Lyons USD 405 is a study in how to have success despite great challenges. Lyons’ number of students from low-income families plus students with disabilities is 94.6 percent, one of the highest rates in the state. With 43 percent of the district’s 775 students identifying as Hispanic, a high percentage of students require bilingual services.
In spite of the challenges for this central Kansas district, Lyons outcomes are higher than predicted based on their demographics. On the 2022 state assessments in math and reading, Lyons performed nearly 10 percent above expectations. With a 93.8 percent graduation rate in 2022, Lyons not only topped the state average, it was 6.4 percent higher than predicted.
I sat down with district leaders who walked me through a set of programs and strategies that helped elevate the district’s results. It starts with a strong commitment to early childhood education. Monthly screenings are offered to all three and four-year-olds to identify students with special learning needs. Lyons works with Sunflower Diversified Services to provide early intervention for children under age three. They provide special education services for three and four-year-olds through the special education co-op.
The district offers free half-day preschool to all children and has been doing it for over a dozen years, long enough to have made an impact on graduation rates. “When we do the senior walk-though, a good portion of the seniors know my preschool teachers,” said Park Elementary School Principal Kristin Borrowman.
The district has implemented and continues to strengthen a tiered support system, like the state’s Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) model. These systems are designed to support and monitor how well students are doing and provide extra support to students based on their individual needs.
The district is providing tiered intervention to all K-2 students. They monitor progress and provide specialized instruction to each grouping of kids based on their scores. Three Title 1 teachers, including a bilingual instructor provide interventions in reading and math. They, along with the classroom teachers provide the individualized and small group attention needed.
With around 25 percent turnover in students each year, not all older students will have attended for support in lower grades. The high school schedule presents problems for implementing the MTSS concept there. “But when we looked at our data, we realized that we had kids who were low in phonics and fluency, but we also had a larger portion of kids that were struggling with comprehension and vocabulary,” Lyons High School Principal Derek Carlson said. “So, we created a system where our kids that didn’t need interventions on phonics and fluency were still getting additional help for comprehension and vocabulary.”
The district prioritizes and protects time for interventions as well as teacher training and collaboration. Examples include LETRS training in the science of reading and a scheduled time for the Student Intervention Team (SIT) to discuss how to address the needs of students. The principals say it is critical to protect time for these programs if they are going to be effective. They also stress that Lyons focuses instruction on academic standards, including those on which state assessments are based.
The district has embraced social emotional learning, with a commitment to character education using the “Second Step” program, taught by school counselors. It is also focusing on strong family connections and uses multi-grade groups of students in school-based “families.” There is a specific emphasis on serving all families with a priority on bilingual staff and diverse representation on school and district councils and boards.
To help improve high school graduation, Lyons offers a wide range of a Career Technical Education pathways (18), concurrent enrollment partnerships with area colleges, a strong focus on English as a Second Language, an Air Force ROTC program, Individual Plans of Study time with the same teacher throughout high school, and a senior exit interview with community members. There is a downtown learning center for both adults who haven’t completed high school and high school students wanting an alternative. They also have developed a list of indicators that a student is at risk of not graduating, offering a chance to work with the student and family and provide more support.
Lyons leaders say many of their initiatives grew out of participation in the State Board of Education’s school redesign project that launched in 2017. “Redesign gave us a framework on how to make changes,” said Carlson, “and to think about why we needed to change.”
Finally, school administrators said they focused on developing a staff with a commitment to working together on where they needed to go. To fill vacancies, the district has embraced alternative ways to get licensed teachers, such as Transition to Teaching programs.
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