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By JOE ROBERTSON, The Kansas City Star
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How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
For high school musicians at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, the chance of a lifetime requires something more than the “practice, practice, practice” punch line of the classic New York joke.
It’s donations, donations, donations.
The band’s booster club has figured the Kansas City School District program needs $75,000 to send nearly 50 players and their instruments to perform in the grand concert venue next spring.
Most of the cost covers the $1,200-per-student fee charged by the producers of the event, which includes a multiple-night stay in a hotel, a harbor cruise around the Statue of Liberty and tickets to the observation deck of the Empire State Building.
“I knew Carnegie Hall is a musician’s dream,” said Lincoln senior and clarinetist Marshonda Willingham. When the band’s director, Ron Martz, told them they had all been invited to go, she said, “We were going to do whatever we had to do to get there.”
The invitation admittedly is a pricey proposition, said Brad Cooper, the instrumental conductor in residence at MidAmerica Productions, which produces the concerts. But the chance to go is a high honor, Cooper said. MidAmerica Productions has been booking programs at Carnegie Hall for 25 years.
The amateur performers do pay to play, but the producers judiciously seek out the nation’s top talent, he said.
Lincoln snagged MidAmerica’s attention after two of its members auditioned and earned seats on the national wind ensemble two years ago. Four more Lincoln students sent audition tapes last year, and their quality prompted Cooper to ask Martz to send a tape of the entire ensemble.
“I told him if the rest of the band is half as good as these, we need to talk,” Cooper said. “We have a reputation for high-quality concerts. We’re really looking for a certain quality.”
MidAmerica’s artistic director, Peter Tiboris, started the production company in 1984 after he had been part of a college choir that performed in Carnegie Hall. He thought others should have the same opportunity.
Tiboris, a choral conductor, originally began producing choral concerts, bringing in groups to fill open dates on Carnegie’s calendar. Curious local audiences began joining in alongside the expected following of family and friends who traveled to hear the concerts.
After the series of concerts had been established for several years, New York Times arts critic John Rockwell weighed in on MidAmerica’s setup, finding the concerts to be Carnegie-worthy — for amateurs.
“This apparatus evokes a withering cynicism in some observers,” he wrote, “with Mr. Tiboris portrayed as an exploiter of naïve provincials.”
But the emphasis on daring repertoire and the careful selection and preparation of its amateurs seemed to work, Rockwell said.
Lincoln, which will be one of three musical groups on the Carnegie playbill, comes with an impressive pedigree. For 12 consecutive years it has earned straight 1’s, the highest score in Missouri’s state championships.
“Everyone has a drive to do really well,” bassoonist Steven Johnson said. “This band has such a high esteem. It’s goal-oriented.”
Band members had just finished working on Frank Ticheli’s “Vesuvius” for their upcoming winter concert that probably will be on their Carnegie playbill.
Lincoln’s musicians deserve their chance to play, Martz said.
“They have that inside thing that music brings to people,” Martz said. “It has to come from within. We give them the tools, but they earn the success.
“How many inner-city schools have this opportunity?”
Raising the money
So far, the Lincoln band boosters have raised about $30,000 of the $75,000 or more needed to get the band and its instruments to Carnegie Hall in April, said booster president Vicki Noteis.
They’ve been working concession stands, sending out mailings, holding wine and cheese events and simply passing the hat at performances.
“We’re going to do whatever possible to get them there,” Noteis said.
To help, go to the boosters’ Web page, www.lcpabands.org, or send donations to LCPA Band Boosters, c/o LCPA Bands, 2111 Woodland Ave., Kansas City, MO 64108.
To reach Joe Robertson, call 816-234-4789 or send e-mail to jrobertson@kcstar.com. | 12/3/2008 | |
The Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
October 8, 2008
Revival of KC school band fills air with music, dreams
If you think Keenan Griffin and friends are turning heads now, just wait.
This is just crossing the street — with bass drums pounding in flourishes. Brass horns glinting in the after-school sunlight. Fifty marchers in all.
Cars ease to a stop. A man leaning against a bus-stop sign turns and stares. Football players in shorts on the green field across from Central High School raise their white-helmeted heads from their huddles.
They’re all witnessing a piece of American culture that has been missing from Kansas City School District neighborhoods for most of a decade or more: a marching band swarming to practice.
