I think that's the question a lot of people
have is you have the mothership State University. What's the
relationship to WSU Tech and what all do you guys do there? So we
affiliated with WSU eight years ago. We're in our eighth year
of the affiliation and what the best way to say that is. We're a
two year technical community college under the umbrella of the university.
But we structured it as an affiliation. So you know, we have our own
budgets, we have our own grants, we have our own Title nine, you know, and
we have our, we have an advisory board that moved from a governing board to
an advisory board. And the,
you know, we have four campuses in the city of Wichita
17 years ago. It's hard to believe we had 12 campuses in
Wichita. Way too many. We have four today.
So you know, we focus, our focus is all on building a
talent pipeline for every industry in this
community. Right. So aviation, manufacturing, IT,
cyber, healthcare, hospitality,
culinary, what I call
applied technologies, which is construction and automotive
and HVAC. And so you, you know, that's, that's the
drive. But we really had to take the college
and, and completely take it
down to, I mean it was pretty down to nothing and, and
finish that job and then just recreate the whole thing. Incredible. And
so that's been the process that we've been working on. And it's,
you know, it's the power of a team, it's the power of the people.
You both have great teams, we have great teams. And it's the power of those
people that are just innovative and they're just purpose driven
to the mission of what both of us do. There is such a connect
between Wichita public schools and all of our public schools. Not just in
Wichita, but all public schools and WSU Tech and then the,
the mothership, Wichita State University. The connect though on the
technical side is so interesting and unique to me. It's fascinating to me.
But what I want people to understand is help me understand, help the
public understand. Like what is the state of the union for education in
2025? How has it changed? What are the
challenges? What are the opportunities? But what's the state of the union
for like general education and educating our young people in, in
2025? Yeah, that's a big broad question.
I would say a couple things. I do think, especially in the
secondary and post secondary world, a few things. I
think there's more openness to other
alternatives other than just four year degree more than ever before.
There's more of a spectrum from 14 years old to 24 years
old than there ever was. It used to be you graduate from high school, there's
kind of a finite end and then there's a finite start to college and then
there's finite end. There's a finite start to a job. It's much more of a
blurred pathway where you, you start some college in high
school and then you know you have some of that you take with you after
graduation or maybe even a full associate's degree when you
graduate high school. We do a lot of that along with. You don't
wait to get the degree before you start the job. You probably start a job
whether it's applied learning or internship or whatever before you. So
instead of these kind of stops and starts that were pretty straightforward,
it's much more of a blended model which I think allows us to engage
with industry in a different way than we've ever have before.
Where employers have multiple insertion points along the way of a kid's
journey, a student's journey. Kelly, do you think is that new in education to where
during public education when you're thinking about elementary school kids,
middle school kids, high school kids, has that always been a
thing in public education where you're thinking about workforce and you're actually trying to connect
with it, or is this a recent innovation, a recent trajectory? We're like, no,
this has got to be intentional. Has this always been the case in education?
No, I would say it's more recent. In the last 20 years of
the traditional liberal arts education, the college for all. That's
what most the ACT test that we give is really all
about college readiness and being able to do things in college as
opposed to. And then there was some vocational VO tech classes we used to call
them back in the day. There were applied skills for life. They
weren't applied skills for jobs. And that's what like our culinary
programs in both of our facilities. Our culinary programs aren't home
ec. It's not cooking macaroni, it's culinary
skills for a career in an industry. And we do some of that
on a smaller scale to high schools and then at Niche, they do the similar
thing there. So there is a lot more of an alignment
with industry that we have our kids thinking more about the job
and the career field as opposed to just get a
liberal arts wide spanning education. And there's something
to be said for liberal arts education not dismissing it. We need
kids who can think critically even if they're welders or
automotive technicians. We need some of those skills too.
But to align with industry ideas and jobs that are especially
jobs that are here in our community that we need, I do feel
like that's relatively new. Well, I'm a Wichita public school product, class
of 1999, went to North High for two years, graduated from
Northwest and I don't remember this conversation in high school. Now I
was thinking about a lot of other things in high school. I was thinking about
hitting baseballs and so it wasn't. But I don't remember
this connect in the way where we're talking about workforce development and what it looks
like to enter the market and preparing you to enter. And I think
that's a unique role that we see today. And the unique thing that's happening is
these discussions are fluid. These discussions are very public
to where we're actually talking about how do we prepare you to enter the workforce.
Not only do we prepare you to just be a better thinker and to perform
well in your act and. But that's the role, the role of the,
the technical school, though, has changed dramatically. It has. And I think
the importance of the technical school help me understand the importance of the
technical school and the need and the problem that it's solving in community.
So it has changed a lot. And it's not linear. It used to be very
linear. It's not today. And the value of,
the value of credentialing or
currency, academic currency, has changed a lot. Degrees are
still super important, but there's a huge emphasis on industry
credentials and tech certificates and two year applied studies
degrees, applied science degrees. I mean, those are, those are things that we
didn't have. I'm a product of Wichita public schools. I'm a Southeast
Buffalo graduate. And
that, that has changed a lot just in the last 10 years.
