About Greenbush
August 18, 2005
Click here to go to the Greenbush web site.
Mission
Statement:
The Southeast Kansas Education Service Center ensures equal
educational opportunities for everyone.
Philosophy:
The cooperative nature of the Service Center affords school
districts access to necessary educational services that would
otherwise be unavailable, unaffordable or simply are offered most
cost-effectively through a cooperative arrangement. Services are
extended to the education community (i.e. administrators, teachers,
school personnel, and parents) in the collaborative effort to
provide quality education to all students.
The
Southeast Kansas Education Service Center:
Or Greenbush, as it is commonly known, started in 1976 as three
employees in a small, vacant school building donated by USD 248
Girard, on the basis that it would provide area school districts a
way of accomplishing things that would be too costly individually.
The school building sat on Highway 57 (now 47) about 8 miles west
of Girard.
Five original member districts — Erie-St. Paul, Yates Center, Riverton, Girard, and Fort Scott Community College — joined together to establish a list of priorities and form a board of education with representatives from each of their own district boards. The five original Greenbush board members were Dr. Robert V. “Doc” Harderlein (for whom a Greenbush building is named), Dr. James Rowland, Robert Kuestersteffen, Gary Gilstrap, and Allen Warren.
The board, which meets monthly to determine future programming, personnel issues, funding strategies, and to hear staff recommendations, serves as at large representatives for all participating districts.
Greenbush is classified as an interlocal school district (No. 609) which means it has all the rights and privileges of a district except for the power to levy taxes. That means that from the beginning, the ESC had to strive to provide districts with services that would otherwise be unaffordable or unavailable, had to ensure the best possible customer service, and had to continue to develop unique and innovative programs. Why?
Because Greenbush is based on volunteer participation. Services first requested by districts in the early days of the ESC included an educational film library, repair of audio-visual equipment (back then, 16 millimeter film projectors), and group bidding as a means of purchasing much-needed school supplies and materials.
While those three programs are still important to member districts today, the ESC has expanded to include more than 200 programs and services and 500+ employees. Services extend far past the physical boundaries of the Greenbush property, which has expanded to include some 500+ acres, four permanent buildings, and a fleet of mobile education vehicles.
Programs range from education in state corrections facilities to the provision of interpreters for deaf and hearing impaired students in schools, to home-based education for parents of toddlers and pre-schoolers, to helping establish mentoring programs in communities.
The programs started because a school administrator had a vision and came forward to say that if two or more districts are in need of a service or program, Greenbush will figure out a way to make it happen. Greenbush directors hear requests like this directly from school administrators during monthly superintendent and principal forums, held at Greenbush as a means for them to network, share ideas, and discuss common concerns.
Greenbush also remains a stronghold of inservice opportunities for teachers from across the region. In 1996, it became a focal point for hands-on, science-based field trips for students with the construction of the Abernathy Science Education Center, and for challenge-based programming with the construction of the Ropes Course.
About 15,000
teachers, administrators, board members, school support staff, and
12,000 students K-12 come to Greenbush each year for educational
opportunities they can’t get anyplace else. Several more
thousand participate in Greenbush distance learning and
internet-based education without having to travel.
