© 2024 KMUW
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

KANSEL Cuts: Fallout From New Sedgwick Co. Budget

http://kansel.org

A program aimed at helping at-risk teenagers complete their high school education is one of the casualties of Sedgwick County’s 2016 budget.

The nonprofit KANSEL runs the program, and now the organization is working on a new funding strategy after the county decided to stop contributing to KANSEL.

KANSEL has partnered with Sedgwick County for the past 17 years for the GED preparation Youth Crime Prevention Program.

KANSEL offers education intervention to students in the 16 to 19 age range who are considered at risk for committing crimes.

Data and assessments on each student are reported to the county.

KANSEL’s Executive Director Linda Eaves says that will change now that the county will no longer be providing its $84,000 in funding.

"It’s just unfortunate because this has been a very targeted program and really great partnership with the county to make sure and be assured that recidivism is decreased based on education involvement by these at-risk students," she says.

Eaves says the county funding makes up about 30-percent of KANSEL’s overall education program budget.

United Way of the Plains also provides funding for KANSEL.

The GED prep program serves more than 200 at risk teens each year.

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.