Yeah. Now there's a lot of reasons for that. I think
there is, there's, you know, Covid, I think exacerbated
some of this in. You agree, Kelly? Yeah, I do agree. Who had to go
to work? Everybody. That, that, that, that we teach in a
technical college. They were working. They weren't at home.
They were, they were at work because you can't build airplanes from
home and you can't take care of patients from home and you can't
run, you know, I mean, just all the different things. So I think it's super,
I think it's change and I think industry has
helped drive that. But I mean, when we, you
know, when, when, when Dr. Lucas and Kelly started thinking about
what is this Future Ready Center? I mean, they came, we had, we had
conversations about this. The big dream became what if?
And this was such a, what, what they call it a BHAG. It
was such a big, hairy, audacious goal. We were like,
okay, what if we could have high school students
walk across the stage and get their high school diploma on one
night and the next night they walk across the stage and get their
two year degree and their job ready
because they have knowledge, they have skills and they have work ethic.
Now, that does not mean that they won't continue their education.
Absolutely. Because here's what happens. And we're realizing
that dream today. We're seeing it in spades all
over this city. We're seeing High school graduates that are
also graduating because of the career technical
education pathways that we've created with high schools, we're seeing high school
graduation rates go up. In some cases, it's just because
kids are getting to do what they really want to do and they're getting to,
they're, they're finding a purpose and a passion in what they want to do. So
when you think about that, then industry looks at this and they're
like, I want them, I want them, I want them, I want them, I want
them, I want them. And then they get into those jobs where they're,
no matter what the industry is and they get that opportunity to
look and see what, what they want to do. Maybe they want to do this
forever, but maybe they don't. I want to do this job. Okay, then
we take you from here to here. I want to do this job. Well, that's
going to require more education. And so it's not linear. It's
kind of building almost a,
it's like a ladder to me, on ramps, off ramps. And I say all the
time, education is a superhighway. You get on, you get off, you get
what you need, you go to work and then you say, hey, I want to
do that. All right, I'm going to jump back on that highway and then I'm
going to get off again and I'm going to get back on. That's lifelong learning.
That's the, I mean, that's the essence of what you want in a city
and in a, in a vibrant community. But is this a paradigm shift in the
way we're thinking? Let me ask a couple. I got a lot of questions. Questions,
but let me ask a couple. Is this a paradigm shift in the way
that we think about education today? That's a modern paradigm shift.
That's the first question. The second question is, is this just unique to our community
or are there other communities across the country that are talking the way we're talking
here? Yeah, I do think it's a paradigm shift. I do, I do.
Because I think, you know, you think of the, the
acceleration of learning in just our world or the technology,
the technology we have that the jobs of today, 50% of the jobs of 20
years from now don't exist today. And that is iterative and that
becomes faster and faster and faster. So 50 years ago
you could get a four year degree and you would have all the knowledge you
needed to do that job for 20 years. That is part of why the
micro credentials, the credentials, those things are so much more
important because the technology changes so quickly that
we have to have ways to, to meet that need. Because
that's why we call them future ready. That's literally why we call them that. And
if you ever go into one, we don't bolt this things to the
floor. It's everything's on wheels. Because in the future we're going to need
to wheel this machine out. We're going to put it, put a new one in
because we're going to teach something different. And that is a different paradigm. I
don't think we're used to. We, you know, older folks,
you know, different generations are used to seeing learning in that
way. We can't. You have to be a lifelong learner if you're going to be
successful. Okay, paint the case. We're starting to draw and paint this
picture as to what these things are and why they're needed. I want to go
one layer deeper because one of the facts that you have shared about
Wichita public schools and your students and your families that literally has
kind of embedded into my soul and I can't stop thinking about it and why
I'm such an advocate for these future ready schools. At
82% of the kids that live in the Wichita public school district come from families
that live under the poverty level. And I'll remember and I even rose my
hand on that day and I said I think that this is one of the
greatest tickets I've ever seen to reversing generational poverty
in our community, to getting upstream. Because
education is the great equalizer. And if we can get people into paths where
they can apply their education and turn them into good paying
jobs with benefits, this is how poverty gets reversed
in generations. This is a big deal. And I
hear you and I'm so. Thank you for talking about this so much about the
impacts of families in your, in your school district in
poverty and the impact of that. Am I wrong to think that generational poverty,
that this is one of the many things, one of the most important things we
can be doing here is to get these kids future ready and to workforce for
generational poverty. Am I connecting the dots or am I off base? Oh, a hundred,
a hundred percent. I 100% believe that. And, and one of the ones, one of
the. In the secret sauce of the future ready centers, one of the
reasons it works is because a lot of our kids that are growing up
in poverty, they have the intelligence, they have the drive, they
have. Thank you. They want to, they don't have the map. I want to
get over to that mountain. But if I don't have a map, I don't know
how to get there. The Future Ready center provides a map. So in the
first semester you're going to do these things and we're going to help you with
those things. We're going to look at your resume, we're going to help you apply,
we're going to talk to you after you get the job interview. We're going to
coach you on that. We're going to, we're going to give you the map to
get the job. We put applied learning, work based learning at the end of every,
every semester, your senior year, every kid gets work based learning if they
want it. This is the map to get the job. Some kids don't want the
job, but you know, we have a kid named Martin that is one of our
success stories. Started at Textron. $26 an hour,
18 years old. And, and you left out the best part when you were sharing
yours. How much does this cost, Dr. Utash, for a high school kid? Come on.
