Vision (indicate your vision choice on attached ballot)

Before 2024 Wichita will:

1. Have world class learning opportunities for all citizens to be globally competitive and fully functional citizens.
2. Have education so that every citizen has the opportunity to learn to his or her fullest potential and become a lifelong learner.
3. Have an educational system that encourages and supports life long learning of all citizens that allows them an opportunity to contribute to the social, cultural and economic vitality of the community.
4. Wichita – developing tomorrow’s leaders today.
5. Have the opportunity for every resident to learn to his or her fullest potential and to become a lifelong learner, prepared to perform in the 21st century.
6. Create a world-class educational infrastructure, providing comprehensive and innovative learning opportunities for all facets of our diverse community.
7. Provide a world class education to all of its citizens to ensure success in a globally competitive environment.

Strategies (read and circle your highest education strategies and rank on the attached ballot)

A. Skills Training and Lifelong Learning

1.   Provide a world class system and facility for adult basic education, technical education programs and customized training.

• Adult basic education will provide the soft skills and literacy necessary for potential employees to be competitive.
• Technical education will be extended education programs that results in technical or associates degrees.
• Training will be competitive and customized training that a specific business needs to create new jobs in Wichita.

The system should be flexible and have the ability to adapt to trends, address cultural diversity and allow career path advancement. The system will provide opportunities for current young people, job holders, retirees or the unemployed to increase their education, skills and productivity. The educational infrastructure to provide the required high quality training and/or education must be properly funded by government, organized and coordinated with required business input such as the number of projected vacancies; skills required industry infrastructure investment. A major challenge is producing this business input and its interpretation by the educators because of the fast pace of change and global competition. A single point of contact will be established that will direct potential employers and employees to the right place for their needs to be met. Educated and trained replacements for retirees in the next five years will be a high priority. Develop a marketing campaign on the potential in technology careers for our 8 to 25 year olds.

B. Higher Education

2.  Create an awareness of Wichita as a “college” mecca and learning community. Increase the number of students in all area colleges and universities. Increase the number of undergraduate students and provide graduate level education with world class faculty and research capabilities. Provide curriculum, programs and research that supports Wichita employer’s high paying targeted job sectors. Increase research capabilities and grants. Identify future technologies that can be developed in Wichita and provide the research and incubation for commercialization in Wichita.
3.   Coordinate the education process so that students requiring licensing and/or certification can be streamlined into the workforce sooner.
4.   Provide a seamless opportunity for transfer from community/technical colleges to four year colleges and universities.
5.   College instructors need to reflect more diversity.
6.   Reestablish WSU football program.
7.   Market our universities and colleges to attract out of state students, women, minority students and foreign students. Encourage students to remain in Wichita for employment.
8.   Provide real world education for managers and supervisors so they can serve as role models, mentors and advisors to help erase intergenerational issues.
9.   Regain the entrepreneurial spirit of our past through entrepreneurial education, mentoring and experiences from elementary school to higher education
10.  Provide a coordinated program to assist young adults in obtaining financial assistance for higher education costs and market the availability of this assistance. All employers to reimburse tuition costs for their employees.