“People in the neighborhoods are watching us,” Paseo Academy senior and piccolo player Brandi Bell would say later.
The teenagers come from high schools across the district — schools that have no marching bands of their own. The students are already anticipating a heart-swelling moment when the All City Band takes the field for the first time Friday night at Southeast High School.
It goes beyond simple fairness. It’s more than giving students chances for scholarships and musical experiences they should have had all along.
“It’s going to be the big high school thing,” said Griffin, a Central senior. “People screaming in the stands like you see on TV with all of us kids from the inner city.
“Just wait …”
Students were already getting excited when members of the band just from Central played at a school pep rally days before. And that was a handful of players. A couple of big drums.
“Just wait until they hear us all.”
Said Westport High senior Michael Turner: “We’re going to rock the show.”
Dawn Bowles, a dynamo from the East Coast, is the director marshaling this musical force.
Other concert band leaders, including Bill Griesbach at Central and Osmond Fisher at Northeast and East high schools, are helping in the district’s campaign, Bringing Bands Back. The district has launched starter bands in those high schools, plus Westport, to add to the district’s performing arts ensembles at Paseo Academy and the full band at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy.
The band directors also are working with students in the middle grades, growing interest that they believe will enable each high school to have its own marching band again within two or three years.
“I feed off of this,” said Bowles, who has experience reviving programs in schools like Kansas City’s where uniforms from past marching band glory have moldered in closets.
“Attennnnnn-hutt!” she hollers across the players arrayed on the practice field.
They snap to, barking back in strict rhythm, “K! C! Mo!”
They know the music, she would say later. They’ve been working it “over and over until they got sick of the notes on the page.” Now they’re blending it with the marching, learning rotations and kaleidoscope movements.
“A lot of these students have never even seen a marching band before unless they saw the movie ‘Drumline,’ ” she said.
Because bands are coming back, students are enriching their post-secondary plans — like Bell, who now sees herself majoring in music, or Griffin, who imagines bringing his jazz and culinary arts together in New Orleans, or Central senior Ashley Linnabary, who figures that a music scholarship would help her study nursing.
Bell notices something else, too.
She is a Paseo student, looking out across a field of students from Central, Northeast, East …
“With all the school rivalries, people can see us here together, getting along,” she said.
They’re also enriching their communities. Stirring alumni.
“This is the way high school is supposed to be,” said Michael Wilson, a Central science teacher and trumpeter who was walking with the band to the practice field.
Wilson, whose mother teaches at Central, used to sit in with Central’s band in the early 1990s when he was a student. When he came back as a teacher five years ago, he was dismayed to find the school’s program had died. He’s volunteering now, helping the band directors.
“I want to see it back,” he said. “Something is missing from school without it.”
On the field, Bowles is shouting out the marching commands. The band members shout them back.
“Mark time eight! Forward march eight! Left slant eight and freeze!”
A whistle blasts, the drums sound and the marchers set to their paces.
“It’s been a long time,” Raphael Nixon says. He’s watching from the stands, a Central graduate last May who was part of the new Central band, but never got to march.
Their band director raised the idea and he and other students jumped at it. But they didn’t have enough marchers yet. He watches the combined band, with so many Central members and more on the way from the middle school next year.
“This is wonderful,” he says. “I’m proud of Central now.”
Calling band alums
The Kansas City School District is gathering the names and schools of band alumni. Those wanting to share their band experience or who are interested in supporting the revival effort can send a note to bringing bandsback@kcmsd.net
@ Go to KansasCity.com for video and more photos of students preparing for an all-city high school marching band. | 10/8/2009 | | Fox 4 News
November 23, 2008, 7 - 9 a.m.
Reaching 4 Excellence: Lincoln Senior Stands Out Among Standouts
KANSAS CITY, MO -- Every week FOX 4 News salutes young achievers in academics, the arts, leadership, community service, career exploration and/or overcoming obstacles.
This week we are spotlighting a young man with big goals and dreams who fires on most, if not all, of those cylinders.
Omar Safir is Reaching 4 Excellence as a senior at the Kansas City Missouri School District's nationally-acclaimed college prep high school, Lincoln Academy.
At a lot of high schools, Latin probably isn't high on the list of favorite classes, if it's there at all. But at Lincoln Academy, Latin is a big hit, especially for students aiming for a boost in Pre-Med or Pre-Law in college. And it sure is popular with Omar Safir, whose love of Roman and Greek mythology first got him taking Latin in middle school.