Dr. Well, that's the, we have a lot to be thankful
for because the state foots the bill
and in Excel and CTE. And here's, here's the thing.
This could have never happened without the state,
the governor and the legislators support of Excel and
CTE. We couldn't be doing this, wouldn't be here.
We would not be building a talent pipeline of over 3,000
high school students in the city of Wichita together. Timeout. Because I
want to get on the state's role here because this is important. But what
3,000 students in this pipeline.
Like this is we have over 3,500 high school students this
fall and they're. Doing programming and future ready schools that covers what give
us the array of the things that they're doing. Healthcare, IT, cyber
manufacturing, aviation. Yeah. Welding, automotive
welding, machining,
you know, I mean the whole plethora. Yeah.
They're getting these credentials two years debt free. So they get to go to the,
they get to go into the economy with a paycheck.
And many times these kids graduate and they get the degree, they get the job.
And we know, we all know employers here that are saying we'll take all of
them. Yes, we'll take, we'll take them all. And they become, the day they graduate
and get that job, they become the highest wage earners in their family. Yeah. And
you know, go back to the generational poverty, you know, over,
over, over 60% of them are first generation college students.
Wow. Over 60%.
They couldn't you know, they, they wouldn't have this roadmap.
We, we really don't, I think, appreciate and
really understand the incredible life
changing work that's happening for these, for these young people and
their families and the families that are going to be forthcoming.
Yeah, I mean, think about, think about the, just the
generational change in this that's so powerful.
But it, you know, we, we have, we have to, you know,
we've, I've got to give credit where credit is due. The, the state
has provided that. But I also think you, you mentioned something.
Is it unique the way we have set ours up here in
Wichita between 259 and us
unique? Well, it's the relationship and it's the way it's put together. Help me understand
the relationship and why that's. Well, here's what I think is
unique. It's that it's not territorial. Is that when, when we,
when we created the logo for the Future Ready Centers, at the beginning we
worked with Gardner Design and as you know, we're sitting around the table brainstorming all
that. And he said, well, you know, tell me, what is the partnership? Is it
50? 50? Is it 60? 40? And we said it's 100. It's
100. 100, right? It's 100. 100. And all of those 3500 kids are
not Wichita public schools kids. WSU Tech does a great job with all the high
schools. But I think our partnership is unique because we
have both committed to no barrier/
low barrier. So whether it's the uniforms, the
textbooks, the tools we provide, the transportation
they provide textbooks and instructors, technology.
It's our teachers and WSU Tech teachers. That model is
not normal, that kind of
synergistic, we're going to essentially just work together to solve
problems and put our resources together and put our heads together and we're just going
to make it happen. We own one of the facilities. WSU Tech owns one of
the facilities. Right. So it's, it isn't as though there's egos at
stake. I mean, I truly think that both organizations are.
If this is good for kids and we're helping kids to achieve, to make
our community better, we're in. I really feel that.
I mean, and we never talk about that. We don't, we don't have those
conversations. We're just like, what can we do next and what problem do
we solve next? And how can we get more kids in, in, you
know, in these pipelines that are so badly needed? Sheree, what. Explain the
importance of this concept and where we're going. And we're a few years in
now. I mean, how many years total? Four years. Four years in. So we're just
starting to ramp, right? The trajectory's just started. The momentum is building.
Help make the case. Why is this important for this community? Why does
this community need this model, this programming? What's at stake? What,
what's at stake here? I think it's really important to think
when we think about if we didn't have this program, if we did not have
the Future Ready Centers, which I contend is a
model that could be replicated all across the state. I agree.
But if we did not have them, we would not
be building. We would be building probably half of the talent
pipeline that we're building. Think about,
I'll just call out Textron. They'll hire every single person out at North
High School and said as much. They will hire every single one of them that
finish. From the healthcare,
think about a lot of them go straight into the world of work.
But also there's gateway courses that they're getting to prepare
them to go on. I was with a group of high school students yesterday in
the Future Ready Center. I'm going to be a pa. I'm going to be a
paramedic, I'm going to be a nurse. You know, these are gateway courses
for them to begin to know that that is the pathway that they
want. What happens if we don't give them that opportunity?
