Wichita Education

Wichita offers 103 unique learning centers for its 49,065 public school students including 23 public high schools and 24 magnet schools providing specific focuses in science, technology, international studies, back-to-the-basics, foreign language and health. There are also 25 private and parochial schools for elementary students as well as two parochial high schools and one private high school.

The Wichita Public School district's Schools of Choice offers Alternative Schools and Magnet Schools where the learning environment is more flexible and the instructional choices are more unique. There are 15 magnet schools at the elementary level, two at the middle school level, and six at the high school level. Applications for magnet schools are made in the spring preceding the school year.
To apply, call the Magnet/Alternative Administrative Office at (316) 833-4464.

Wichita Public Schools are governed by a seven-member Board of Education with board meetings open to the public and held in the auditorium of the Central Vocational Building, 324 N. Emporia. The Board meets on the second and fourth Mondays of the month and schedules meetings on other Monday evenings as needed.

Wichita eSchool for kindergarten to middle and high school students provides educational options and services for home school and homebound students, by offering a core online curriculum program that meets Kansas state standards. The Wichita eSchool also provides online teacher advice and mentoring, as well as enrichment and extension activities.

Wichita also offers a rich variety of educational opportunies for adult students. Several universities and colleges are located in Wichita. The largest, Wichita State University, has an enrollment of over 15,000. Friends University with an enrollment of 2,700, and Kansas Newman College with 2,000 are also located in Wichita. Also located here is the University of Kansas Medical Center - Wichita Campus. The Wichita Area Technical College serves over 15,000 students each year with its secondary vocational and technical programs.

More and more kids today are getting a home school education as it is becoming more accepted. There are many reasons why families are choosing to educate their children at home:

• Families are finding home schooling helps to build a closer family relationship. As strange as it may seem to some parents, others just love to be able to spend one on one time with their child and learn and re-learn things together. They like the flexibility to be able to go to the park on a weekday or make a trip downtown to a museum for an impromptu field trip and not having to bother about permission slips, car pools and lunch money. They enjoy being such an important part of their child’s life and that is simply why they home school.
  
  
• Pointing to the safety of their children as a prime concern, many parents choose to keep their kids out of dangerous situations. They are concerned about the bullying by a few other children in the school. Shielding their kids from the lure of drugs and alcohol are other leading concerns that prompt some of the over two-million students to participate in home schooling every year.
  
  
• The public education system in the United States is making national, and international, news with its outdated text books and school buildings that are falling apart. Many parents decide to home school as they are just fed up with the public school system which focuses on the average child in large classrooms with few resources. The gifted child or one with a learning disability is often sidetracked in regular public schools and parents have to step up and take the responsibility themselves to impart an education more in tune with their child’s abilities.

A home school education not only ensures that the parents have complete control over the quality of the materials being used but they also have control with the learning conditions that their children are exposed to. Even when they do go for extra curricular activities at the park district or YMCA, they are under the supervision of their parents as opposed to a teacher who has to keep an eye on 30 plus kids. Parents feel in home schooling they can better keep track of the company their kids are keeping and perhaps have a more influential role in keeping them away from drugs, premarital sex and guns.

Before you can home school your child in Kansas you must register your homeschool as a non-accredited private school with the Kansas State Department of Education. If your children are currently enrolled in a public school, formally withdraw them, by letter, phone, or in person. (Don't just disappear!)

The term “competent instructor” is not defined either by statute or by case law, and thus it’s meaning is unclear. However, the Kansas Attorney General has specifically held that the statute does not require teachers in nonaccredited private schools to be certified. Additionally, there are no specific requirements for credentials or educational background for teachers in nonaccredited private schools, and thus it is not necessary for such teachers to possess a college degree or even a high school diploma. As a result, “competent” should be interpreted in its ordinary sense, and thus parents who establish an appropriate academic environment in their school, as evidenced by the presence of curriculum, planning and organization, testing, academic progress, and so forth, are presumed to be “competent” for this purpose.

For more information about homeschooling in Kansas, I recommend you visit Christian Home Educators Confederation of Kansas where you'll find many more details about setting up a home school for your child.

What You’re Missing
Going to school with classmates both good and bad is one of the very important things that help a child develop crucial social skills that will come into play later in their lives. When a child is home schooled they miss out on that interaction with other children. If your child is athletically inclined then they will be unable to participate in school team and individual sports. There are many advantages to home schooling but there are just as many developmental issues to consider for a growing child that is being denied access to the social network that a public or private school offers.