Continuing a commitment to reimagined assessment and accountability systems, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) launched a series of webinars to facilitate discussion with district leaders on local accountability called Lunch and Learn: Local Leadership, A Midday Exchange.
The series is centered around the United We Learn initiative, which KDE officially launched in 2022 and serves as the agency’s vision for public education in the Commonwealth. It emphasizes vibrant learning for every student, innovation in assessment and deep collaboration with local communities.
Each Lunch and Learn session featured district leaders sharing their journey with developing a local accountability model. Representatives from other districts had the opportunity to ask questions about how the implementation of vibrant learning experiences has gone in the communities where districts have piloted this work.
The sessions were facilitated by Brandy Breeze, education program consultant in KDE’s Division of Innovation.
“We’re here to hear (district) stories about innovation and around student defenses and that system that they have for students to share their learning and their story,” Breeze said.
Bringing Portraits of a Learner to Life – Grant and Washington Counties
The first session on March 17 featured a panel of district leaders, including Superintendent Todd Moody and Public Information Officer Danielle Haley from Grant County, and Superintendent Robin Cochran and Chief Academic Officer Holly Elmore from Washington County.
The leaders shared their districts’ local accountability dashboards and how they brought their district’s portrait of a learner to life using community voices, district priorities and communication.
A portrait of a learner is an agreed-upon set of competencies at the school or district level for what every learner will learn and practice applying in relevant and authentic situations with authentic audiences before they leave the district.
Moody shared that when he became superintendent, the school board expressed the need to communicate the district’s progress and long-term goals to the Grant County community.
Through conversations with stakeholders, community members and staff, along with insights gathered from online surveys, the district began developing an online dashboard to help explain the district’s priorities for success.
The Grant County local accountability dashboard has three main focus areas: growth, community and success, making the district’s goals clear and accessible to everyone.
“We understand that it’s not perfect, but we think the intent comes through, and I feel strong that our school board understands the purpose of it and can use it in conversations in our community,” Moody said.
For Washington County, the challenge was taking the portrait they developed and putting it into action.
Washington County’s Commander Ready profile includes five competencies to ensure every student is prepared for life beyond high school.
The five competencies include being a productive citizen, an empowered learner, maintaining healthy life management, being goal oriented and an effective communicator.
“We were coming to the table and talking amongst ourselves … what we wanted to accomplish and where we wanted to go, but were not really sure how,” Cochran said.
The district was searching for the piece that would help them execute their ideas on how to improve student growth.
Washington County joined KDE’s Local Laboratories of Learning (L3) initiative and focused on the United We Learn framework to rethink how progress is defined. Cochran said by centering community and student voices in an innovative fashion, the district is building an accountability system that measures more than just test scores.
Vibrant Learning – Frankfort Independent and Newport Independent
During the next event on May 7, leaders from Newport Independent and Frankfort Independent shared their journey with vibrant learning.
Shane Hecker, senior internship coordinator at Frankfort Independent, explained how the district developed its Portrait of a Panther to bolster instruction for students during their senior year.
“We were looking at ways that we could kind of create a stronger bridge between their final year of high school and what their postsecondary plans were,” Hecker said.
The district’s process started with competencies the district developed in 2017 and a revision process that landed on the current portrait in 2023.
“We decided was that we needed to design a system that created greater community partnerships and really leverage the resources that we have within our own community and provide an authentic learning experience for our students,” Hecker said.
Hecker said seniors have the opportunity for one or two work-based learning placements, whether that be internships or apprenticeships. The district already had senior projects for students to complete, so district leaders merged those into the senior internships to create defense of learning exhibitions for those students.
Autmn Slankard, director of curriculum at Newport Independent, spoke about how the district has worked to regain trust with the community with fresh perspectives from new leadership.
“Really, our goal has been to be transparent; to include community voice as much and as often as possible; to get people into our schools and to really create a stable and supportive environment for our students,” she said. “It isn’t just about checking boxes, but it is about authentic life skills and learning experiences that they will go through.”
The district has also worked to develop the Portrait of a Newport Graduate to focus on several areas that are important to families and community members for the students who graduate from the district. Slankard said she sought help from KDE’s Division of Innovation on how to build the district’s portrait, which led them to focus on authenticity.
“And I think the thing I’ve learned the most in this role is that we need to go slow to be authentic,” Slankard said. “So, we need to have that deep planning of exactly what this is going to look like and how we’re going to do it so that we don’t end up with a pretty document that isn’t guiding our students in some kind of helpful way.”
Defenses of Learning – Bracken County and Danville Independent
On July 22, leaders from Danville Independent and Bracken County shared their local accountability journeys.
April Vater, an English language arts teacher at Bracken County, said the district began developing its portrait of a learner in 2023, and began work with defenses of learning in 2025. Defenses of learning are where students exhibit what they’ve learned that year, typically through a final project or presentation.
“It’s this authentic experience with authentic audience members where students can show what they know and demonstrate what they know,” Vater said. “And most importantly, we’re sending these kids to the high school knowing that they’re employable and that they’re going to be productive members of our community one day.”
Vater said the work on defenses of learning began in middle school, starting with 6th-graders and expanding to 8th-graders the following year.
“We were given the trust and the opportunity by our district administration to – you know, as long as we had the best interests of the students at heart – to go for it,” Vater said.
Suzanne Farmer, chief academic officer of Danville Independent, said the district was one of the earliest to work on defenses of learning and portrait of a learner, beginning 15 years ago under previous Superintendent Carmen Coleman Goodin. The work with the community continued through leadership changes and the COVID-19 pandemic, although Farmer said the pandemic made defenses of learning difficult for the district.
“But it’s something that our teachers have really bought into and believed in and wanted to continue no matter what had happened in our district,” Farmer said.
Farmer said when Kentucky’s educational co-ops started receiving deeper learning grant funding in 2022, it allowed the district to further its work on Danville’s competencies under its portrait of a learner that students are expected to exhibit before they graduate.
The Lunch and Learn sessions have been part of KDE’s broader effort to help districts with reimagined assessment and accountability. House Bill (HB) 257, passed during the Kentucky General Assembly’s 2026 regular session, is part of this effort and provides districts the flexibility to work more closely with their communities to establish priorities for their schools and help ensure all students have access to vibrant learning experiences.
Leaders with KDE have been meeting with stakeholder groups as the department proposes regulations surrounding assessment and accountability for the KBE to finalize later this year.
How to Get Involved
KDE provides several resources to help districts transition toward locally developed indicators of quality.
The Local Accountability Design Guide and Toolkit includes six specific action areas for districts and highlights examples of how districts have been using the guide to help define and demonstrate success.
The KDE How It’s Working in Districts webpage includes several more district spotlights and videos that highlight more stories of innovation within Kentucky school districts.
Join the 2026-2027 Regional Learner Network to design, test, and iterate local accountability system changes with other district leaders by filling out a Regional Learner Network Letter of Commitment to Brandy Breeze via email.
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