What happens if they don't get to go have clinicals and they don't get to,
you know, see what that really means? What happens if we're
not building IT and cybersecurity people for
our community, it's the. It's the things that, you know,
once you get a cadence in place like what we have done and we've really
built this and you're right there. There is a.
There is a lot of sky ahead of us that we can continue to
build these. But I think I
don't want anybody to ever take for granted that this is
just a given and it's always going to be there because
if we don't have it, we suffer as a community.
Our business and industries suffer because what do they
do? Any business that's here in Wichita or any
businesses thinking about coming to Wichita, what do they say? What do they ask? They
the same question they asked me. They ask you, they ask, can you build
me a workforce? Where's my workforce? It's the first thing they ask, whether
it's Kelly, whether it's me, they always ask, can you build me a workforce?
We always say, yes, we can build you a workforce. And then we go, whoa,
what does that mean? And how are we going to do that? And I think
that, I think the other thing that's unique about this is it is
a power of a partnership. It is the powerful
partnership that happens. And I always go back to this. You put education,
industry and government together and you can do great
things. And this is a prime example of great things that have
happened. It was good. Where are we going? What's next with this thing? I mean,
we have healthcare, we have advanced manufacturing, we have cyber
IT, we have IT. And if you think about the industries that we collectively talk
about building here and maintaining and supporting here,
it's, it's, it's the things that we just mentioned. AG
is something we talk about frequently here. But what is
next in this industry workforce, Future Ready Center,
pipeline? Like, where can this thing go? Well,
the quick first answer is trades. That's the next one.
We've, we have actual work that we're. Putting towards HVAC,
plumbing, things like that. Electric and then energy. Electrical energy.
And so, and what we've. What the story I try to tell
with us because part of what we're trying to make sure the general public
in Wichita knows is that we provide value to the community.
If you have kids in the system, you maybe don't know us well, but again,
without us, think of what might be happening. We provide value
to the community. So what we've tried to do is look at the Greater Wichita
Partnerships. Seven economic sectors that they're investing in and
trying to align with those, which is aerospace and materials. You
mentioned AG. That's one that we don't have. But energy is one that
I think we, you know, we have industry partners we have a plan for
so that that one is next. Whether that launches next year was part
of our bond issue that we'll probably go back out for again.
So there's not a, there's not a location, there's not a plan, there's not a,
you know, a blueprint, but there is a model now of.
And it's starting to catch on with kids and families that they know.
And you hear about it. There's pride to my kids at the Future
Ready Center. You start hearing that. I mean, it's still relatively new, but you start
hearing that. So that's all I'll speak to as far
as next plans. I don't know if you want to share anything else. Well, I
asked what else on your mind? Well, I always say, you know, building trades is
the next one and that's the last one. But everybody always says that's not really
true. And you know that. And so we do have a couple of others
that I think could mature over time.
The, the thing I think is interesting is these first ones have,
I think, come together pretty easily. Yeah.
Yes. Now we're at a place where neither of one of us have any space.
Yep. We are kind of strapped for funding
and how do we continue to build these out? And so I think that's where
we find ourselves. The first, the first three
just kind of came together in a really easy way, that the next ones are
going to be a little harder. Well, help me understand the barriers. What are these
barriers? I think the community needs to know. Listen, I'm sold.
You know that from your text messages over the last two years. I'm sold.
We have tri-government meetings to where the city of Wichita, Sedgwick County government
elected and Wichita public school elected are in one room
talking about community conversations. And these come up frequently
about, hey, how do we best leverage what we have now with resources to support
some of the things that we can do jointly together. And this checks all the
boxes in many ways. But I think the community also needs
to say, okay, if this is important, help us understand the barriers. Like
what are the, what are the threats that could cost us programs like this
or, or cost us not growing these types of programming? Like what are those?
Funding's always an issue. The state's been a great partner. A great partner.
What else is out there that would be barriers to something like this?
Well, we've kind of utilized or exhausted the
buildings that we have and the, and the land that we have, frankly.
So the space is an, is an issue a little bit.
As we have grown our Future
Ready Centers, others in the state have grown
as well. And there is a finite pot of money. Yeah.
And so then that, that, that, that becomes
a little bit less than you have expended each year
in return. That is, that, that is a real issue.
And especially in my world, it's a real issue because you budget for
one thing and we get paid a year in arrears, so
the next year you might get whatever you
get. I mean, it's, you know, and it could be 100%, but it could be
90 or it could be 80. So you budget the resources.
You've already deployed all the resources. So you, you know, we've budgeted with
a bit of a haircut, but it's kind of becoming more, more
than just a haircut. So those are. Because we could continue to
grow this. I feel very confident that we could double what we're doing.
Wow. In the next five years. You agree? I
do agree. And the other. So funding to pay the teachers. But the
other barrier can be finding qualified staff. Yes. You know, these
are high level, highly trained people from industry.