"It gets fun and you get to read and translate stories that were read thousands of years ago," says Omar. Omar's been a champion in state Latin contests and goes all out for one of the fun events, the costume competition, dressing up as characters from mythology or Roman history.
"Like this year," says Omar, "it's Cerberus which is a three headed dog that actually guarded the underworld. And so I'm probably going to dress up as him this year. I won the past two years."
"He's really a smart kid," says Lincoln Academy Latin teacher Suzanne Clizer. "I've had him for four years and I've seen Omar just mature to become a really bright kid, a really good kid. He's got great potential. I know he can do anything he wants to do."
Omar comes up big in all aspects of school including athletics and leadership. Among other things he was a captain of Lincoln's league championship football team this year. And in the arts, Omar found an unexpected niche for achievement.
"I've discovered that I'm more creative than I thought I was," Omar says with a laugh. He's in his third year working in the photography unit of MyARTS, the youth arts and entrepreneurship program that's part of the Jackson County COMBAT anti-drug program.
"I got interested in it because I needed a job," says Omar, again with a laugh. "I came in and ever since then I've been hooked on photography."
At Lincoln Academy, a Missouri Gold Star School for 2008 for academic excellence, Omar has become a standout among standouts. Already with a mountain of impressive accomplishments amassed during his first three years here, he's saved his best for last, a breakout senior year.
The springboard was a trip in June to the United States Military Academy. Omar was selected to attend the prestigious West Point Summer Leaders Seminar for outstanding high school rising seniors.
"It eventually hit me while I was there that I was among some of the top students and young people of our country," says Omar. That's a label that suits Omar very well.
And now, in his quiet moments, like when he's creating beautiful photos at MyARTS, Omar is starting to focus on whether his photo and story will be on the wall of honor in Lincoln Academy's Alumni Room along with those of the scores of Lincoln graduates who have become extraordinary successes.
"I definitely would like to be remembered here at Lincoln and in the city and my community period," says Omar.
Omar is on his way. The next step for Omar reaching that goal of being on the wall of honor at Lincoln is college. Right now he's working hard to line up scholarships to get into and pay for a top academic university where he also hopes to play football.
FXO 4 News is Working 4 You to spotlight outstanding young people and their positive accomplishments. In our weekly report called Reaching 4 Excellence we meet young achievers in subjects like academics, the arts, leadership, community service, volunteerism, career exploration, overcoming obstacles and heroism.
Watch for Reaching 4 Excellence every Wednesday on FOX 4 News at 9 p.m. and every Thursday on FOX 4 News at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Phil Witt, FOX 4 News | 11/23/2008 | | The Kansas City Star
By JILL SEDERSTROM
October 14, 2008
At poetry jams, teens are making themselves heard
They may not be old enough to vote, but two Kansas City high school students have still found a way to make their voices heard.
Friends Taylor Brown and Robert Brown are regulars at the jazz poetry jams held each month at The Blue Room. The teens, who are known as the Brown Bombers, perform pieces on politics, conservation, culture, self-image and current events from their own perspective as teenagers growing up in Kansas City.
The Jazz Poetry Jams have always attracted seasoned spoken word artists and adults in the community since the event began about five years ago. But Glenn North, education specialist at the American Jazz Museum, said it wasn’t long before teenagers started getting involved, too.
“High school students just started popping up and we found there are some very talented young people in Kansas City,” he said.
Taylor Brown, a student at Paseo Academy, said she has always been opinionated and wanted to find a creative outlet to express herself.
She started by reading a self-written poem at one of the museum’s annual events called Young, Gifted and Black. Although she was a bit nervous at first to share her thoughts with an audience, she enjoyed the experience and soon began attending the monthly jazz poetry jams.
She got friend Robert Brown interested in the event, too. Now the pair works as a team to develop material. They perform alone or together.
“She brings the culture and I bring the more spiritual pieces,” Robert said.
The pair’s main goal is to speak out and have their voices heard.
“I think too many times teenagers and their views and opinions aren’t heard,” Robert said.
The two were also part of a team of five teenagers who competed in a national teen poetry slam called Brave New Voices this summer in Washington, D.C. The team took home eighth place.
