Introduction
At the Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration (CCOSA) Summer Leadership Conference 2018, Shannon Vanderburg, superintendent of Frederick Public Schools, when asked if his school had a mentoring program, enthusiastically shared much information and said to contact Lance Bohannon. Lance was encouraged to share Frederick's story as a multi-faceted model for other rural communities.
In 2006, members of
the Frederick Rotary Club were discussing the town’s past and its future. Like so many small, rural, agriculture-based
towns in southwest Oklahoma, Frederick had a "golden age" from the 1940s to the 1960s. Now, it seemed the town’s best days were
behind it. The question was asked, “If
we achieved excellence once, why can’t we now?”
And in a defining moment, a group of Rotarians decided to reach beyond
what seemed possible and craft a plan to once again “own” the city’s
future. It wasn’t a matter of asking for
permission from the government, or finding grants or benefactors. It was a matter of identifying and
prioritizing those factors that would make people want to live in our town, and
raising private, local funds to make those factors real. We began the hard work of becoming more than
we were.
We began with our schools. We believed that people move to different
neighborhoods and even to different towns to get their kids into top-tier
schools. We believed that we could make
Frederick Public Schools a regional magnet. Professional people could continue to work in the three larger cities around
us but live in Frederick and put their kids in Frederick Public Schools. The
goal for us was to provide a superior education, along with a superior learning
experience for our kids…to equip them to compete aggressively and confidently
in a big world. Along with that we
became intentional about leveraging some of the natural benefits to kids from
small-town living…strong identity and accountability, more leadership
opportunities, more one-on-one mentoring/teaching access, and greater safety. In 2018, we believe that we are winning. We can point to one set of factors and four initiatives
that have made the difference:
1. We started with a school administrative team
that is extraordinarily gifted in vision, creativity, flexibility,
resourcefulness, good management, and integrity. Shannon Vanderburg is our superintendent; Randy Biggs, our high school principal; Jeremy Newton, our middle school
principal; and Kay Cabaniss and Janice Crume, our elementary and Pre-K directors. The room for improvement was largely in the
faculty. Through natural attrition,
well-recruited/vetted hires, and, some believe, a good bit of Providence over a
period of about six years, our faculty is now made up (almost entirely) of over-achievers
and super-stars. We treat our teachers
as heroes in our town because we know that all they have to do to get healthy
pay raises is to drive 30 miles (to Texas).
2. We understood that offering a “superior”
education meant offering learning opportunities well beyond those required for
state and federal compliance. These have
fallen into four initiatives:
A) Big
Topics is a weekly discussion group, sponsored by the Rotary Club, for high
school students designed to help them develop their skills in critical
thinking. We treat topics that may be
controversial or hard to treat inside the classroom: American exceptionalism, the effect of
political correctness on our decision-making, the proper role and scope of
government, race, religion, and current events.
It is a privately funded scholarship program that, in seven years, has
collected and distributed $70,000 in scholarships.
Last year, we introduced the concept into middle school-age kids with a
pilot “summer academy” we call “Bomber YELL”. We began with two hours of lecture/discussion
in the morning, followed by lunch and life skills (budgeting, sewing, changing
a tire, etc.) in the afternoon, and ending at the municipal swimming pool. It was more successful than we anticipated,
and we continued the initiative into the school year with so many kids signing
up for it, we had to offer two sessions. Two Rotarians lead these initiatives: Ben Crawford leads Big Topics, and Roxie Hill
leads Bomber YELL.
B) Robotics - In 2011 a Frederick High School alumnus
from the class of 1963 was
 |
| Team 7506, Aug. 2018 |
named the top engineer in the world by the
international Society of Automotive Engineers.
Dr. Bob Woods has been a professor of engineering at the University of
Texas for over 30 years. When we asked
him if other FHS alums had followed the path that he had blazed his answer was,
“No”. That conversation gave rise to the
establishment of a robotics program in Frederick High School that, from its
very first year of competition, has earned high honors at state and regional
level, beating out bigger, richer, more established schools in specific areas
as documentation and programming. The
program has opened the door to a whole new career field for our students that
was closed to them before 2011. Dr.
Woods continues to mentor and encourage our students with periodic visits and
evaluations. Tom Hensley, a retired air traffic controller from the U.S. Air
Force, is our gifted robotics coach.
 |
| Clint Reid, FB photo |
C) Art
- A few years back a young art
instructor, Clint Reid, joined the faculty.
Traditionally, art in the district was built largely around art history
and some coaching in different media…oils, watercolor, and pencil. Clint introduced a new career path to our
kids in graphic arts and commercial design. They have established a money-making business by designing and crafting
silk-screened T-shirts and apparel for custom orders. This spring, one of our students was named
one of the top ten finalists in the nation for graphic/commercial design.
 |
| Carisa Schreiner, FB photo |
D) Music
– Frederick has a deep musical heritage dating back to the 40s and 50s when the
city boasted 13-14 private piano/voice teachers. Frederick schools have been competitive at
the district and state levels for many years, but never on such a large scale
as now. Carisa Schreiner is the music
director for all the schools (working with 400 students/day). Every year, she leads musical productions for
both the middle school and the high school. The art department builds the sets, the jazz band provides the
accompaniment and the choir perform the roles. Last year, with a total high school population of 200, 120 kids
participated in the musical. At district
and state competitions FHS “punches above its weight” competing successfully
against larger, richer schools. FHS
graduates are frequent recipients of music scholarships to colleges and
universities.
 |
| Performance of Carisa Schreiner's students, FB photo |
Concurrently with the
initiatives to make our schools a regional magnet, we began an effort to
develop a deep bench of young leadership in the community to drive the
various projects we needed to ensure the bright future we envisioned. There was an existing effort called
Leadership Frederick that we resurrected and re-energized. For many years, much of the leadership in the
community had been provided by two extraordinary men who brought talent and
resources to the community. Bill Crawford was a regional leader in banking and
investments, and Loyd Benson was the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of
Representatives. They, however, had not planned for their own
succession. They were very helpful in
bringing Leadership Frederick back to life. At the last Chamber of Commerce banquet, I asked Loyd to count the
number of heads at the head table that was over 45 years old. There were two…the keynote speaker and his
wife. And the room was filled with 30- and 40-somethings who were energized and committed to the vision of making the
town better than it is.
In addition to
developing young, local leadership, we have been intentional in cultivating the
interests and support of Frederick High School alums that live away from Frederick. We have asked them to help with finding
solutions to local challenges. We have
found they are pleased and complimented to be asked and have contributed both
financial and intellectual heft to our projects. The class of 1963 has been unusually
generous.
Twelve years after
that original conversation among that group of Rotarians, Frederick has a new
confidence and optimism that we can grasp our future, that we can pass along
big dreams from a little town. And we
believe that our experience can serve as a replicable template for other small
towns aspiring to be better than they are. We’d welcome the opportunity to visit with anyone who wants to join us
in the satisfying task of re-building our communities and, in fact, the
nation.
Lance Bohannon
Personal communication June 13, 2018
Some photos from http://www.frederickokchamber.org/
See Clint Reid's The Tillman Project, his personal artwork http://tillmanproject.com/
Two visits to Frederick revealed much civic pride, love of its young people and excitement. We also thoroughly enjoyed the Bomber YELL mentees and the community and school people we met.