So you can go to Spirit or Textron and have a good job
doing running these same machines you're trying to teach kids about. So
it's a matter of resources, but it's also having great
staff. If we had more teachers, which would take more dollars, but if we
had more teachers, we could absolutely increase capacity. The other
somewhat of a barrier too is just the awareness. So I
appreciate this conversation. The more that community and parents know
about these opportunities, you know, if you're, if
you're a parent and you have a junior and they're not sure what they want
to do with their future and they have a road, a free road
to go get a good job after high school.
They need to, they need to know. About, they need to know about it. They
need to be in the future ready centers. Yes. Because that's, that's the
road for them, as you said. So I think there, I mean
there's all kinds of potential. The potential is
unlimited in my mind. And we're
barnstorming this thing. Right. I mean are trailblazing this thing. This isn't something that
you're finding a lot of. That's what is. I always tell, and I
told both of you, I was like, hey, give me a model we can glean
from that's happening across the country and we can make it unique for us. You're
trailblazing these ideas. This is something that's really unique for our community.
It is. I was in D.C. last week and on a national board
meeting and there's about 25 president,
two year presidents from across the nation at this meeting.
This is unique. I mean there was no, there's
no model like what's been built here and it is
replicable and it is scalable
and, and it could look different in, in, in rural areas or
in other urban areas. It could look different. But it is a, it is
a, it is a working model that, that is scalable.
This is not a threat to the traditional four year education.
My friends, I'm a Jayhawk and my friends at KU should not be threatened by
this model. Our friends, Dr. Muma and I talk frequently about Wichita State
and, and how to build, to build wealth in the community,
you need advanced graduate degrees. You need higher education.
It really is. Education is a great equalizer. But my friends at
KU, K State, Washburn, Wichita State, should they be threatened by this model that
we're now taking high school kids and saying, hey here's the path to tech,
then go right into the workforce that we're not going to have these undergraduate
bachelor degrees and graduate degrees. Is there a threat there for these?
Well, in my opinion, no. And it's really because it's not
as linear. That isn't how it works anymore.
Necessarily. So and the other thing is that compared to,
you know, we're close to the same age. I remember enrolled in K State.
We got the loan check, we put it in the bank. I never thought a
thing about it. We just got. You just got a loan check. Kids today are
not like that. They are so dead adverse that they are
much more worried about incurring these high
amounts of student loan debt than we were back in the day.
They've heard the horror stories. They have. And so now you have a way
to. I can knock out two years for free and then
go to college. So it isn't a threat. We use this
line. Future Ready Center students are WSU students.
They are. And we have kids, especially in healthcare, go straight into WSU
and I believe they will be better PAs and doctors, et cetera because
they got a CNA. We will have better engineers coming out of
the manufacturing world because they learned
how to rivet. Right. And how to put the composites together. How to do
catia. They learned the things that make things work between
engineering and production. It's not all theoretical, it's hands on and it's real.
I had a kid whose parents are in my district and
their constituents and a young boy went through the Future Ready School, got on
at Textron and he went through the training at Textron and his parents were saying
he's kind of frustrated because he already knows all these things. Yeah. And he did
them through the future ready advanced manufacturing skills. So he's being patient
because he's being trained on things that he already knows and understands.
Kids have a head start. They do. And I would contend that we're, we're
helping build that pipeline to the university. That we're
helping build that pipeline. These are students that maybe
very possibly would have never even given
higher education a thought. So what, what's happening is we're
creating confidence, self efficacy in them at
a young age. They're going to go to the workforce, they're going to see things
so much early, earlier in their careers and they're going to
say, okay, if I want to do this, then I got to go do this.
My. I contend that the more that we can get
involved in the Future Ready Centers,
the more pipeline that we're building not only for industry but,
but for WSU. Yeah, there's a. There is something to, especially for kids in
poverty, academic identity. There's a lot of research about
how I see myself as a, as an academic, as a student
and if you can, if a student, because we aren't just giving
them a credential, they're a WSU tech student, we're giving them a
transcript. And so to create that academic identity of
I am a college student for a lot of our first generation kids
that, that there's something that's not nothing. There is something to that
that this isn't. Because we could give tests, we could give tests and sign off
on them or whatever, but to give actual college credit, which
is, you know, certified them. Say that they're like, I never thought I
would be a college student. It's not just college credit you're giving. You're giving them
confidence. That's right. You're building confidence, self efficacy. And the other thing
too is now we've been able to build so many great
educational pathways to Wichita State University
that every single one of these students that are coming out of the
Future Ready Centers with their technical certificates or degrees and go
to work, all of that transfers to certain degree pathways at
the university that we didn't have eight years ago, but we do today. It's
incredible. I. How do
we. Obviously the state's been a great partner and I talked to several state legislators
and they understand this program and are hungry to learn more.
