By NATE KING
Salina Post
A product of the school district she now leads, Linn Exline, superintendent and Salina native, has a wealth of experience teaching and changing the lives of students, specifically in USD 305.
Salina Post sat down for an interview with Exline to discuss the USD 305 patrons survey, school safety, mental health, and what encouraged her to pursue a career in education.
School community survey
Back in October of last year, USD 305 hired K12 Excellence to conduct a statistically valid survey with the goal of providing insight into what residents thought about the district’s strengths, challenges, and other important issues.
Read: Survey reveals awareness of USD 305 initiatives, support for work being done
The survey included phone calls placed on weekday evenings, and noon to 6 p.m. on Saturdays, as well as an online options for families that didn't get a call.
When analyzing the collected data, Exline said the district asked themselves, "What do we need to do differently?" and "Is it programming we need to add or is it communicating what we are doing more effectively ?"
"One of the concerns that came up, was school safety," Exline said.
School safety
Last year at Salina South High School, 730 E. Magnolia Road, Salina Police received information that during lunch a student made a statement to three other boys regarding shooting up the school. The four male students were identified after the school resource officer and school officials reviewed the video recording from the school cafeteria.
Police detectives and the school resource officer established probable cause to make arrests and have requested the charge of aggravated criminal threat, a severity level 5 felony person felony, for each of the four students involved.
At the time of the incident, Interim Salina Police Chief Sean Morton said that since the beginning of the school year, the police department had investigated at least 14 criminal threats cases at Salina middle and high schools.
"We are very concerned about school safety," Exline said. "We work really hard on our school safety protocols, because we definitely want for our families to feel like Salina Public Schools is a great place for me to drop my child off to be educated and a safe place for my child to be educated."
One of the things that USD 305 discovered after conducting the survey was that people wanted to know exactly how the district was working to be proactive and what was being done to ensure safety.
"There are 10 actions identified in the school safety working group report to the attorney general to improve school safety. We're going to talk with you [the community] over the next several weeks about these items and how they apply to Salina public schools," Exline said.
The district is responding with a series of school safety videos. The first three videos of the school safety series can be found here.
Exline said that Salina Public Schools continue to review and build processes to support school safety.
"USD 305 has a school safety plan that is regularly reviewed and practiced at monthly district meetings. Our administrators use tabletop scenarios to practice applying our safety plans. Our principals take these exercises back to their buildings, where they review and practice with school staff," Exline said.
USD 305 utilizes multiple types of communication with families in crisis situations. Alerts and information from USD 305 are delivered using different combinations such as email, text and phone.
Exline said that USD 305 was very blessed when Salina voters' supported a $110 million bond in 2014.
"At that time, we upgraded our school facilities for a secured entry situation, so that during the school day, anybody that is visiting the building is filtered through the office, signs in, is given a visitor badge so that we know what they're there for and why they're in the building," Exline said.
Also listed in the report to former U.S. Attorney General William Barr were ways school districts can improve the emotional security of students.
"I think it's interesting that one of the top school safety strategies is to make sure that students feel like they belong," Exline said. "A lot of times people think 'Well, that's not a school safety strategy,' but it absolutely is."
Exline said that the key to school safety is ensuring students have relationships built on trust with adults.
"They [students] are more likely to talk about what they're seeing and what they're hearing, so that we can support students that are maybe needing some more support, and stop a school safety issue before it becomes a real crisis situation."
USD 305 Strategic Plan
Adopted in 2020, USD 305's strategic plan identified three goals.
Goal 1 - Increase students' communication skills
Goal 2 - Increase students' critical thinking skills
Goal 3 - Increase students' social-emotional skills
SPS Chats are part of an active collaboration between Salina residents and their schools. In March 2022, the board of education held an open information and listening session that offered insights about how boards of education work.
The chats feature discussions and conversations about district priorities and are scheduled to be held throughout the school year. In November, the SPS Chat focused on social-emotional learning (SEL), video examples of SEL lessons and question and answer time with a panel.
"We also did a SPS chat on kindergarten readiness, where we shared information about what it looks like to be ready for kindergarten," Exline said. "We know that when children come in to kindergarten, if they're ready, that really does set the trajectory for success."
Exline said that by creating strong and positive experiences in early childhood, students learn better, not only academically but socially and emotionally.
The next chat session will be held at Salina South High School and will cover careers in technical education and post secondary opportunities.
"We will be talking about different kinds of opportunities we have course wise for students to get dual and concurrent credit. All of these initiatives really came out of feedback that we got from the community," Exline said
During a tour of central Kansas in December of 2022, K-State President Richard Linton spoke at an event hosted by Great Plains Manufacturing. Exline spoke about the importance of preparing students for the what the job market demands.