C. K-12

11.  Increase public school teacher pay and attract the best teachers. Hold teachers and administrators accountable. Support and recognize teachers in their difficult jobs and reward those that have greater skills and student success.
12.  Decrease school board meetings to once a month with the school board setting policy and the administration making operational management decisions to implement the policy. Reduce the cost of administration and transfer the savings to the classroom.
13.  Encourage public school systems to cultivate, embrace and support programs and events that are inviting to minority children.
14.  Expect the school system to develop an individual learning plan that allows each young person to learn the curriculum based on their individual learning style. This will result in providing a high quality education that is appropriate for each individual that focuses on each student’s motivation, desire, competency, and career objectives.
15.  Recognize the absolute importance of assessment of student progress compared to required standard levels of performance. Ensure that the curriculum, performance standards and assessment tests represent what our young people need to learn to be successful citizens.
16.  Expect all students to graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills (including basic life skills and critical thinking skills) to either immediately enter the workforce or attend a technical college/community college or university. Beginning at kindergarten, the school systems will ensure that each student exceeds at or above expected grade level. Throughout the student experience maintain the highest expectations for achievement and success. Ensure education equity is achieved for all races, economically disadvantaged and ethnic backgrounds.
17.  Expect parents to be involved in their schools and be accountable for the education and behavior of their children. Provide mentoring and education opportunities for parents to fill this role. Help with reading and other homework is a very important parental input. When the parent is unable to provide this input the community will provide mentors and tutors from businesses, faith based institutions, civic clubs, retirees, older students and other organizations. Every student who needs one will have a mentor. Particular attention will be focused on the needs of single parent households without a father present. Provide mentors to black boys.
18.  Decrease K-6 class size; increase resources and support staff to ensure student achievement and advancement.
19.  Insist that students and faculty are respectful to each other and that there are high standards of discipline. Empower teachers to discipline and parents support the teachers. Ensure Character Connects activities are in every classroom and adopted as a community initiative. Each school and classroom will have a friendly and welcoming environment with professional teachers that concentrate on teaching and educating students in a positive environment. Each person will feel valued and respected.
20.  Encourage and support advocacy efforts in the reform of school funding formula.
21.  Ensure that all school systems are prepared to utilize the latest technology for classroom instruction and administrative support in order to support increased productivity. Teach students to think in a way that allows quick adaptation to new needs for industry.
22.  Provide abstinence based sex education.
23.  Make transitions for students into 1st year university education so that the freshmen are not so overwhelmed.
24.  Break up USD 259 into several smaller districts for more isolated attention to the schools.
25.  Consider same sex classes.
26.  Encourage employers and industry associations to focus on recruitment for apprenticeships and internships of high school students who may not wish to attend the university. This will be a partnership with the school system as it provides these students an academic education and technical education in their area of interest. This is assist in meeting the No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress requirements. Communicate to students that we want them to stay in our community. Increase the dialogue between teachers, students (starting in middle school) career counselors and employers about the requirements and career lattice opportunities in today’s and tomorrow’s workforce (career lattice demonstrates how skills can be used to move horizontally and vertically).
27.  Reduce the amount the documentation required by teachers and allow more individual time with students.
28.  Return to neighborhood schools that will allow parents to become more engaged in their children’s education.
29.  Focus on improving and marketing schools in older neighborhoods to reduce urban flight.
30.  Increase number of college prep programs including International Baccalaureate programs.
31.  Need all day kindergarten.
32.  Enhance and support fine arts/music education in schools recognizing that their contribution to academic achievement.

D. Pre-K

33.  Expect all children to enter kindergarten ready to learn at the kindergarten level. Identify reading deficiencies early and help pre-K parents and teachers with programs that result in each child being ready for kindergarten.
34.  Increase early bilingual exposure.
35.  Provide more qualified pre-school teachers in daycare and pre-K programs.

E. General

36.  Maintain continuous communications between all Wichita and appropriate Kansas educational institutions and the business community to address business needs, targeted high paying job sectors/emerging job sectors and constant changes required by a competitive global knowledge based economy. Involve parents and students in this partnership to develop an understanding of the broad range of opportunities available in the Wichita job market.
37.  Rethink the regional library mission and delivery platform to ensure the most effective use of resources in the future global, technology and knowledge era. Consideration should be given to being friendly, extended hours, current information, coordinating programs, teaching research skills, other places to hang out, a family resource for reading readiness, being a community and cultural center, current cutting edge technology for those without, books, DVDs, the arts to attract young people.
38.  Provide every family in Wichita with high speed internet
39.  Develop the passion to overcome mediocrity.