I've talked to industry leaders. I was in with our
Lieutenant Governor Toland in Topeka just a few weeks ago with a prospective
company looking to come to Wichita. They were talking about
workforce. Do we have assurance of workforce pipelines and do we have enough employees? Are
they trained employees? And guess what came up? The Future Ready School. And then we're
hand. We're not just handling that with adults. We're
preparing the future workforce for what we do. So you have
the state that understands value here. You have industry
that understands value here. Help the city of Wichita and Sedgwick County government. What
can we do? Because we desperately care about
the health of our economy and the health of our families. And I contend that
every policy decision we make should Find its
connecting link somehow, some way to healthy family. What is it
that we can do from the county level, from the city level, who isn't tied
into education funding or education? What is it that we can do
to help advocate loudly that this is a model
that means a lot to this community and that we should be investing in this
model? Yeah, I mean I. A couple things come to mind. I do think
there is something to. What we're trying to do is
connect with careers and industries here in
Wichita. Right. I joke about their marine biology degree. We could have
a future ready center for marine biology. But doggone it, there's not many of those
jobs here in Sedgwick County. So we're not going to do that. We're going to
do the jobs that are here. But there is a quality of place component.
Absolutely right. If we want to retain talent here, and I'm 18, 19,
20 years old and I could go to Denver, Austin or Kansas City,
there needs to be some sort of entertainment, arts
culture, festivals, that sort of thing. Because the
job won't be enough. I mean the family ties and the job and all of
that will be good. But I do think there's a role in the ecosystem
of Wichita for supporting young people, people
my age, older people, everybody. Yeah. So that we have a
quality of life where we were not only proud to be Wichitans, but we want
to stay here, we want to grow up here. So I think that's a piece
of it. I totally agree with that because I think it's a.
It’s figuring out what young people, what, what, you
know, what gets them to be sticky in Wichita
and then what do we not have that we need to have. And
sometimes I think, you know, we're not asking the right people the right question.
What do they need? What do they want? I think that's part
of it. I think your advocacy of what we're doing and
helping communicate the message is so important. It's
super important. You know, the city has been incredibly
gracious through some ARPA dollars that they funded part of
it. That's how we accelerated the completion of the
aviation manufacturing. And then we had
some funding for our healthcare and then some private business funding.
That was. That's how we were able to do that. That's how we were able
to accelerate those and get them done so quickly and
get them up and running very, very quickly actually.
So we need, you know, we
champion this message all the time. We need everybody to champion the
message. And it takes all of us doing that to move the Needle and
make sure that people really understand these are great
opportunities for their young kids,
for their children, for their young adults. That will be
life changing for them. And, you know, they need the encouragement,
whether it's from schools or teachers or counselors,
principals, city, county
leaders, in the leaders across the city. That's,
that's the message, I think. And then we just continue to figure
out how we build and where the gaps are and, you know, how do we
fill those gaps with different individuals coming together in order
to create the vision and the common good of
what this really does. I would throw one more thing out. I do think, you
know, the largest employers, some of the names we've dropped today are not
within city limits. And so transportation can be a
barrier for our kids, whether that's an internship or a job. So
regional, looking at regional transit. Would that, that could be helpful.
When you think of Spirit and Textron or Boeing, outside city limits,
we have, we have a high school that's outside city, it's in Bel Air. So
I think that, I think that is a conversation that I think is relevant
to the company. It is relevant. And again, we have to tie all decisions back
to healthy family, healthy economy, healthy place. And one of
the things that I'm really proud of, I'm proud of a lot of things right
now. I'm proud that this model is uniquely us, like it's uniquely this
community. I'm really proud of that. I'm proud that we are living
in a time in this season in local government where there really is a lot
of collaboration. We see it between Wichita Public Schools and
WSU Tech. We see it this model and Wichita State University,
the big university there. Dr. Mumma is squarely in these
conversations and he is terrific at what he does. I'm grateful that
it's not just Wichita Public Schools. As someone who's my kids are in the Maize
school district, that these conversations extend there. I'm grateful that you
reach out and collaborate with these other school districts. That is a big deal
to me. I'm also grateful that we have from the city and the county, all
20 cities in Sedgwick county, but primarily with Wichita, that we are
having conversations collectively as how do we share more services?
How do we build resources and leverage the resources we have for the county, for
our cities? So I say all of that to say that the time
is now. It is like we have the people in place, we have the
ideas in place. We have a community that's desperately hungry for
reform and pivots that we have said Listen, the old
model's fine, but we can do better. Like we can
be better. And what in business, if we don't reform, if we don't pivot, the
market does not reward us. Government typically doesn't work at the same pace.
Have this urgency to reform and pivot. But what
this is are reforms and their pivots. They're saying there is a
way to modernize the model to better impact a community.
And I just think that all the right players are in place and I,
I want to put my foot on the gas like I want to go.
And when I identify the barriers, eliminate these barriers and scream from the
rooftops that this is uniquely us and the world can watch
what we do here. So I just want, I'm grateful. But
this pivot and these reforms, you're not just stopping there.