Taylor Brown said one of the best parts about the experience was meeting other teenagers from across the world just like herself.
“It was amazing,” she said.
North said the museum, which sponsors the jazz poetry jams, has encouraged teenagers to become a part of the event because it allows them to explore the relationship between poetry and jazz, while finding their own voices.
“It gives them the opportunity to express themselves creatively,” North said. “It definitely builds their self-esteem.”
He also said teenagers who participate in the spoken word open-mic night competitions often become more socially and publicly aware and become more active in the community.
“On many different levels spoken word is just a great way for young people to become productive citizens,” he said.
For Robert Brown and Taylor Brown that has meant volunteering at Barack Obama rallies, protesting the No Child Left Behind Act while in Washington and promoting conservation efforts.
Robert Brown said poetry has also give him the chance explore his views and thoughts and determine what he wants to change in himself.
“Sometimes you look down on the paper and you didn’t ever realize you were feeling that,” he said.
Jazz Poetry Jams has become so popular among teenagers – about five out of the 17 poets that perform each night are teens – that North is currently working on developing a teen version of the event.
He hopes to start the teenager-friendly version in 2009 and said it will give the museum the opportunity to reach out to more youth in the area.
The museum also offers workshops for young people interested in learning more about poetry and many veteran performers help mentor the students.
“They uplift teenagers,” Taylor Brown said. “It’s wonderful.”
Regardless of age, North said the monthly Jazz Poetry Jams are a unique outlet for those in the community of all experience levels to let their voices be heard.
“I think that with everything that is going on in the world, I think people are really hungry for the truth and as spoken word artists that is really what we are trying to get at,” North said.
THE DETAILS
•Jazz Poetry Jams are held the third Tuesday of every month in the Blue Room, 1616 E. 18th St., beginning at 7 p.m. Each session includes a performance from the house band, performance by a guest poet and an open-mic competition. Admission, $5.
•On October 21, Jazz Poetry Jams will feature guest poet Karen Muhammad. | 10/14/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
September 27, 2008
Lots of firsts experienced at the American Royal Parade
Never mind that marchers and riders have been putting on American Royal parades for 83 years.
And forget that the Wentworth Military Academy and Junior College band has led every one of them.
For 19-year-old Lindsay Heise, Wentworth’s drum major, Saturday was American Royal Parade No. 1.
“Mildly nervous?” she offered, considering her rookie task of setting the cadence for the thousands arraying behind her on foot, horseback, wagons and various unconventional sets of wheels.
For all its tradition, the American Royal Parade is always initiating rookies.
Like City Councilwoman Melba Curls — not a newcomer per se — but risking going on horseback for the first time.
“I’m trying to be calm,” she said, having been instructed that a calm rider helps foster a calm horse.
Chuck McKellips — no rookie at all — brings in horses from his Raymore ranch and pairs them up with the increasing number of civic and political types who ride near the front in the “Chairman’s Posse.”
“We show ’em the reins, how to hold ’em, stop ’em, control ’em — and not to kick ’em,” McKellips said.
In all, about 130 organizations filled the two-hour parade with marchers, high-steppers, tractors, riders, dancers, drummers, giant fiberglass cows, a walking spinal column, antique fire engines, funeral hearses, a military cannon, ghoulish haunted house dancers and, of course, tiny bah-ooga-ing cars.
This parade — with its route from Crown Center to 14th and Main streets, the waving crowds bunched along the curb and the brilliant blue skies — was exactly the opportunity director Dawn Bowles had in mind for her rookie band.
The Kansas City School District’s All City Band gathered musicians from a collection of schools that are working to revive marching bands, putting them into one group so they can get marching experience like this.
“This is my first time in a parade and I love it,” said Angel Walker, a clarinetist and junior at Central High School.
She’d seen other bands that were in the parade, watching how “they are crisp and on point.”
Some of the more raucous bands, with their drill teams and drum lines, brought Kansas Citian Ernest Conway’s children dancing off the curb.
This was the first American Royal for them. But not for Dad.
His 7-year-old, Precious, was hopping, saying, “I like the cheerleaders. I like the bands.”
And 6-year-old Muestafa, twisting, said, “I like the drums.”
Conway found the old favorite parade of his childhood renewed in his kids.
“Now they’re seeing the excitement,” he said. “The fun of being here.”
