Every Student Future-Ready

Wichita Public Schools is dedicated to giving every student a future-built education with innovative AI-assisted programming

New mechanisms of learning need bold visionaries to nurture and promote new ways of thinking. As the CIO of Wichita Public Schools, Rob Dickson is creating dynamic learning communities that are preparing teachers, students, and families to navigate a future of enduring promise and incredible complexity.

At the heart of Dickson’s vision for WPS is the shepherding of “Our Wildly Important Goals” to support new generations of students. They aim to provide equitable access for all students and staff; give personalized, borderless learning opportunities for students, staff, and community; and build and maintain infrastructure for secure data and a safe environment that contributes to learning and the future of education. “Public education is doing a great job in the communities that it serves, and I don’t think that story gets told enough,” he said.

The largest school district in Kansas, WPS serves 50,000 students. It has 94 schools and programs and employs nearly 10,000 professionals.

Prior to joining Wichita Public Schools, the award‑winning CIO launched Nebraska’s first virtual school. At WPS, he founded Education Imagine Academy, which opened in 2019 and scaled rapidly — rising from a legacy baseline near 120 students to approximately 350 in 2020, then growing year over year to reach 600 by 2025. Education Imagine Academy earned Microsoft Showcase School recognition for the last four years. In partnership with Wichita State University, Dickson also introduced an esports program across the district’s secondary schools, along with several other innovative initiatives.

Dickson also oversees the Digital Literacy and Citizenship instructional training department, which is designed to bring purpose to the influx of digital devices and infrastructure in the learning process.

“In the realm of AI, we are preparing our teachers and our pre-service teachers. Propellus is our district’s flagship AI-in-education summit, designed to bring together K–12 leaders, teachers, and innovators to turn emerging technology into practical classroom impact. Hosted by Wichita Public Schools in partnership with Wichita State University, the summit blends visionary keynotes with hands-on sessions that showcase real-world use cases — everything from responsible AI and data privacy to improving instruction, streamlining workflows, and elevating student voices,” Dickson said.

He’s a practical pioneer, dedicated to giving students fresh paths to success with modern work-study approaches. They’re so effective that students often want to stay and do more after having exciting and empowering learning experiences.

“I could give you countless stories over the last five years of giving students an experience and then them wanting to stay on; we’re continuing to do that every year,” he recalled. “We hired 11 to 13 students last year to work over the summertime, and some of those students continue to do work for us during the school year. It’s pretty amazing to have partnerships and functionalities like that in a large city like Wichita.”

Ten of the district’s middle schools are Verizon Innovative Learning Schools, with five Verizon-funded Verizon Innovative Learning Labs focused on STEM. The middle school learning environment, which includes augmented reality and virtual reality, helps kids to learn through exploration.

“If I were to really segment what I think learning looks like in the future, elementary is learning by doing; middle school is skills exploration; and then high school is skills development. Kids at middle school need to have exposure more than anything, so having a STEM-related middle school is very important.”

The Hub for Advanced Computer Knowledge (HACK) uses applied learning programs in cybersecurity and computer science, where high-schoolers can do hands-on work in the district and in companies in the region.

“There’s been applied learning work done for our aerospace industry at Textron and Spirit Aerosystems. It’s a great function of the city to be building from within, and I love it.”

HACK was developed in partnership with Wichita State and WSU Tech and took five years to develop the future-ready centers. “Looking at Wichita and at its talent needs, we developed the Advanced Manufacturing curriculum. We’re teaching kids how to build a plane, 3D printing, all the modeling that needs to go into advanced manufacturing,” he said. “Since then, they’ve added biomed, and are setting kids up to get their certified nursing assistant credential after high school graduation.”

HACK is offered to all WPS high schools; students spend half the time at the HACK but then can choose between pathways of cybersecurity, computer science, and machine learning. Dickson hopes to add a data science course in the near future.

Most recently, WPS established the Samuel E. Spaght Science and Communication Magnet Elementary School, which is focused solely on teaching coding in the core curriculum. The middle school program prepares students to flow right into the HACK from there.

Planning for every tomorrow

The entire WPS data infrastructure is centered around validating data as well as looking at ways that AI can help answer the new questions that come with changing times.

“I love being able to do this because usually, in a large district like this, data gets put in silos and you don’t ask about causation,” Dickson said. “Many times, when you’re looking at chronic absenteeism or behavior issues, those are complex problems that have complex solutions and need an intelligence assist on how we model the data, as well as how we look at solutions for them. It’s important to think about what the future looks like in an AI-assisted environment.”

The district’s teachers are trained to use AI to create efficiencies, such as crafting a lesson based on a classroom’s accessibility needs. “There are ways that we can insert the human in the loop to help that teacher understand this new mechanism of learning and what that looks like. I also think it helps them to identify for themselves what they are missing – almost like having a learning coach along with them.”

When training staff, WPS uses AI to help them become better stewards of cybersecurity, both personally and professionally, with robust data privacy practices. They address these issues across the entire ocean of people in the district, teaching everyone to use multifactor authorization – from kindergartners to the head office.

Working with amazing people is only one perk in Dickson’s exceptionally rewarding career.

Take the 2019 National Teacher Hall of Fame inductee Dyane Smokorowski, a vibrant thought leader and advocate of active and engaging learning opportunities. “She’s like my partner in crime,” he laughed. “She’s always there to elevate whatever ideas we have. The talent that we have in this group is probably some of the best talent I’ve ever seen in 26 years of education.”

It’s the kind of talent we need in this brave new world, and we can’t wait to see what Dickson and the WPS do next.