Kansas City Public Schools on Wednesday night put forward a plan for how the district would spend more than $474 million if voters approve a bond in April to update classrooms and fund long-standing maintenance needs.
The set of recommendations comes after months of community feedback, and includes changes to the original plan announced in August, like keeping Phillis Wheatley Elementary School open and abandoning a proposal to merge Border Star and Holliday Montessori schools.
The updated proposals prove the school district remains responsive to community needs, said Tanesha Ford, board of education vice chair.
“You took honest feedback into account, from those who are most proximate and who are actually in-building, to create a list of very informed recommendations and committing to continue engagement beyond tonight,” Ford said.
The district has spent months gathering feedback on its 10-year-capital plan, which would begin to tackle $650 million in deferred maintenance and include $600 million for upgrades in classrooms and other spaces where students learn.
A survey about the plan has received 1,116 responses since May. And more than 5,700 people have participated in dozens of open houses, outreach events and engagement efforts since the district launched the bond campaign.
Next, the school board of directors will consider a final version of the updated recommendations for adoption in December.
If four or more of the seven members approve the bond at that time, KCPS would get tax revenue to improve and construct new buildings for the first time since 1967. It’s the only Missouri school district in the region without a general obligation bond to fund improvements and repairs to buildings.
The board of directors on Wednesday also approved a resolution that places the general obligation bond on the April 8 ballot.
School board member Monica Curls said passage of the bond would help give Kansas City students the same state of the art facilities they see when they visit other districts.
”The fact that they happen to come from a ZIP code that's in KCPS shouldn't limit their potential or their possibilities or their opportunities,” she said. “But it's up (to) us, to adults, to help make this a better situation for them.”
“They deserve all those same things,” Curls said.
The board also approved agreements with nine charters that are participating in the April bond, allotting up to $50 million of funding to: Academie Lafayette, Citizens of the World, Crossroads Academy, DeLaSalle High School, Gordon Parks Elementary School, Hogan Preparatory Academy, Kansas City Girls Preparatory Academy, Kansas City International Academy and Scuola Vita Nuova.
The school district received an influx of money in the 1980s as a result of a desegregation lawsuit. But without a reliable funding source for capital projects, deferred maintenance has piled up since.
Approval of the district’s current bond campaign would allow it to build two new schools and make districtwide investments to keep schools warm, safe and dry. It would also relocate and combine some programs and schools into newer sites with better conditions.
Respondents to the facilities survey wanted the district to prioritize deferred maintenance in bathrooms, heating and cooling systems, and technology. Many also wanted the district to improve outdoor play and learning environments, gyms and collaboration spaces.
Feedback-informed recommendation changes
Under Wednesday’s recommendations, all schools would receive at least $5 million in the district’s first phase of investments. Every school building would have heating and cooling systems installed, and schools that have prioritized bathroom renovations will receive investments.
The district also would allocate funding for safety and security issues.
Classroom and school renovations projects are to include collaboration spaces, STEAM labs, instrumental music spaces and upgraded athletic facilities. Final project lists for each school will be based on the building’s facility assessment and community feedback.
An open house in November highlighted students’ thoughts on challenges in their buildings including equitable access to spaces and resources, heating and cooling, bathrooms and bathroom vandalism, and not enough space in cafeterias.
The board also decided on Wednesday to renovate the former Southwest High School site to house a new middle school, to be called South Middle School. KCPS said it needs more space to accommodate incoming sixth graders as it transitions to a sixth-through-eighth-grade middle school structure.
That decision followed an open house and survey on different options for a middle school site. District officials said on Wednesday that $45.1 million of the cost would be funded by April’s bond, but an additional $24.9 million is still needed. Renovations would not start until all of the funding is raised.
Other changes to the August proposal include increasing the cost to move the Success Academy Alternative secondary programs to an existing alternative elementary school facility called Success Academy at Knotts. The additional funding would go towards renovations and an addition to create separate spaces for the elementary and secondary programs.
Budgets went up for other projects, like major renovations at East High School and Lincoln Preparatory Academy, based on community feedback and updated cost estimates. Additional money there would go toward expanding or relocating East High’s cafeteria and funding athletics at Lincoln Prep.
Costs to relocate George Washington Carver Dual Language School to a renovated building on the Paseo Academy campus increased, and costs to move George Melcher Elementary to the former Carver building decreased, based on updated assessments and differing square footage at each building.
The King Empowerment Campus, one of the district’s new construction projects for a K-5 elementary school, would be funded through a different, $100 million certificate of participation bond that the district would pay back over time, not the April bond.
Students from King Elementary, Richardson Early Learning Center, and the special education program at Wheatley Elementary School would move to the new building, which would also house community resources.
Other parts of the plan haven’t changed since the August draft, including a plan to build another K-5 elementary school called the Woodland Empowerment Campus.
The Woodland Campus, at 711 Woodland Ave., would house the district’s Global Academy, Woodland Early Learning Center, and Whittier Elementary, all currently in buildings with low condition and environment scores.
The Lykins Neighborhood Association started a petition last week urging the school board to keep Whittier open, citing concerns about the empty building that would be left behind. As of Wednesday evening, it had more than 150 signatures.
Residents highlighted the school’s diverse student population and the number of different languages they speak at home. It’s also one of the district’s higher performing schools.
Lykins residents at Wednesday’s meeting called on the district to consider keeping the school open or moving it and other programs to another location within the Lykins Neighborhood.
“We are very impoverished and folks are … they've already been displaced, so let's try to do that as less as possible,” said Angie Curtis, a social worker and executive director of the Lykins Neighborhood Association.
District officials said they looked at the alternative site offered by the neighborhood association, but decided the Woodland Campus was the best opportunity for students. Shannon Jax, a district consultant, said there are now plans to work with the neighborhood to prevent more vacant land and closed buildings.
Other plans that didn’t change include moving programs at the Manual Career Technical Education Center to Central High School, which district leaders said has the space for renovations and additions to support a modern CTE program.
The district also still recommends moving the African-Centered College Preparatory Academy to the former Satchel Paige Elementary School building.
What’s next?
The district will establish what it’s calling a “Speaker’s Bureau” by Dec. 20 to train ambassadors to promote the bond to community members. Those promotion efforts will begin in January with more community meetings, engagement events and bus tours highlighting district sites that would be impacted by the bond.
“It's taking the message of good news, of great things happening, and taking it on the road,” said Nicole Collier-White, the district’s chief communications and community engagement officer. “Because people still think who we are 30, 40, 50 years ago. And that's not the achievement that we're doing every single day in KCPS.”