Every year, it feels fresh, Landon Rowland said. He and his wife, Sarah, served as the parade’s grand marshals.
Over the years, some people have tried to resist the city’s agricultural heritage, Rowland said, but the heritage celebrated in the American Royal instead keeps bringing the city together.
“The crazy American Royal has a way of reviving us,” Rowland said, “at the same time reaching out to all these newcomers.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Parade winners
•First place band: F.L. Schlagle Marching Band
•Second place band: Gardner Edgerton High School Band
•Third place band: Muskegon Heights High School Tiger Band
•First place drill team: Marcus DeWayne Thomas/Missouri Steppers
•First place saddle unit, adult: Saddle & Sirloin
•Second place saddle unit, adult: Midwest Performance Riders
•First place saddle unit, youth: Rocking M Miniatures
•First place float: Grumke Geary Broekemeier Family Float
•Second place float: Reflections of Polynesia
•Third place float: Campfire USA Heartland Council
•First place specialty unit: Kansas City Terminal Railway
•Second place specialty unit: Greater Kansas City Two Cylinder Club
•Third place specialty unit: Meyers Funeral Chapel
•Media award: KCTV5/MyKSMO
•President’s award: Linda Younghanz, the “Bucket List” woman whose longtime dream of riding in the parade inspired this year’s theme, “Royal Reflections.” | 9/27/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By CANDACE BUCKNER
September 20, 2008
A familiar face is patrolling the sidelines at Westport High — demanding, cajoling, winning
Dan Stanley has everything he needs: Gatorade containers; white socks; a manila folder partially covered in hand-written notes; keys to the equipment tool shed near the Westport High School practice field; and a perfect, sunny day for football.
Now all he needs is his team.
It’s 10 a.m. — time for practice. But too many of his varsity starters are watching the city streets fly by from the windows of their metro buses, their football shoes and jock straps in hand. Stanley needs them here now, but he can’t wait.
“All right! Total dedication,” Stanley says, his raspy voice echoing off the concrete borders.
He bends forward — his 72-year-old bones won’t allow him to stand up straight anymore — makes eye contact with the young faces staring back at him and begins to count.
“One, two, three, four.”
Stanley doesn’t need to count much higher. Only eight players stand before him. And these boys have a game to play in three days.
Welcome back, coach Stanley.
“We’ve got a pretty big hill to climb over here,” he says.
• • •
Forty-four years ago, Dan Stanley never had to worry about such things. In 1964, Stanley taught city boys how to play football. Back then, his biggest problem was keeping his linemen from turning into one of the wannabes smoking cigarettes outside the corner malt shop.
“He teaches you to be a good man,” says Michael Bennett, who played for Stanley at Westport in the ’60s. “I was one of those at-risk kids. If I hadn’t had good role models like coach Stanley, I could’ve gone by the wayside.”
Stanley could reach those boys. Like them, he grew up in the city. He wanted nothing more than to make young men feel proud of themselves, and he knew football was just the trick.
“To me, a football play that is executed perfectly is like a symphony that I’m hearing. It’s like poetry to me,” Stanley often says. “I don’t like poetry, but I like to see a football play.”
After five years at Westport, Stanley was lured away to the suburbs, starting up the Winnetonka program. He reintroduced the single-wing offense, the quirkiest thing you’ll ever see on the football field next to the ol’ Statue of Liberty play, and won many games with it.
The ’90s came and the number of players started falling, then losses followed. Stanley retired in 1994 after 25 seasons. But he couldn’t stop coaching. He went to the college ranks in Marshall, Mo., where he led his alma mater, Missouri Valley College.
He retired in 2002 to tend to his wife, Claudine, the love of his life. Decades earlier, they had met at a house party. She knew he was all about football even then, because he talked her ear off about his Missouri Valley coach, Volney Ashford. Somehow, she thought that was cute. But when she suffered a brain aneurysm, Stanley gave up football — for a while.
Again, he couldn’t stop coaching. Stanley followed an old friend to Shawnee Mission North, then a former player of his to Pembroke Hill to work on their staffs. Those men, Stanley respected. He loved the kids he coached. His wife was out of the hospital and slowly recovering. Stanley had a good life.
“But it was never what he really wanted,” Claudine Stanley says.
He could have easily finished his career as the wise, old assistant. After all, he was long past retirement age. The golf course was waiting.
