2020 Ennis Nominee: Becky Kinnee
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The more she thought about it - and she thought about it a lot - the less satisfied Teaching and Learning Facilitator Becky Kinnee was with tinkering around the edges. The more she wanted - for six days a year - to scrap the school’s usual schedule and engage students in a completely different kind of blended learning experience. Hence, the wildly complex and creative offerings available to students through Flex Days.
As Becky explains, “Flex Days is our attempt to ‘rethink’ school. We know that school is working well for a lot of our students. However, the data and our classroom experiences show that it is not working for ALL of our students. For 185 days a year, we go through a 9-period day, kids shuffling from class to class focusing on mastering academic content and standards. Sometimes they are engaged in this learning, sometimes they are not. Sometimes they buy in, sometimes they do not. The idea was simple - for 6 days, we were going to do school differently.”
“ I am just so thankful to work at a school in which we take risks together to support learning, engagement, career exploration, student wellness and college readiness for ALL”
And so they have. If the idea was simple, bringing it to fruition was not. It required the participation of every Wheeling staff member. It required a two-thirds approval vote by the Education Association and necessitated exhaustive work of two committees: one to run the logistics of the day, the other to operate the professional learning side.
The result: Six days composed of five immensely diverse schedules offering more than 1,500 sessions for students. A mind-boggling array of offerings, but to name only a few: CPR training, virtual reality college visits, saving for college and cars, cooking for fun, Minecraft chemistry, beat-making and lyric writing, blending science and art, a knee injury prevention clinic, el poder de la música latina, tax preparation, water survival skills, Girl Empowerment and the science behind pizza dough.
“Becky is the definition of an educational innovator,” wrote Wheeling’s Ennis nominating committee. “She has brought her idea of Flex Days from a small idea to a huge success for our students. She has worked tirelessly to help both students and staff and has not given up with the many challenges.”
“Flex Days have truly been an all-school effort,” Becky said. “Every single person at WHS - students, security, ESP, CMA, teacher, counselor, social worker, administrator - EVERYONE has worked hard and stretched themselves this year to pull off this innovative initiative. I am just so thankful to work at a school in which we take risks together to support learning, engagement, career exploration, student wellness and college readiness for ALL. ”
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