What skills do we want for our children beyond their diplomas?
It was a question Corbin educators, families, local business leaders and others asked starting in the fall of 2025.
“Hundreds of voices shaped the answer. The Redhound Way is what came out of it, six qualities this community said matter most for every student’s future,” the Corbin Independent School District wrote on its website. “This isn’t a slogan on a wall. It’s a promise the whole district committed to keep.”
Corbin Independent Schools Chief Academic Officer Sarah Watkins said 2,435 people answered surveys answering this question, which culminated in a list of six traits school district officials publicly identified during the Corbin Independent Schools’ District Day Tuesday morning in the Corbin High School Auditorium.
The six traits and some of what they include are:
• Work ethic – takes initiative, demonstrates dependability, accepts accountability and strives for excellence
• Critical thinking – analyzes information, connects prior knowledge, thinks strategically, designs and implements solutions
• Creativity – demonstrates curiosity, generates original ideas, reimagines possibilities, transforms ideas into actions
• Resilience – advocates for self, perseveres through challenges, adapts effectively, grows through adversity
• Collaboration – values diversity and belonging, contributes with respect and empathy, gives and receives feedback, leverages strengths to achieve a common goal
• Communication – demonstrates awareness of audience and purpose, listens actively, uses effective modes of communication, expresses ideas with clarity
One student even had a button made to commemorate the six traits in The Redhound Way.
“Our goal is that everyone in Corbin knows what The Redhound Way is,” Watkins said. “The Redhound Way is our portrait of a learner, which is part of local accountability throughout the commonwealth of Kentucky. We have been part of that work this past year.”
“What we asked our community is what are the skills you want for students to have when they graduate. We are all about the academics. We are going to give the very best academic background to our students, but there are also those soft skills that are not measured on a KSA test,” Watkins said.
“We asked our community that. We had some of the best responses in the entire state. We are really proud of that. No other school district with their community involvement has gotten the numbers we have got here at Corbin,” she noted.
The district got responses from a wide range of community members from government and business leaders to parents, administrators, students and others.
“Really everybody has been a part of it,” Watkins said.
She said out of the six traits, the one people wanted, which surprised her the most, was creativity.
“We knew work ethic was important to Corbin, having high expectations for us all. Communications is always one. I think the one I was surprised by was creativity. A lot of times you think of creativity as being artsy,” Watkins said adding what the community meant by creativity in this case was re-imaging possibilities.
“Coming up with a solution to a problem that maybe no one has ever thought of before. It kind of expands what we thought of creativity. It came up time and time again on the survey.”
Corbin Superintendent Travis Wilder noted a classified employee appreciation day was held Thursday at the middle school.
“We were able to recognize six different classified folks based upon the six pillars for our Redhound Way. It was very, very special,” he added.
Deputy Superintendent Cynthia Davis explained all the school district employees were allowed to nominate a person, who represented one of the traits from The Redhound Way.
The award winners received some money and a certificate. In addition, their story was told during the appreciation day.
