(Top left: Rochell Knight, right, reading teacher at Derby Middle School, talks with Robert Blair, superintendent of North Lyon County USD 251, during a small group discussion at the 2025 Great Ideas in Education Conference. Top right: Traci Holder, center, assistant superintendent of academic affairs at Andover USD 385, visits with other conference attendees during a large district leadership team breakout session.)

Giving districts and school systems the chance to focus on their school improvement initiatives going into the 2025-26 school year was the intent of the reimagined Great Ideas in Education Conference held this week in Wichita. 

“We have to stay true to systems and processes,” Dr. Renee Nugent (pictured left), KSDE deputy commissioner of the division of learning services, told the crowd of more than 400 attendees. “Your processes are important, but your people are more important.” 

The 2025-26 school year, set to begin in a few weeks, marks the second official year of KESA 2.0, the accreditation process for districts and other school systems. 

The school improvement model at the center of KESA 2.0 uses the Theory of Action to create coherence by focusing on the four fundamentals of structured literacy, standards alignment, balanced assessments and quality instruction. 

While the work of KESA 2.0 is the responsibility of everyone from local school board members, administrators and other education professionals, the bulk of school improvement happens in the classroom, according to Aimee Addington, principal at Riverside Elementary School, Riverside USD 114. 

“It falls on the shoulders of our classroom teachers,” she said. “It’s hard work and it’s messy.” 

Kate Yohn, a third grade English language arts teacher in Southwestern Heights USD 483, said KESA 2.0 is providing her the opportunity to understand the direction she - as a classroom teacher - is going in the school improvement process. 

“When you do curriculum alignment and mapping, your entire school year goes so much more effortlessly because you understand the plan and it’s knowing where you’re going throughout the school year,” she said. “As a fellow educator in the trenches with all the other teachers in my district, I can convey the message this work is not fruitless and that there is a point to it.” 

Rochell Knight teaches reading at Derby Middle School, Derby USD 260, and is a Horizon award recipient. As a classroom teacher and member of her building leadership team (BLT) for KESA 2.0., she said the Great Ideas Conference equipped her with knowledge she can share with her building team that will directly impact students in the classroom. 

“I can help them understand what we can do together as a building, what we can do together to support the kids and how we can implement all these good ideas that these awesome people have,” Knight said about the information sharing that was a key component of the conference.  

Traci Holder, assistant superintendent for academic affairs for Andover USD 385, said the four fundamentals of KESA 2.0 align well with some of the initiatives the district had already begun to implement but new accreditation process adds an element of accountability “which is what we needed in order to get more traction.” 

“It’s not going to feel new to our teachers and administrators,” Holder said. “But it is going to feel like the expectations are increased and it feels good to ground that in our accreditation model.” 

Braden Smith, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at Arkansas City USD 470, said the new accreditation process is helping his district’s classroom teachers be more intentional and have less of “a shotgun approach where you’re trying to hit so many targets.”  

“We’re able to drill down to what matters most to us, to our kids and our student outcomes,” he said.