A Garden Grows in Greenup: Rethinking Learning, Accountability, and Community Connection

Wurtland Middle School student Isaiah Branam stands proudly at the front of the Kentucky State Capitol’s Senate Chambers wearing a sharp black suit, a striking green tie, and a handkerchief protruding from his jacket pocket, emblazoned with a symbol of community pride: the Greenup County Musketeer. Isaiah has just been named an Honorary Commissioner of Agriculture in the Commonwealth of Kentucky due to a newfound love for gardening and a growing passion for sharing his knowledge and skills with others. 

Wurtland Middle School (WMS) and Greenup County School District are in the midst of a transformation that makes community-connected learning central to the student experience and nurtures opportunities where once disconnected students ignite new interests and are recognized in the highest halls in the state. WMS has begun to root their school in passion, purpose, and place in connection with Greenup’s larger local accountability efforts as part of Kentucky’s Local Laboratories of Learning (L3) initiative. The L3 initiative includes 18 districts who have convened inclusive coalitions of local stakeholders to prototype new systems of assessment and accountability in their communities. This work has since informed the new assessment and accountability framework that seeks to transform the way Kentucky schools and communities engage in school-based reporting, accountability, and vibrant learning and assessment. Now, Wurtland is leading the charge into the 2025-2026 school year as it enters its next phase as the Greenup County School of Innovation, a PK-8 school with real structural and cultural shifts reimagining what is possible for students.

Expanding Pathways and Opportunities for Community Connection and Impact

Wurtland Middle School has approached this transformation through a variety of avenues, but the most effective has been its shift toward authentic learning and career pathways, documenting student learning in preparation to defend students’ attainment of Portrait of a Learner competencies, and rich community-connected learning. It was during a conference about Isaiah’s Portrait of a Learner portfolio that assistant principal Melissa Bowling first learned of Isaiah’s passion for gardening, and realized this passion could result in vibrant learning and community engagement for Isaiah.

WMS began by expanding the types of learning students could access. First, shop classes were added to the course offerings. Students were able to work with their hands and use math and geometry skills to build planters that the school sold to the community to raise funds for further classroom supplies. Eventually, the projects for the shop class expanded, and WMS students were soon building mantles for the foyer of the school, and in a real stroke of content-related ingenuity, the school partnered with Habitat for Humanity of the Tri-State to build a home for a person in need in the community. This school rallied around authentic learning for students and mobilized new skills to effect measurable, meaningful, and positive change in the community.

WMS has continued to add pathways of interest to their course offerings and now students have access to options like the Teaching and Learning pathway, which engages students in learning about education and becoming a teacher. This pathway leads to eventual certifications in high school and beyond. Students at WMS often spend time supporting the community’s youngest learners at the nearby Wurtland Elementary School and Wurtland branch of the Mini Musketeers preschool. The school started an agriculture pathway that now includes gardening, raising livestock like chickens, and other activities which were recently highlighted during the school’s AgSplosion event. The 2025 AgSplosion event was an inaugural community event focused on highlighting the efforts of WMS and the success of its pathway students, particularly agriculture pathways. Students shared their projects, experiences, and learning with community members in various stations and activities meant to engage young and old in the community.

It was in his agriculture pathway that Isaiah began to thrive. He started planting and tending his own garden at home when he was tapped by assistant principal Melissa Bowling to lead a station at AgSplosion. Isaiah balked at first, but rose to the occasion and handmade over 600 seed starters for the event to share with the hundreds of community attendees. There, Isaiah stood with pride, teaching and sharing how gardening had helped him find purpose and connection.

Reframing Accountability Around What Matters

Greenup County School District is part of a statewide initiative to prototype new systems of assessment and accountability called the Local Laboratories of Learning (L3) initiative. The L3 initiative consists of 18 partner districts across the Commonwealth that are committed to co-creating new systems with diverse and inclusive community coalitions to identify what schools and their communities value and want to impart to their students, and how L3 communities might enable new conditions to increase student success. Part of the L3 process is identifying opportunities for reciprocal and deeply connected relationships between district, school, and community, and working together to partner and offer rich, vibrant learning experiences to students, while expanding transparency, community engagement, and accountability. This process was guided by four tenets of inclusive design: empathy, inclusion, co-creation, and reciprocity.

Now, local accountability has risen as a key strategy to transforming education in the Bluegrass State. As a leading L3 district, Greenup County has modeled how local accountability efforts can reshape the way districts and schools relate to the communities they serve, while empowering transformational learning experiences for students. Greenup County first built their Portrait of a Learner with a community team called the GC Education Innovation Team involving local business owners, officials, doctors, educators, and more, and now the Core Four portrait competencies are guiding learning experiences at the middle school level.