Quality of Life

Vision (indicate your vision choice on attached ballot)

Before 2024 Wichita will:
1.  Have a world class community that has a vibrant recreation, arts and culture entertainment focus and that embraces all diversity.
2.  Be a world class community with age appropriate recreation and cultural opportunities and a sense of community that encourages people to meet their aspirations.
3.  Wichita – a great place to live, learn and prosper!
4.  Be a community of thriving, joyful and free and safe citizens.
5.  Be a world class community that celebrates all of its citizens with a vibrant recreation, arts and culture, and safety focus.
6.  Maintain the highest quality of life that offers diverse cultures, opportunities to grow within the community.
7.  Proactively develop a community environment where all citizens fell safe, included, fulfilled, and committed to continuous improvement.
8.  Attract and retain the young, educated, and the bold with vision to build and transform Wichita into a world class community.
9.  Create a vibrant community of positive, creative, and cultural quality of life that builds pride in community.

Strategies (read and circle your highest education strategies and rank on the attached ballot)

A. Health Care

1.  Increase the affordability and quality of healthcare while lowering the cost:

• Encourage healthy lifestyles, wellness and education programs, address tobacco, obesity and violence issues
• Fluoridate the water; provide indigent dental care
• Invest in dental care for all ages
• Develop free and/or reduced cost clinics as a substitute for emergency room use for indigent health care and promote awareness of these resources
• Dramatically increase the use of technology in patient treatment and administrative functions
• Ensure that physicians have the ability to provide the best service (not directed by insurance company)
• Tort reform
• Have comprehensive coordinated medical care (including mental, dental and health) for all people regardless of ability to pay and provide easy access to services. Establish a community-wide expert committee that advises us on health care costs and quality.
• Promote disease prevention
• Affordable prescriptions
• First class assessment system

2.  Stop the growth of specialty hospitals.
3.  Develop biomedical and medical research and clinical trials.

B. Recreation/Arts and Culture

4.  Develop a large high quality lake for recreation, destination resort and water supply within an hour of Wichita. The lake would be created by a government authority. Except for public access and lakeside parks, upland to the waters edge will be controlled by the land owners and sold for resort development. This will dramatically increase the tax base and create new jobs. Since most the residences would be high value retiree or 2nd homes, the cost of the government services would be much lower than the new tax income. This project needs to be fully defined and the feasibility determined as first action steps and the best location selected.
5.  Increase the effectiveness of government funds to support arts and culture organizations through leveraging funding from the private sector to ensure world class cultural amenities.
6.  Develop and implement a comprehensive master plan for recreation, arts and culture that determines a required level of service for each element. Determine the gap between existing facilities and this level of service and eliminate the gap within 10 years while at the same time providing for annual growth as it occurs. Ensure that all facilities are staffed and maintained for high quality service. Develop levels of service for each element; ensure that proper consideration is given to age, income level, and life style with regional equity. Consideration will also be given to use of these facilities by Wichita visitors and tourists and becoming a regional attraction for certain types of activities such as youth baseball, soft-ball, hockey and biking/skating. Implementation of the master plan will be based on meeting the Visioneering Wichita Key Benchmarks.
7.  Create a large amusement park (i.e. Emerald City where values of courage, brains and heart are featured)
8.  Improve recreational use of Arkansas River. Use the river to connect museums and other cultural opportunities in Wichita. Clean up the river. Wichita and Kansas should be a destination!!
9.  Establish Waterwalk and arena downtown.
10.  Provide community spaces, green areas and recreational opportunities that celebrate our natural environment, our cultural diversity, and our youth.
11.  Establish a regional park board that is responsible for acquisition, preservation, and management of parks and green space, with the ability to fund these essential programs.