READ: K-State president visits central Kansas as part of community tour
"Over 70 percent of the jobs that we're preparing students for today will require either a two-year degree a four-year degree or some kind of industry-recognized credential," Exline said.
Exline said the biggest takeaways from Linton's visit were that the Salina community is unique and "unusual."
"We have community partners, and I knew this because I've lived here my entire life," Exline said. "We have community partners that are willing to work with us to make sure our students get what they need and that really is across the board."
Exline said the goal is connect students with opportunities here in the Salina area.
"We have in place right now, a very strong partnership with Salina Area Technical College where our students, while they're in high school, can actually earn an associate's degree. They can earn industry recognized credentials, they can earn dual credit that can transfer into a four year program, if that's what they want to do."
Exline said many of the programs that USD 305 offers are directly related to what the job availability is in central Kansas and specifically in Salina.
"When we did our latest bond issue, we really were looking at what the job market demand was here in Salina when we were developing those programs."
Exline said USD 305's PolyCats program through K-State Salina allows high school students to graduate, with college credits at reduced rate.
"They can transfer into a four year school, they can also get associate's degrees," Exline said. "But those partnerships allows families to save a tremendous amount of money, and help prepare the student for college level classes."
Exline said the district has numerous internships that are available through its career pathways.
"Career pathways is a series of classes that students can take that end in a capstone internship level class," Exline said. "That's where those community partnerships come to play, is trying to get our students out into the real world work experience, and we have those connections with people here locally, even if they go away to school, if we can get them to think, 'Oh, I'd really like to come back to Salina and work.' That's a good thing for our community."
Mental health
Much like the nation as a whole, Kansas is grappling with a mental health crisis. Recently, a study by Mental Health America ranked Kansas last in the country on rates of mental illness and access to mental health services.
Exline said that one of the ways USD 305 is addressing the mental health crisis is by utilizing state funding that was granted nine public schools in 2018.
The legislative agreement authorized the selected districts to enter into agreements with local community mental health centers. The program was established to address challenges schools were experiencing through increases in students (and families) with mental health needs. The program's goal is to eliminate barriers for students and families which need clinical therapy and to access the local community mental health centers.
"We do have in our schools a mental health liaison that works directly with Central Kansas Mental Health," Exline said. "If we do have a student who is needing to get connected with mental health services, a lot of times that's an immediate need and it's a really challenging thing for families to be able to navigate that system."
A legacy of educators
Growing up, Exline said she always dreamed of working in the medical field. Her main goal was to work in a career that changed lives and helped people.
She attended Kansas State University with an emphasis in math and science. Exline's mother, Carolyn Jo Lundgrin, was an educator in the Salina school district, often working as a long-term substitute teacher.
"I took an education class because my mother was an educator and I had come back to Salina and I had observed her in a classroom where she was actually doing a long-term substitute position," Exline said." It was in a classroom for students that had special needs."
Exline said that it was while she observed her mother teaching that she discovered the joy and excitement for helping students grow and reach their goals.
"My mother taught in Kansas City while my father was in dental school, and then she stayed home with us when we were young. And as soon as we were all in school, she went back into education," Exline said. "Most of her time was spent in classrooms where there were students that really needed some special attention. She could interpret sign language... that's kind of a unique skill set."
Unfortunately, Exline's mother passed away in 2018. Exline said that she will always admire her mother's ability to balance both her profession as an educator with her responsibilities as a mother with four kids.
"I ended up taking a class at K-State that was an education class, and I absolutely loved it," Exline said. "It just changed my course. I really knew that I wanted to be in a position where I could help people and I can't imagine a better place to be able to change lives."
After graduating from K-State, Exline returned to Salina where she secured her first job as a teacher.
"I was lucky at the time that I graduated from K State, it was early when they started to allow students to student teach in their hometowns," Exline said. "I came back to Salina to student teach, and was at Heusner Elementary School in first grade. And then I got my first job there teaching fifth grade. Loved teaching fifth graders."
Following her time at Heusner, Exline worked in several different positions in the district.
"I worked K-12 science and math curriculum," Exline said. "Math and science were my two areas of emphasis. I was an elementary principal, I worked as the director of staff development and then was lucky to go out to a high school as an assistant principal , and then moved into a principalship as well."
Exline worked as the district's director of curriculum before she moved to the role of superintendent.
"I definitely have benefited from all of those different opportunities that I've been given," Exline said. " I think it really has made me better able to know how to engage people in conversations and where their input is really critical in me making good decisions. Just that importance of how do we make sure that everybody's on the same page to move things forward."