Areas of Focus

Three broad areas of focus - Fostering a Culture of Collaboration, Equity & Innovation, Educating the Whole Child, and Developing Future-Ready Skills – are key to all we do in the Kirkwood School District. Each area is essential in its own right and fundamentally related to the overall pursuit of our mission and vision. School should require hard work – for students and teachers – but it should not be a chore for anyone. Every child deserves opportunities to think critically and creatively about real issues, engaged in their learning and driven by a sense of wonder, connection, and joy. Student thinking must be the currency of our classrooms.

Educator John Dewey wrote in 1893 that we must “cease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of present life.” One hundred eighteen years later, Ken Robinson added, “Thinking of education as preparation for something that happens later can overlook the fact that the first sixteen or eighteen years of a person’s life is not rehearsal. Young people are living their lives now.”

The Kirkwood School District recognizes the importance of standardized test scores and we understand the need for students to be “college and career ready” for whatever may come after graduation. These typical measures are not enough, however, and they alone should not dictate our work with children.

Working over the course of twelve months – with input from well over a thousand students, teachers, parents, and community members – we identified 17 key indicators that define future-ready in the Kirkwood School District. The indicators are organized into five categories and can be explored in more detail HERE.