C. Racial Harmony, Opportunity and Diversity

12.  Encourage employers to be committed to a diverse workforce. Commit to not hiring someone until you have a diverse pool of candidates. Show minorities that you want them in Wichita. Non-minorities should carry the message and address racial issues and make diversity a way of life. Vision Partners will ensure inclusion and diversity as they adopt and implement strategies in Education, Quality of Life, Economic Development, Infrastructure, Government and Private Sector Leadership. Recognize that Wichita will not succeed in meeting its Key Benchmarks without a diverse workforce.
13.  Adults, get over it; the younger generation is comfortable with diversity.
14.  Understand, celebrate and embrace other cultures and diversity. Don’t be paralyzed by fear; address racial harmony diversity and opportunity directly, openly and honestly. Encourage interaction among all people, neighborhood associations and break down barriers.
15.  Create thriving neighborhoods that are both ethnically and racially diverse.
16.  Treat each other with a sense of fairness, respect and creativity while accepting differences.
17.  Embrace cultural diversity by establishing an environment which attracts and retains minorities into our community and workforce.
18.  Provide equal opportunities for minorities in the workplace, civic events and volunteer organizations. Provide more diverse Board members in order to better represent “all” community members.
19.  Reduce the earnings gap between minorities and non-minorities.
20.  Portray our diverse community with “Windows on Wichita” in highly public entrance points, i.e. airport and all marketing publications/promotions.

D. Sense of Community

21.  Develop a sense of community among young people through groups and networks. Young people, particularly singles, have difficulty in making connections. Social settings are needed where young people can mingle.
22.  Develop pride and unity within the community.
23.  Support regionalism and the economic growth and prosperity of surrounding counties.
24.  Increase the number of neighborhood associations and heighten neighborhoods commitment to the community at large.
25.  Provide Wichita history in public school systems.

E. Family and Youth

26. Communicate with our youth and provide leadership opportunities to all including the minority youth.
27. Embrace our youth and recognize their potential value to the community they decided to live in. Inject an element of fun in all youth programs that results from a youth entrepreneurial outlook. Ensure that a majority of our youth, including the best educated, have an opportunity and desire to stay in Wichita.
28. Provide after school activities for middle school age students; provide youth centers for high school students.
29. Act proactively to strengthen families; increase funding to organizations that strengthen families; provide leadership to coordinate these efforts; include faith-based organizations in this team effort and; strengthen the agencies that provide services to children.
30. Find ways to get our young people more involved.
31. Have an active community volunteer service program for youth participation, provide opportunities to explore needs in Wichita and identify interests and talents of youths, allow youth to have greater ownership in future of Wichita, and encourage meeting of youths with community leaders. Older children serve as mentors to younger children.
32. Provide a comprehensive plan and assessment for high quality affordable childcare.
33. Maintain and promote United Way assistance referral service.
34. Encourage employers to use family friendly policies and procedures.

F. Social Services

35. Take care of the homeless and families in crisis; including temporary short term housing, transitional housing and long-term housing.
36. Create community volunteer opportunities to work together to help provide service for those in need.
37. Provide social services that address local and emerging issues.
38. Provide a comprehensive referral center to direct citizenry with family/youth needs to appropriate agencies.
39. Create an organization to coordinate and reduce redundancies and thereby increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of not for profits.
40. Create regional access for the provision of social services.
41. Ensure that the foster parent system protects and enhances those children in its care. Limit the placement of children in the foster care system to those where the need is absolutely critical to the well being of the child.
42. Ensure accessibility for the disabled and understand their issues.

G. Public Safety

43. Create a safe place for Wichita residents.

• Use resources in the most efficient and effective organization structure/process.
• Continue to implement programs that address and reduces crime to continue our low rate.
• Create higher level of trust between police and community.
• Get tough on drug dealers, clean out drug houses
• Continue community policing.
• Target high crime areas and provide specific resources to lower the crime rate.

44. Provide high quality EMS.

H. Elderly

45. Provide and maintain safe and affordable housing for poor and elderly.
46. Increase services for the elderly and market them successfully.
47. Continuation of government support for the Senior Employment Program.
48. Provide better healthcare resources or optional healthcare resources for senior citizens.