Elle Moxley

Clay County Sheriff Sgt. Scott Archer walks down the hallway of Antioch Middle School and claps two blocks of wood together.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The sound of simulated gunfire always gets Chris Edman’s blood pumping. Immediately, she and the other North Kansas City teachers Archer has trained begin to barricade the door with tables, chairs, filing cabinets, even a mini-fridge.

The past president of the Lee’s Summit school board says it will be hard for the district to attract qualified superintendent candidates after parting ways with the last two leaders.

“We are not a desirable destination district for quality candidates if they can expect to get treated the same way the community has treated superintendents in the past few years,” Terri Harmon, who was on the school board when Dennis Carpenter was hired in 2017, wrote in a letter to current board members this week.

A lawsuit filed in Jackson County circuit court earlier this month says the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District mishandled a sexual assault that was reported at one of the middle schools.

According to court documents, a female student identified as Jane Doe was raped in the boys' bathroom off the gymnasium at Bernard Campbell Middle School after school and sports practices on December 1, 2017.

Dennis Carpenter, the embattled Lee’s Summit superintendent who clashed with the school board over an equity plan, has resigned.

Carpenter, the district’s first black superintendent, received a one-year contract extension in March and will leave with $750,000, a portion of which will be paid by insurance. Details of the agreement have not been released yet.

Kansas City schools issued more suspensions in 2018 than in 2015, according to a new citywide analysis from Turn the Page KC.

That’s despite a national reckoning with how students of color are disciplined versus their white peers.

“Missouri as a state, unfortunately, has a really high and disproportionate number of black boys that are suspended out of school each year,” said Annie Watson, the director of early education and parent success for Turn the Page. “What we see is that trend is certainly accurate at the local level.”

In a terse meeting that lasted just five minutes on Wednesday evening, the Lee’s Summit R-7 Board of Education approved a contract for staff diversity training.

It’s the same contract the same board rejected a month ago as racial tensions in the affluent suburb reached fever pitch. Three board members – Julie Doane, Kim Fritchie and Mike Allen – switched their no votes to yes after the district brought in a mediator from the Missouri School Boards Association. Only Judy Hedrick voted against the plan.

Leaders of Symphony in the Flint Hills, an organization whose main event is an annual outdoor concert by the Kansas City Symphony that draws as many as 7,000 people, canceled the event this weekend after storms damaged the site of the performance.

“As all of us know who live in the Midwest, the environment determines the terms of our culture, and boy did that happen today,” said Leslie VonHolten, executive director of the Symphony in the Flint Hills, in a short video posted to Facebook on Saturday.

Student plaintiffs from a National School Walkout lawsuit have received their letters of apology from the Shawnee Mission School District.

The letters were part of the settlement the students reached with the district earlier this year, said Lauren Bonds, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.

Thirty-two seniors from DeLaSalle Education Center received their diplomas Friday, marking the first time the charter high school has graduated every student who started the year as a twelfth grader.

The Lee’s Summit school board remains deeply divided over issues of race and equity, a week after voting down a plan to bring in consultants for diversity training.

At a tense work session Wednesday night, newly elected board member Mike Allen accused the district’s first black superintendent, Dennis Carpenter, of only caring about black students.

Carpenter responded, “I will not let you do this. Tell me when I said I was here for the black kids only.”

Both traditional public schools and charters in Kansas City are increasingly segregated, expensive to run and losing high school students, according to a new report from the Kansas City Public Schools.

KCPS is calling it a “system” analysis because it looks at charter schools as well. (Charter schools are public schools that operate independently of KCPS.) Think of it as a snapshot of 20 years of education choice in Kansas City.

Parents in the Shawnee Mission School District say students are spending too much time on their iPads, and they don’t think administrators are taking their concerns seriously.

“We asked for a comprehensive review,” said Gretchen Shanahan, one of the parents who's serving on the district's digital learning task force. “We asked for data, and the response we got from administrators was that would be a step backward when we need to move forward.”

A $30 million investment at Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas, will mean more classroom space and state-of-the-art technology for students.

“What we’re doing now is creating the first-rate education that our students are getting because we’ve always been in hand me downs,” Donnelly College President Monsignor Stuart Swetland said.

Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell has signed another three-year contract.

Approving the contract was the last act of the outgoing, nine-member school board, which met in closed executive session before Wednesday’s board meeting when the new, seven-member board was sworn in.

Kansas City voters have rejected Mayor Sly James’ plan to pay for universal pre-K for 4-year-olds with a three-eighth-cent sales tax.

Lee’s Summit voters will pick two new school board members Tuesday in an election that could be a referendum of the district’s equity and inclusion work.

The seven-member school board unanimously approved an equity plan in February, and last month they offered Superintendent Dennis Carpenter a one-year contract extension.

Kansas City Neighborhood Academy, the only charter school sponsored by the Kansas City Public Schools, will close at the end of the school year, leaving 140 students and their families to find seats at other schools.

Parent Elizabeth Behrens said there were no warning signs that the school was in trouble until this week, when a letter went home saying that the board would vote Wednesday on the future of the school.

Updated, 2:53 p.m. Thursday: Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declared a state of emergency Thursday, following flooding along the Missouri River.

Thursday morning the river breached a levee near Winthrop, Missouri, across from Atchison, Kansas. 

Families of prospective charter school students who used a common application have received their offers and will have until March 22 to pick their top choice on School App KC.

Sixteen of Kansas City’s 22 charter schools agreed to use a common application for the first time this year. Families submitted 4,300 applications for 2,500 students, said Leslie Kohlmeyer, the director of programs for Show Me KC Schools.

Kohlmeyer said families who applied to more than one charter in previous years would have to keep calling different schools to find out their status.

Students in Kansas City Public Schools will ride to school next year on new propane-fueled buses, part of a three-year, $60.6 million transportation contract with Student Transportation of America.

“We’re very excited about that,” said Linda Quinley, chief financial officer for the district, after the school board voted to approve the contract Wednesday night.

Blue Valley will promote deputy superintendent Tonya Merrigan into its top job.

But Merrigan won’t move into her new position right away. She’ll spend the next 17 months learning from outgoing superintendent Todd White.

“I’ll get to really understand the legislative process,” Merrigan said. “I get to spend time analyzing and working on the budget – areas I haven’t had as much opportunity to work with.”