But …
“Dan Stanley is football,” Pembroke Hill coach Sam Knopik says. “You can’t get what you are out of your system.”
Stanley needed to be a head coach again. After all that time in the ’burbs, Stanley was compelled to go home. The city was calling him back.
“When the suburban schools were beating the city schools, it always bothered me,” Stanley says. “The athletes are here in the city as well as the suburbs, but the programs have fallen down.”
• • •
Forty-four years later, Stanley’s back where he started — at Westport High. He’s grayer and shorter, but the challenge is greater.
“Now I’m back in high school,” Stanley says, “and my head’s turning a little bit.”
Things sure have changed around Westport. There’s a metal detector that every visitor must pass through — they didn’t need that 44 years ago. Stanley also discovered little reminders of his past. On his first day back, he recognized the same blocking sled from four decades ago.
Flashing a smile and carrying nearly a lifetime of experience, Stanley walked past the metal detector and into the school auditorium to meet his team for the first time. They were wearing school uniforms: white and blue shirts with collars and khakis. He was wearing a blue and gold pinstriped shirt with a collar and khakis, and he still looked nothing like them.
“A lot of guys didn’t expect a white guy to be our coach,” Westport senior John Claybourne recalls. “People were thinking, ‘We’ll probably run him off.’ The majority of the school is African-American, and then here comes this new guy walking in. And he was older, too.”
The skeptics thought he was nuts. Why come here when the football team hadn’t won a game since 2006? He has no feeder program, no booster club and no lockers in the locker room. And a budget? What budget? According to Westport athletic administrator Wanda Comeaux, the school gets $2,000 from the Kansas City School District to spend on all athletics. Every other dollar comes from fundraisers. So far this school year, there has been just one fundraiser for the football team.
Stanley must tiptoe around the giants, so he would never publicly complain about the perceived shortcomings in the program. He proclaims how much he loves Westport every chance he gets. But the challenge he faces every day is clear for anyone to see.
Bennett, the retired high school English teacher who returned to Westport to work as Stanley’s assistant coach, sighs.
“I don’t know too many football coaches who take kids to the doctor and pick them up to go to 7-on-7 games,” Bennett says. “I always believed that coach Stanley will die on our football field. It’s in his blood. Winnetonka didn’t know what they lost, and I hope Westport knows what they’ve gained.”
With the help of his son and coaching friends, Stanley spent the summer repainting the locker room, installing locks on storage doors and running up his daytime minutes to call players. Those acts, plus his passion on the football field, turned his teenage skeptics into believers.
“I was thinking in a week or two after he started with us, he was going to quit,” senior Ernest Collier remembers from that first meeting. “But he proved me wrong.”
“I could tell he was putting his heart into it.”
• • •
Back at that sunny, morning practice, players eventually trickle in. Stanley got his team. Now they had to face another city school, the Northeast Vikings.
At that game, Westport plays a raw brand of football and falls behind early. Then Claybourne, the scrawny tailback whom Stanley loves, scatters in and out of traffic before finally getting pushed into the end zone. Claybourne runs back to the sideline, his right arm hanging limp, and faints. The next series, injured shoulder and all, Claybourne was back on the field. He stays in because he hears Stanley’s voice in his head, saying, “Total dedication.”
Westport scores again, this time with Jeremiah Burns breaking the line after his quarterback, Raymond Banks, bumped into him.
“We called dive right but Banks went left?” Stanley asks an assistant, and then shrugs. “Oh well.”
The boys are smiling. Stanley shakes his legs, doing a funky chicken dance. The clock’s ticking down and the scoreboard reads 20-7 in their favor. It’s the boys’ first win in more than a year. It’s Stanley’s first win at Westport in more than 40 years.
“Westport!” Stanley whoops in the postgame huddle. “It’s the old days all over again!” | 9/20/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
September 24, 2008
Finally, Recess!
Delano playground meets special needs
Click here to watch the Star's video
This kind of stuff never happened when there was nothing but blacktop here.
“Hey! Devin wants to go down the slide!” shouts out Crystal Shakur, a physical therapist assistant at Kansas City’s Delano School.
The boy uses his arms and fists to worm his tiny body into position at the top of the blue slide — atop a long-awaited playset at this school for children with severe disabilities.
