27-04-2025
At their own pace: Wichita's ‘one-room' school model focuses on creativity, projects
At the Learning Lab in Union Station, more than a dozen students showcased their inventions as part of the Wichita school district's new Creative Minds project, a one-room classroom of kindergarten through sixth grade students.
A self-watering device for indoor plants, a karaoke-like doll and a 'robot' that could be a child's new best friend were among the projects on display.
Creative Minds features project-based learning, where a student picks what they want to do and then the teacher creates a curriculum based on that.
'I have the freedom and flexibility to build based on what their interest is, and their engagement is just so high because of it,' teacher Olivia Sumner said.
While lessons are taught differently than in a traditional classroom, students go through all the same standardized testing as their peers at other schools – and their scores showed increased fluency in several different subjects throughout the year, according to their teacher.
'It's exciting how we've seen the growth from any of the core curriculum,' Sumner told the Wichita school board.
Now the district plans to double Creative Mind's capacity, adding another classroom and growing from 16 students to more than 30 for the next school year. It's an effort to bring back students and give parents another option amid declining public school enrollment. The district has lost lost nearly 10% of its students since the 2014-15 school year.
Sumner says the program works because as the students take ownership of their lessons, they become more invested in school.
'They decided what they wanted to research, and they decided what they wanted to create, and then we are learning through all of that creation,' Sumner told the school board at a recent meeting. 'It's awesome to see their confidence grow…
'One of our third-graders said he can finally be a kid again, they get to learn their way.'
That's also allowed students to feel more comfortable in the classroom.
'The inclusivity of our room is a really rare feeling. They're so quick to just be like, 'I'm struggling right now because of my ADHD,' 'My autism is not letting my brain do this right now,' and so, like, there's just no stigma in here,' Sumner said in an interview with The Eagle.
Students learn at their own pace.
In math, their teacher explained, lessons are taught through Zearn, an educational software. If she sees that a student may be struggling with a particular lesson, they can do more practice on their own to advance to the next section.
'It allows them to grow wherever they are,' Sumner said. 'When I have a student who hits the end of a grade level, I give them an end of that grade level assessment, and if they pass it, we keep going. If there's something I see a gap in, we come back.'
Candice Spires has two students in Creative Minds. She's also a paraprofessional that works with students who may need extra help throughout the day.
'They get to express themselves creatively,' Spires said. 'It's not just, 'do this, do that.' They get to stick to a certain standard and then choose what they want to do with it.
'It's very much whatever works for them, works for them, versus everyone sticking to the same thing.'
Her kids participated in the invention showcase – with one of them, fifth-grader Devaylee Ingram, being part of a team that's working with Groover Labs on its invention: Cameron Bot.
The robot has a projector that projects videos for children to learn various interactive lessons without connecting to YouTube or the internet.
Devaylee was upbeat and charismatic as she gave a pitch about the robot with her classmates.
'You can take it anywhere you want, and your child can watch the video. It's wireless, by the way,' she said in her pitch. 'It doesn't require use of the cloud either, which means your child's data is safe.'
The program is seeing high demand. Its wait list is approaching 100 students, according to the district.
Parents can get their students on the wait list for the next school year by filling out an interest in enrollment form. Students will be chosen through a lottery by grade level. Parents must provide transportation to and from the school.
As the program doubles in size, it will add another classroom inside the Learning Lab.
The district has been leasing space at the for-profit Learning Lab, which has ties to Koch Industries, for $6,000 this school year. That amount will increase for the next school year, but details have yet to be finalized, according to the district.
Administrators and Sumner haven't decided what next year will look like with two classrooms, but there will be another teacher.
Reading lessons are likely to be split up, similar to how they are now between Sumner and a para.
Younger students, likely kindergarten through second or third grade, will go with one teacher to learn how to read, while older students will split off with another teacher.
'We'll play it by ear based on student needs at the beginning of the year,' Sumner said.
Creative Minds will also use lessons learned in this trial year, including offering breakfast and lunch.
Unlike a regular public school setting, breakfast and lunch weren't initially offered through the school and students had to pack their own food. That'll change next year.
'We'll be delivering a large refrigerator to the Learning Lab this summer to deliver breakfast and lunch,' USD 259 Chief Information Officer Rob Dickson said.
