Our Moonshot - Dighton Public Schools - Education Redesign: One State’s Innovative Journey - Article 7

Oct 15, 2026

Education Redesign: One State’s Innovative Journey presents Dighton Public Schools as a rural district pursuing a community-driven redesign. The article argues that teachers were ready to improve but operated within “business as usual,” passing students based on effort rather than mastery. It describes the origins of the redesign after a Kansas Deputy Commissioner’s remarks, the local context behind weak ACT performance, and the district’s shift toward personalized learning, project-based instruction, and standards-based grading. It outlines how the first year required working through key implementation details.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

Our Moonshot: Dighton Public Schools

Background and rationale for redesign

Early process and first-year implementation

Educational Considerations Volume 46 Number 2 Education Redesign: One State’s Innovative Journey Article 7 2020 Our Moonshot: Dighton Public Schools Kelly Arnberger Dighton USD 482, Dighton, KS, [karnberger@usd482.org](karnberger@usd482.org) Follow this and additional works at: [https://newprairiepress.org/edconsiderations](https://newprairiepress.org/edconsiderations) Part of the Educational Leadership Commons, Elementary and Middle and Secondary Education Administration Commons, Elementary Education and Teaching Commons, Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching Commons, and the Secondary Education and Teaching Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Arnberger, Kelly (2020) "Our Moonshot: Dighton Public Schools," Educational Considerations: Vol. 46: No. 2. [https://doi.org/10.4148/0146-9282.2231](https://doi.org/10.4148/0146-9282.2231) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Considerations by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please [contact](contact cads@k-state.edu)[ cads@k-state.edu](contact cads@k-state.edu). Our Moonshot: Dighton Public Schools Kelly Arnberger “Through redesign you have the opportunity do whatever you choose to do to make your school reflect the needs and desires of your community. I believe our public-school teachers can do the great things we keep hearing private and charter schools do if we would just let them.” Randy Watson, Kansas Deputy Commissioner of Education, said something to that effect at Dighton in January, 2017. We would now have permission to make our school reflect the true mission, vision, and values of our community without constraint. Sounds great! At least many ofus in attendance listening to Dr. Watson that day thought so. We chose to redesign but we had no idea what we were getting into, where it would take us, and how it would change us. Dighton is not unlike any other rural school in many ways. The teachers are well-established and many are from Dighton and the surrounding areas. The students demonstrate normal student behaviors. Certainly nothing unmanageable and some of them would even shovel your side walk if it snowed. Many students assume they will go to college and figure it out from there. It is the expectation. The standard high school classes are offered in order to meet college requirements, but limited elective options. Your typical sports and activities are offered and students generally perform at a pleasing level but participation is dwindling, again like many other small rural schools. Overall, the community is supportive and speaks positively about the school system. Outside of our general successes and practices, there were some advantages that made Dighton a great candidate for Redesign. The community passed a $12.9 million bond in 2013 to improve and beautify the facilities. Our board of education demonstrated the perfect balance of fiscal stewardship, desire for improvement, and a deep love for the community in which they live. At the time, the real issue for Dighton: scores were just ok. In fact, our ACT scores were below the state average and that just did not make sense based on our rural demographic. Let’s talk about what we could do. In our halls, you could hear teachers talking about how things would improve if they could just do…fill in the blank. The conversation would escalate to an excited frenzy of ideas and possibilities until someone would say,“Yes, but…fill in the blank.” Business as usual prevailed. Students matriculated through the system chronologically and in many cases with passing marks based on effort but not mastery. Justifications and rationalizations proved comfortable and everyone shared in the guilt to the detriment o

FAQs

What problem motivated Dighton Public Schools to pursue Education Redesign?

The article links redesign to concerns that achievement scores were “just ok,” especially ACT results below the state average, which did not align with the rural district’s demographics.

How did the district describe day-to-day schooling before redesign?

It describes a system that moved students forward chronologically and often passed them based on effort, with explanations and rationalizations replacing deeper mastery.

What changes did Dighton pursue during the redesign effort?

The article highlights movement toward personalized learning, project-based learning, and standards-based grading, alongside refining implementation details during the first year.

Oct 15, 2026

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