Blue Valley School District

Gavriela Geller, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Bureau and the American Jewish Committee, says that more education is needed to combat antisemitism in Kansas City communities.

Riley Long, a high school teacher in the Blue Valley School District, is taking his passion for educating outside of the classroom to help others learn how to be better trans allies.

Noor Haideri, a 16-year-old high school junior from Overland Park, won first prize and a $250,000 college scholarship from the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, for a science video she created about blue light and how it disrupts our sleep cycle.

Multiple Kansas City-area schools have reported incidents of racist vandalism and discriminatory comments in recent weeks. "We have to talk about white supremacy being normalized in these districts," says Kansas City Defender founder Ryan Sorrell.

Her son is out of the hospital now, she said, but her family and other families with transitioning kids continue to face educational, bureaucratic and political minefields.

Petition organizers with Blue Valley for All took exception to recent tweets from school board member Jim McMullen, which the organization said were transphobic.

The flood of new COVID-19 cases has made it practically impossible for county officials and school nurses to keep up with the task of tracking down who an infected person may have been in contact with.

More suburban school districts are talking about diversity and inclusion, but their Black students say they continue to face racism and discrimination.

Many Kansas City area students will not be required to mask up when they return to class this week despite concerns about the rise in COVID-19 cases.

In Johnson County, the normally nonpartisan school board races were more contentious than years past. Only Shawnee Mission voters selected moderate candidates to their school board.

City Council veteran Curt Skoog will face off against political newcomer Mike Czinege in a race to choose a replacement for Carl Gerlach, who has been mayor for 16 years but decided to step down.

In Blue Valley and other districts, school board races that previously were tame affairs are increasingly lit up by hot-button national issues, including schools’ efforts at addressing race and diversity.