So I want to tell another story. I, like my kids say I tell a
lot of stories. I did 12 years of pastoral ministry. This is what we do.
We're a great plagiarist. I had
breakfast a couple weeks ago with one of your employees.
Works at Stanley. Works at Stanley. And there's a pilot program
over there. And just like this future ready school conversation, he
gets to talking and the hair in my arm starts standing up
and he starts telling me about this concept of community schools.
Not a foreign concept, not. In fact, the first time I heard of this
was from Dr. Greer, the superintendent in Maize, who.
And I'm going to butcher it, sorry, Dr. Greer, but she did her, her
Ph.D. dissertation and her work and her area of focus
on how do you make the school the hub of a community. So
she's all in on these conversations and kind of shared with me some of that
information. He was sharing this concept of community schools and how do you
make the school the hub of the, of the neighborhood to
where you have nonprofits in there, you have other industry
inside the schools, dental, optometrists. I mean,
all kinds of things. Comcare in the school. Help me understand
community schools and how this fits into the greater
ecosystem of how we're modernizing education in our area.
Yeah, I think it's as simple as you said.
Honestly, it really isn't super complex. It's
more of a mindset or a disposition that we are going to
be willing to open doors and work together. Right.
Essentially. And it's, there's details and
MOUs and all sorts of things we have to figure out with all of that.
But at its core, you. It's a needs assessment with the
parents and families in the neighborhood. What, what is it? That is the need in
the unique. Neighborhood surrounding the school. Right, Exactly. So it could be adult
literacy, it could be, it could be workforce, it could be,
you know, access to clean, healthy food. It could be all
sorts of different things. But there's. There, there's people that
help to coordinate that at the school level with the people
that live in the neighborhood. And
it creates all sorts of things, but it creates value for what we're trying to
do. But it also creates. We have so many people in
town that want to help. They want to help, they want to serve.
And so just like the Future Ready Center, it's this shining
spotlight for industry. If, if I'm an aviation industry
or manufacturing industry, I know right where to go. I go to the future Ready
Center. That's, that's the. I don't need to go to all the different high schools
and talk to the counselors. I go there because I know that's where the,
that's where the, the access is. This is the same idea that the
school can be the point. We don't. It's not our job to do all of
those things. We can't do all of those things, but it
can be our job to help coordinate those things and advocate for those things
and, and create conduits for people to, to be working. Our kids do better
when their families are healthier. There's no, there's no doubt about it. Right? Absolutely.
Yeah. When they're rested and they have nutrition and safe, warm
spaces, our kids do better. So it is part
of our overall goals, but it isn't our main goal, so.
Right. Yeah. I just think anytime you can create a
synergy of a web of inclusion. Yes. And, and, and,
and you're doing. And you take it to the people instead of making
them come to you. Yeah, yeah, you guys, you guys did on the north
end. We do, you know, we've got community navigators. We have, you
know, at McConnell, we have. In
Oaklawn, we have at
67219 67214 community navigators that
are in there just helping people. They, they don't, you know, we
just want people to understand that education is in their reach.
They all can go to college.
What. What kind of college? And helping them understand how to get a
scholarship or how to, you know, get financial aid, all these kind of things.
And so we've dedicated, you know, five people within this
community that go to work every day in the, in those
communities to build trust, to build relationships,
to help be a help for that for, for students,
for their families. And again, it's that synergy
of taking it to the people and helping them where they're at,
meeting you, where you are. That's right. Which is what the Future Ready Centers. That's
exactly what. Future Ready scanners. Yes. And the community school concept, all of these things
are exactly this, this vision of inclusion of the community
in the schools and understanding that these children, these
young people, these, this is our future. There are future
superintendents and presidents of schools
and universities. There are future business owners, our future
moms and dads, future pastors, future elected. These are our future
leaders. So, you know, making sure they have the
resources and the supports they need earlier in age. It's just better outputs for
the community. This is economic development, this is
family support. This is all of it. And I'm so grateful that when you said
that, yeah, depending on the school and the neighborhood needs, Cloud
Elementary's needs are different than Stanley's needs, that are different than
Buckner's needs and all it's different. And you're able to bring the community
and say, this is your school in your district, this is a
school in your neighborhood. Can you participate in educating and supporting and
loving on our kids? That is profoundly Wichita. Yeah,
you just think about it, you look at, you create the perspective.
Then you, you know, then we create the investments and then what
do we do? We get economic prosperity out of that.
I mean, if and if we look at it, lift the community and that and
that, then you're lifting people up, you're lifting the community up, you're
lifting, I mean, everybody wins, everybody wins. All these
students win, all their families win, industry wins, government
wins. Everybody wins the day. I would say, you know, when
we first started with Dr. Lucas and I in 2021 and we created this model,
we figured out what we wanted to do and had it all on paper. And
we said, well, he said, do you have any money? I said, no. Do you
have any money? Nope. So we were like, well, I don't know how we're going
to do this, but. So we created a five year plan and we got
the ARPA money. We were able to do in one year what we were going
to do in five years. So you talked about putting your foot on the gas.