Local accountability is about working with communities to identify and support the types of outcomes communities desire for their students in their K-12 career, transforming the student learning experience to be authentic, vibrant, and personalized, and building data and storytelling structures to promote transparency and continuous improvement. According to Greenup Schools Superintendent, Traysea Moresea, local accountability has completely transformed the culture and operations of their district. She shared,

Collaborating with our community stakeholders grew into more than a dashboard that highlights data for transparency. We now have community members contacting us to become more involved in our schools, simply because they believe in what we are doing for our students. They follow our social media, where we tell our stories and share them with family members and friends throughout the country.  Business owners, local leaders, and community activists will request meetings to discuss providing monetary support, grants, new programs, and offer to volunteer as mentors.  

The district itself has a different feeling. Students are telling us what they want to become and sharing their hopes and dreams. Students openly provide feedback, compliment each other on their accomplishments, and encourage each other to take on new challenges. It feels as if our community waits to learn about the next innovative way we can update or change for the better, and they want to know how to become involved in the process.  

Local Accountability is much bigger than transparency, storytelling, data, tests, projects,  etc.  It’s an attitude and an appreciation for the hope that can come from public education.  I hope it one day liberates our schools from the single data point to identify their quality via ranking and name to shame.  Local Accountability is what is needed to move our educational system forward and produce successful students who can embrace their strengths and know their worth to the world.

This type of transformation has been the subject of statewide efforts to reform assessment and accountability systems. Due to the success of community-embedded efforts like those in Greenup County and other L3 districts, local accountability has now taken shape as a key component of the Commonwealth’s reimagined system of assessing educational attainment.

Hallmarks of Local Accountability:

• Portrait of a Learner developed through community engagement
• Reciprocal partnerships with local businesses and organizations
• Expanded definitions of student success
• Rich performance assessments like portfolios and defenses
• Community exhibitions of student learning
• Transparency through data storytelling and public dashboards
• Emphasis on student agency and voice
• Continuous improvement driven by inclusive, localized input

Shifting the Narrative with Competency-Based Learning

Traditional accountability systems might overlook Isaiah’s story, but a competency-based model places it front and center. Isaiah’s growth wasn’t a test score—it was a story of skill development, confidence, identity, and contribution. Through Greenup’s emphasis on performance-based assessments and the development of student portfolios and defenses, students like Isaiah can demonstrate their mastery in ways that matter to them and their communities.

This shift aligns deeply with core competency-based education principles:

• Student agency: Isaiah chose his path and shared it with others.
• Meaningful assessment: Through AgSplosion and his portfolio, Isaiah’s learning was validated and celebrated.
• Real-world relevance: His agricultural knowledge contributed to both personal growth and community well-being.

The Kentucky United We Learn (KUWL) Council’s emerging framework for meaningful assessment draws on these lessons from districts like Greenup. The future of accountability in Kentucky may soon include portfolios, defenses of learning, and exhibitions of student work alongside traditional measures. In fact, Greenup has shared many of their tools and approaches with other L3 districts and helped inform the statewide vision.

A Handkerchief and a Hopeful Future

I keep returning to the image of Isaiah’s handkerchief. He specifically requested an item he could bring to his commissioning ceremony to represent his school pride, because he recognized the role the school had played in allowing him to explore, grow, and share a passion for gardening and agriculture. This story is incredible and is a testament to the power of what Wurtland Middle School and Greenup County is building. A system that reframes the narrative of what is meaningful to learners and the community.

This is not just a Greenup County story. Students whose lives are full of passion and possibilities are learning inside schools with opportunities to connect to communities all across the nation. Each school and district’s path may be unique, but the roadmap remains the same. Start by rethinking the student experience and the opportunities students have to truly explore, expand, and explicate their passions in connection and collaboration with the community, and amazing stories like Isaiah’s will follow.

With this vision and dedicated planning and execution, district, school, and teacher leaders can utilize shared learning around competency-based education, portraits of a learner, local accountability, community connection, and more to begin to shift the learning experience in their schools. The result is empowered students, authentic and vibrant learning, and rich community connections that uplift all learners. Strive to make the learning experience in your context so powerful that all students request their own handkerchief to tell the story of learning that is shaping them.

Dr. Rob Collins is an Innovative Programs Consultant in the Kentucky Department of Education’s Division of Innovation. He sparks and sustains innovation in Kentucky’s classrooms by leading the L3 initiative, implementation of the statewide Kentucky Portrait of a Learner, and by founding and facilitating the Kentucky Innovative Teacher Fellowship.

Click the links for more information about the Local Laboratories of Learning (L3s), the Kentucky Innovative Learning Network, and the Kentucky United We Learn Council and its work to develop a reimagined framework of assessment and accountability. You can also explore our recent Kentucky case study project.