Wichita board reviews building needs assessments, cites attendance, facilities and staffing as top barriers

At a May 19, 2025 meeting the Wichita Public Schools Board of Education reviewed the district's 2024 building needs assessments and state assessment data and outlined attendance, facilities repairs and staffing shortages as top barriers to student proficiency.

The review is required under KSA 72-11-63 and must be reflected in the board minutes for the district's budget adoption. District staff told the board that the assessments and principals' requests are already published on the district website and will be used to prioritize budget actions for fiscal 2026.

District Chief Financial Officer Addie Ols opened the presentation by describing the statutory requirement and the role of the assessments in budgeting: "we have to reflect in the minutes that the board has reviewed our building needs assessments," she said. Deputy Superintendent Gil Alvarez reviewed state assessment trends and recent changes to the test format and performance-level descriptors adopted by the Kansas State Board of Education.

Why it matters: Wichita serves a high share of students with documented barriers. District data presented to the board showed 80.6 percent of students meet one or more state "at risk" criteria (for example, chronic absenteeism, homelessness, or insufficient mastery for promotion), and 79.8 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Staff said those factors increase the resources needed to raise proficiency.

Key findings and district responses

- Scale of need: Staff reported that 78 percent of buildings indicated necessary repairs in 2024, up from 58 percent in 2023. Technology adequacy also rose as a concern, with the share of buildings reporting inadequate technology increasing from 16 percent in 2023 to 35 percent in 2024.

- Attendance: Forty percent-plus of principals flagged child study team (CST) ratios as insufficient (42 of 83 buildings). The single most-cited barrier was attendance and truancy: 74 principals named attendance as a primary obstacle to instruction.

- Staffing: Roughly one-third of buildings (33–34 percent) reported staffing was not adequate, driven in part by vacancies in special education teachers and paraprofessionals. The board heard that recruiting and retaining staff remains the top budget priority for principals.

- Common priorities reported by principals included expanded CST support (counselors, social workers, psychologists), paraeducator training, stronger parent and community involvement, and targeted interventions such as tutoring and summer school.

District actions discussed (direction, not final votes)

- Staffing and compensation: Staff said the largest ongoing investment is the wage package negotiated with unions; district leaders reported reallocations and selective additions to put more CST staff into buildings, and some part-time positions were made full time where possible.

- Pilots and programming: The board was told the district will pilot community-school strategies and experiment with attendance interventions next year. Staff described plans to test targeted human supports (for example, clerical or outreach positions) in high-need buildings and to pilot approaches to reduce chronic absenteeism.

- Tutoring and interventions: Board members elevated high-dosage tutoring as an evidence-backed intervention; staff said the district continues literacy investments (LETRS training and other supports) that they link to recent gains.

Assessment results and goals

- The board reviewed 2024 state assessment results (the most recent available). The district's combined proficiency (levels 3 and 4) was reported at about 20 percent in 2024, up from 17.9 percent in 2022 and 18.7 percent in 2023.

- Because of the pace of improvement and the forthcoming changes to statewide cut scores, staff recommended a more modest district goal: a target of 32 percent of students scoring at levels 3 and 4 by 2030 (about a 2 percentage-point gain per year), rather than the prior 50 percent target. Staff noted reaching 50 percent by 2030 would require roughly 5 percentage points of improvement each year based on recent trends.

- The board also received a proposed interim third-grade literacy target: reduce the share of students scoring at level 1 from the current starting point (47.6 percent) by 3 percentage points to 44.6 percent on the spring 2025 third-grade reading assessment.

Timing and next steps

District staff said the 2025 state assessment scores will not be available until fall (staff estimated October) because of changes in the testing program and state scoring timelines. Board members were given a worksheet and asked to return their responses on the required three statutory questions by the board meeting on July 7; staff aim to bring final district responses for approval at the August 4 board meeting.

The board and administrators emphasized that the building needs assessment process is intended to be both an accountability and budgeting tool that informs staffing, facilities and program decisions; several board members requested follow-up briefings this fall on early results from attendance and community-school pilots.