2022 Sunflower Summer offers free admission to Kansas attractions

A preferred program for Kansas youngsters to get free admission to a number of the state’s coolest sights is coming again this summer time.

Sunflower Summer season — a Kansas State Division of Training initiative that gave over 70,000 Kansans free entry to museums, parks and different sights across the state in 2022 — is funded for the following few summers, schooling commissioner Randy Watson introduced Tuesday.

“We’ll be doing it once more, and we’re enthusiastic about it,” Watson advised the Kansas State Division of Training.

This is what you should know.

Editorial:Sunflower Summer season program is a giant success

How does Sunflower Summer season work?

The state schooling division had used federal COVID-19 reduction funding to begin Sunflower Summer season in 2021, in an effort to verify all Kansas college students had entry to summer time enrichment alternatives.

This yr, Gov. Laura Kelly determined to reallocate unused federal reduction funds for Kansas’ personal faculties to the state schooling division in order that it may proceed to supply Sunflower Summer season.

To get free admission to Kansas sights, dad and mom or different adults obtain the Sunflower Summer season app on their telephone and register themselves and their youngsters. The app then gives a single-use, free ticket for the kid, in addition to free tickets for as much as two accompanying adults, to attend sights across the state.

Extra:For some Kansas college students, summer time faculty (or enrichment) might be their saving grace

In 2021, about 70 totally different sights — together with the Kansas Cosmosphere, Kansas Youngsters’s Discovery Heart, the Eisenhower Presidential Library and numerous zoos — participated within the state program.

Denise Kuehler, a KSDE spokesperson, mentioned the division will not be but able to share extra info apart from to say Sunflower Summer season is coming, however Watson in September advised the Kansas State Board of Training that suggestions from venues in 2021 was outstanding.

Many places known as it the very best program that they had ever participated in, Watson mentioned, and a number of other even provided different freebies or discounted admission for future admission to Sunflower Summer season households.

Who can use Sunflower Summer season?

This system is open to any baby in Kansas, no matter their faculty, so long as they’re between ages 4 and 18 and have not graduated from highschool. 

“Public, personal faculty, homeschool — it does not matter,” Watson mentioned. “They only need to be of faculty age.”

As much as adults accompanying a toddler, together with dad and mom, grandparents, babysitters, daycare lecturers and different guardians, can also obtain free admission to sights by way of this system, Watson mentioned.

“Anybody who is anxious about that scholar can take these college students to the Topeka Zoo, or to the Cosmosphere or (Kansas Division of) Wildlife and Parks at Kanopolis or Glen Elder,” Watson mentioned.

When does Sunflower Summer season begin?

Final yr, the Sunflower Summer season program did not get began till July 1, so it solely ran for just a little over a month earlier than the beginning of faculty in mid-August.

Nonetheless, about 43,000 Kansas youngsters and 28,000 adults have been in a position to make use of this system to get free admission to sights across the state.

Individuals got here from every of Kansas’ 104 counties, Watson reported in September 2021, in visiting over 70 sights provided that summer time, and he mentioned he anticipated extra households and venues would have participated if that they had recognized extra about this system.

Extra:In search of a summer time journey? Put these eight Kansas out of doors sights in your listing.

Kelly’s choice on allocating the federal reduction additionally funds this system for summers 2023 and 2024. For 2022, Sunflower Summer season is slated to begin proper after Memorial Day, Watson mentioned, and can run by way of early August.

“Or till the cash runs out, which might be a great factor to have, proper?” Watson mentioned.

Rafael Garcia is an schooling reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He could be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com. Comply with him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.