Even with the governor physically sitting in front of them and signing the bill, Sabetha Elementary fourth-grader Seth Brumback and his fellow students still felt like they’d dreamed the whole yearlong ordeal of getting the sandhill plum to be Kansas’ official state fruit.
It was over one year ago that fourth-graders at Sabetha Elementary School had asked: Why doesn’t Kansas have a state fruit?
What happened in the months and semesters after became one of the longest, if most relevant, civics lessons for Kansas students in seeing the legislative process up close and in detail.
“Every moment counted, and it’s been a long road to this,” Seth said.
Sabetha students see the bill from beginning to end. Jobi Wertenberger, the fourth-grade teacher at Sabetha, was also in disbelief at the moment, with dozens of students from across the state sitting in front of his class in the Statehouse rotunda as Gov. Laura Kelly signed their sandhill plum bill into law.
“I hoped it would get this far, but these kids worked so hard,” Wertenberger said. “Gov. Kelly told me that getting other kids to help is what pushed it through.”
Nathan McAlister, humanities program manager at the Kansas State Department of Education, said the whole process of passing the sandhill plum bill was a textbook example of the experiential learning the state department encourages.
The legislative process — which included several committee hearings, debates, amendments and conference committees — was “a deep dive into how Kansas government works.”
“Every one of these kids will take this, and it will be with them for the rest of their lives,” McAlister said. “This is something that they won’t forget and they’re gonna understand how a bill becomes a law better than the average citizen, because they went through the actual process.”
In signing the bill, Kelly commended the students for lobbying for the bill and keeping it alive. She hoped the kids would continue to be civically engaged as they grow up into voting adults.
“No matter if it’s making sure that your kids’ schools are fully funded or that your roads are paid or that your health care is successful — whatever the issues may be, grow up and know that this is how you get things done,” she said. “You come up with an idea, you put together all the information that you need and you build a group of supporters.”
Paula Leidel, a Valley Falls Elementary School fifth-grade teacher, said the bill would remain with the kids for the rest of their lives.
“Eighty years from now, when you have grandkids sitting on your knees and they’re coloring pictures of the sandhill plum, in their symbols worksheet for first grade, you can say, ‘We were responsible for that,'” Leidel said.
Wertenberger said he hopes that the lessons his students learned are ones that echo for future generations of children.
“I hope that when another kid has an idea to do something, that they know they can work together and work hard to put something together,” Wertenberger said. “That whatever they put their mind to, they can do it with a team.”
As reported in the Topeka Capital-Journal.