Shakur, kneeling behind him on the padded catwalk, hangs on while another teacher gets ready to receive the boy down below — then she lets him go, cheering.
“All right, Devin!”
This is not a physical therapy session, Shakur said, even though Devin Pulce is working on his muscles and his motor skills as he would back inside in a sanitized school room.
He’s out in the sunshine. Laughing.
“This is play.”
Three years had passed since that first financial gift arrived through the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. It was a check for some $42,000 from the Crummett Family Foundation.
It turned out the school at 3708 Linwood Ave. had a regular donor that wanted to remain behind the scenes — a donor that cared for Delano, its mission and its children, Principal Jennifer Malone said.
Malone knew what she thought the school should do with the gift. Her staff, without any prompting, agreed.
“A playground!” she remembers a teacher shouting at a staff meeting.
But this had to be an extraordinary playground.
It needed to accommodate children safely with multiple special needs. It had to be the wonderful playground that Delano’s children deserved.
It had to completely banish the experience of the old blacktop, with the cracks and grass growing through it, and the low-hanging electrical wires stretched above it.
That blacktop was hardly good for anything but kickball, or chasing bubbles, said librarian and media specialist Karen Shelton. And it offered nothing for the many children at the school who can’t run or even walk.
“We had no recess program,” Shelton said.
One hang-up: The new playground was going to cost a whole lot more than $42,000.
Months later, the Crummett Foundation delivered another donation, and the gifts on hand to fund the playground had reached about $100,000. That could cover most of the cost of the equipment. The Kansas City school board approved matching funds to cover the costs of preparing the site.
Many of Delano’s children hadn’t had chances to play on such a playground before. Other park playgrounds were inaccessible to them, or were not safe enough.
They were missing out on the important opportunities to socialize in free play. They didn’t have the same chances to stretch their physical aspirations by watching the feats of other children.
“I can do it,” 5-year-old Sonya Caufield said as she began to follow a couple of schoolmates up one of the playset’s ladders.
The girl, with braces on her legs, explored the idea, then changed her mind this time. But then she was off toward another path to access the catwalk.
“C’mon!” she said, beckoning company as she went. “C’mon! Play with me!”
Meanwhile, teacher Floydetta Baker-Young watched 7-year-old Mohamad Mohamad scale vertical steps to the top platform, cheering him on the way.
“He’s never done that before,” Baker-Young said. “They wouldn’t get this otherwise.”
Many staff member shared similar stories — of the 12-year-old girl who went down a slide for the first time with an adult going alongside her.
Or the 5-year-old boy who finds his peace in the swings, relaxing and smiling.
Or the 6-year-old who resists efforts to get him to stand during therapy, but who wants to stand while on the playground, who loves it.
The playground is more than the kind of recreation that Delano children crave as much as any children, Malone said. Education teams are incorporating the playground into individual education plan goals for their students.
“Every morning I come in I see it,” Malone said. “And I am amazed. I’m so pleased. I’m overwhelmed. This is an extension of our school.”
After a half hour or so, it was time to go inside. Teachers and aides rounded the children up.
Some skipped inside. Some walked. Some went with crutches. Some in wheelchairs.
All of them, though, shone with the flushed, happy faces of children who had just had recess. | 9/24/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
September 24, 2008
Good start for early college campus
Gates Foundation expert visits a KC school with experimental focus.
David Ferraro apologized in advance for the “buzz kill.”
After all, this was a celebration under way Tuesday at the Kansas City School District’s Southwest Early College Campus.
Ferraro, senior program officer for education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, had come along with other local and national players to mark the opening of a daring experiment in urban public education.
Here is a public school, open to all students districtwide, fusing partnerships to propel a math- and science-themed curriculum that promises its graduates a year — even two years — of college credit through the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Driving students toward college careers is all good, Ferraro said. Many of them will be the first in their families to go to college.
“But each of these things comes with a palpable risk,” he said. “… This is based on eight years of hard lessons Gates has learned” as the foundation has invested billions of dollars in support of education reform.
Among them:
•A special school can drive innovation, but not if its lessons do not transfer across its district.
•The school should draw from a full cross-section of the district, but well-intentioned labels like “early college” and “math and science” risk losing students with weaker academic foundations who think, “That’s not for me.”
•The school can uncover new teaching strategies, “but not lose sight of teaching the hard stuff, the nitty-gritty of education mastery,” Ferraro said.