We can put our foot on the gas, but it takes resources, it takes
investment and you know, whether that's from the state, whether that's from whoever
private industry, we're ready, I think we're ready to put our foot on the
gas, but without some Infusion of resources. It just. It just
takes time. It takes resources. It takes vision. Yeah. And it takes people
that have bold vision that casts the vision for the community
and rallies that vision. So talk to me about and
we'll wrap up here. I can. With you two. Man, I could go for
days because you fire me up. I get excited about these things. I was
joking earlier what Kelly said. I'm so excited about things that happen on the
local school level that I'm. I'm gonna run for school board. Like, I
dropped the county commission. I'm running for school board. Like, I want to help navigate
and shape these things. But you don't need more people to run for school board.
You need people in the community supporting these efforts and shaping and
guiding and advocating for these efforts. But we need
vision and we need hope. People need hope. Today's world, we're
living in some funny times. People need hope. Last question.
How hopeful are you right now? There's a lot going on. And you two
are two of the busiest people in the entire region. Like, are you
hopeful right now of where we're at and where we're going? I am
extremely hopeful and I'm extremely optimistic.
For. For lots of reasons. I don't think there's been a better
time in the history of Wichita. And I'm a native Wichitan and I've been here
my whole life. I don't think there's ever been a better time
that things are going to progress, that we are going to
continue to be innovative, that we are going to continue to understand
the value and the purpose of
partnering. None of us can do this by ourselves. We
have to do it together. That's when big things happen.
I'm very hopeful. I say all the time, every student that
comes to us, they have a face, and it's a face of hope.
And our. Our jobs are to create those hopes and
dreams. We're. We're there to get that to a reality, not to
give it to them. They got to earn it. But they have a hope and
they have a dream, or they wouldn't be there. They wouldn't be doing it.
And our job, which is both a privilege and a responsibility,
is to help make that happen. And I feel like
there's just this incredible energy in this community
right now, unprecedented than I've ever seen before in all the
years that I've been involved in this. And
I think there is great hope for what's going to happen. And I think we
are not going to recognize the city of Wichita and the
county that we live in. In 10 years, I believe it.
Kelly, we, you know, you spend any time with her, you knew what she. Was
going to say. She's a walking bucket of optimism.
Kelly, there's a. We have some challenges in this community. The county has challenges.
There's behavioral health challenges, there's substance use challenges. There are.
There's poverty challenges, growing poverty challenges. Wichita Public
Schools, you have some building challenges. You
have a hard job. We were joking earlier that I say that the three hardest
jobs in the entire community is Bob Layton's job, Wichita
City manager Jeff Easter's job, the sheriff, Kelly Bielefeld,
superintendent. They're hard. They're really hard. But
you're a lot like her. Like you, you just
from your pores is hope and optimism. Like you. You agree? You hopeful?
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I, I am very, very hopeful.
I said before, before we start, I don't think you were here yet. I think,
I think 2026 will be a
profoundly pivotal year in the history of Wichita. I think we'll look back 20 years
from now and say, man, 2026 was it. I think
this year there's just. There's so much that one of the
things we realized, we narrowly lost the bond issue was we
needed to invest in infrastructure, communications, infrastructure
with the community. And I think you guys have recognized to some extent with the
tri-gov meetings and some of the things we're doing too. And maybe it was Covid
and maybe it was political rhetoric. I don't know what, but we lost a little
bit of the face to face. Let's work together and figure out how to solve
problems. And I feel like the momentum is there.
The wind is behind us in our sails as far as that goes. And
it's ripe. It's ripe with leadership, with will,
with community, with so many things going on,
industry, investment. I just think it's.
I've, yeah, I've never been more hopeful. I'm very hopeful.
Uniquely us, this is what it is. These Future Ready Centers, all that you're
doing. I want you both know that I am grateful for your leadership, respective
leadership, your collaborative leadership. I am grateful that you engage the county.
You've engaged me and my colleagues and our county management staff. You've engaged
us. And we're always in the loop. We always know what you're doing. You're always
open to feedback and insight. And so I want you
to know that we're grateful for you. We're grateful that you're trailblazers. I think we're
gonna build statues one day. I'm not kidding. But I also want you to
know how much I pray for each of you and your missions. I think that
you were here for such a time as this. I believe it in my core,
so. And you're right, 2026 is going to be a big year for a lot
of different reasons. So thank you for carving out time. Come here. Thank you for
the invitation to come. It was fun. It's always great. We love to talk about
this. She's a. Did you know she's a podcast influencer. She's got her
podcast I like. It's incredible. Yeah. I've listened. Yeah.
God bless you both. Thank you for being here today. Thank you. Thank you.