Fall 2024 - Future Ready Spotlight
Fall 2024 Newsletter
#FutureReady Learning for ALL!
As a district, we want all of our learners to be #FutureReady so they can pursue their interests and passions throughout their educational experience in Piper as well as their lives beyond graduation.
Future-ready learning is essential for equipping K-12 students with the skills and mindset needed to thrive in an ever-evolving world. By integrating critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and technological literacy into education, we prepare students to adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Future-ready learning emphasizes not just academic success, but also real-world problem-solving and innovation, ensuring students are well-prepared for higher education, careers, and civic life. This approach fosters lifelong learning, empowering students to confidently navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing global landscape and become active contributors to society.
We seek to make this goal a reality though creating engaging, relevant learning experiences for ALL of our students, from the Piper Early Childhood Center all the way through Piper High School. In this month's Future Ready Spotlight, we want to showcase just a few of these experiences that are taking place in all of our buildings throughout the district!
Piper Early Childhood Center
Inspiring Curiosity at the 4th Annual Touch-a-Truck Event
Piper Early Childhood Center held their 4th annual Touch a Truck event on October 10th for our Pre-K and Kindergarten students. Numerous vehicles from our local work force in Wyandotte County such as KCKPD, KCKFD, BPU, Waste Management, UG, and Knetter Farm. Students were able to explore and climb on the vehicles as well as ask questions about their important jobs in our community. We are incredibly thankful to our community partners for making this fantastic day possible for our Pre-K and Kindergarten students. It was filled with smiles, excitement, and possibilities!
Piper Prairie Elementary:
Sharpening Real World Skills with a Shopping Adventure
At Piper Prairie Elementary, Tricia Dwyer and her team are guiding students through a hands-on shopping project that combines math, language, and executive functioning skills. Her classroom is set up to mimic a Target store, complete with operating hours, a rotating belt, and scannable barcodes on items. This immersive experience will culminate with a mid-November grocery store trip, where students will complete a Thanksgiving-themed shopping activity using prepared lists. Through this project, students practice handling money, communicating about purchases, and using positional language in a real-world context.
Piper Creek Elementary
Disaster Ready: 5th Graders Take Action with Their Future Ready Projects
The fifth-grade Future Ready project on natural disasters began with in-depth learning and student choice, empowering students to become experts on various natural disasters while practicing ELA standards. Throughout this unit, students engaged with local professionals, including members of Kansas City’s Fire and Rescue teams, and representatives from FEMA and the Red Cross, who shared insights on the skills and agilities required in their careers.
Students then chose a community impacted by a natural disaster and developed unique support projects, ranging from mental health initiatives like geocaching scavenger hunts for temporarily closed schools, to creative fundraisers like bracelet sales, lemonade stands, and school-wide competitions. One class even published a tornado safety book to sell locally. FEMA revisited midway to advise on project plans, providing valuable feedback that guided students as they moved forward.
The project culminated in a presentation to FEMA, the Red Cross, and other community members, where students showcased their projects, discussed the agilities they honed and highlighted the empathy and collaboration involved in their efforts. The hands-on work reinforced their understanding of civic engagement, showcasing the power of student choice and creativity in meaningful community support.
Piper Middle School:
Igniting Career Exploration through Academy Prep for Grades 6-8
Academy Prep 6: A Visit to Biztown
Students explore the Business, Entrepreneurship and Innovation academy through a structured curriculum provided by Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City. The experience ends with a trip to Biztown (pictured above) where students spend the day in various private sector and public sector roles.
Academy Prep 7: Hands-on Learning in the KDHE Mobile Lab
Students explore the Health & Life Sciences academy through hands-on activities utilizing the KDHE mobile lab. Students were able to successfully extract DNA from strawberries and bananas during one session and learned about the importance of water filtration in their second session.
Academy Prep 8: School-wide Assembly Showdown
Students explore the Human Services academy through event management. Students are tasked with creating a plan to execute a school-wide assembly for Piper Middle School. Students are expected to ensure they are leveraging the experience to help meet Strategic Goal #2: Connected Culture Among All and they compete as a class against other classes to have their proposal selected. The fall and winter assembly class winners have been announced and now students are executing those plans.
Piper High School:
Expanding Real World Learning Opportunities
This fall has been a tremendously exciting time at PHS with the opening of a brand new, state-of-the-art building tailored to amplify Piper High School's academy model. With the new space comes new, expanded real world learning opportunities for our students, a few of which are outlined below.
Future First Responders Gain Experience
Mr. Reitemeier's Fire Science students in the Public Services Academy took part in an extrication lab, during which they worked through different simulations of vehicle collisions focused on responding to trapped victims. Students worked through different scenarios first responders frequently face.
Opening the New Pirate's Bay at PHS
Mr. Kohler's students from the Business, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Academy celebrated the opening of the brand new Pirate's Bay, which is a coffee and apparel shop open to PHS students and staff! Students will gain real life experiences in management, customer service, and marketing through running Pirate's Bay.
Engaging Partners with the Real World Roundtable
Piper High School's annual Real World Roundtable event connected PHS seniors with more than 40 industry professionals to provide insights for their Senior Capstone experiences. We are grateful for the support of our partners in preparing our seniors for their future pursuits!
The Heart of #FutureReady Success
In Piper, we truly believe that we need to look beyond the offerings of the traditional classroom to best prepare our students for success. Along with innovative learning experiences, our Portrait of a Graduate outlines the essential competencies we believe our students will need to be successful regardless of the path they choose. It is our passion to ensure that ALL of our learners are on a path to continually grow and discover what their future holds.