“Don’t create a citadel.”
Principal Steven Scraggs acknowledged the challenges ahead for the school at the former Southwest High School.
He didn’t want to downplay the significance of the school’s opening. Many people have been working as much as three years to get to this point.
PREP-KC, an umbrella organization funded by the Gates Foundation and several local foundations, combined with the school district, UMKC, the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in shaping the school.
It opened this year for sixth- and ninth-graders, enrolling 241 students, with plans to add grades over the next four years.
Several teachers and students met with visitors from the partner organizations and the community to show them how the school is off and running smoothly toward its goals. A great day, Scraggs said.
“But I know the danger of declaring victory too soon,” he said.
The opening was just a step, he said. One victory.
The Princeton, N.J.-based Wilson foundation is beginning to see examples of schools becoming incubators, said Rob Baird, vice president for school and university partnerships.
“That’s our challenge — to capture characteristics that are transportable,” he said.
A network is in place to share what is gained at Southwest.
“It’s not just about this school,” board member Joel Pelofsky said. “We’re going to grow early-college aspirations across the district.” | 9/24/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
September 8, 2008
East’s their direction, after all
Change leads to two high schools sporting “Van Horn” names. What do the students who moved think of it all?
From a cheerleader’s perspective, “Van Horn Fal-cons!” fits all their yells Jas’myn Williams hears in her head. But, “East!...Bears!”? The Kansas City senior winces. Syllables definitely are missing. “Hard to get used to,” she says. And yet, this is a hurdle she is eager to cross if it will help banish the confusion of having two high schools within three miles of each other using nearly the same name.
Having a “Van Horn High School” in Independence and a “Van Horn at East High School” in Kansas City isn’t working, several students agreed. The chaos in the recent boundary change between the Kansas City and Independence school districts has already caused enough hardship. “We’re better off going with ‘East,’ said junior Tyrone Wright. Not that they don’t appreciate the Kansas City School District’s concern.
When voters-and the courts-decided in the past school year to allow the Independence School District to annex western Independence neighborhoods from the Kansas City School District, Van Horn High School was one of seven schools caught in the switch.
Hundreds of Van Horn students-a majority of its student body-had Kansas City addresses. They would no longer attend the high school at the corner of Winner Road and Truman Road in Independence.
This was a distressing development. They were Van Horn. They were Falcons. They wore red.
“When they voted to move, it hurt,” senior Logan Smith said. “We didn’t want to move. We didn’t want to change.”
They would also be separated from friends with Independence addresses who would be staying at Van Horn.
Kansas City determined it would be best to keep the displaced Van Horn students and their teachers together and move them as a group. The school board also decided-and it thought this is what the students wanted-that they should be allowed to keep as much as possible to keep their Van Horn identity.
“We wanted the students to be as comfortable as possible, in light of all the changes they had to endure,” district spokeswoman Cynthia Wheeler-Linden said. “Students said they wanted to be able to graduate with Van Horn on their diplomas.”
Waiting for them was the old East High School building at 1924 Van Brunt Blvd.
East had closed as a high school in 1998 when it was converted into an elementary school. The elementary school this year moved into nearby Rogers Middle School- a newer building that was being vacated as the district phases out several middle schools to convert most of its elementary schools to K-8s.
So the district has “East Elementary at Rogers” and “Van Horn at East High School.”
And to further confuse things, the district created four eight-grade centers for one year only as part of the last transition to K-8s. East High School is also serving eight graders, including most of the Kansas City eight-graders who were displaced from Nowlin Middle School in Independence.
East Principal Tom Herrera shook his head in mock dismay.
“I had a woman in here the other day looking for the Nowlin at Van Horn at East High School students,” he said.
Count the principal among those in favor of the simple name, “East.”
“It’s carved in stone all over the building,” he said.
But any name change from “Van Horn at East High School” would be up to the Kansas City school board.
At times during the often contentious struggle between the Kansa City and Independence districts, rumors swirled that Kansas City wanted to take the Van Horn name with it and force Independence to change the name of its school.
But administrators on both sides said they did not think that was ever really under consideration.
Even some former Van Horn students, as much as they would have liked to keep their name, agreed that made no sense.
“You’d mess up the pasts of both schools,” junior Anthony Johnson said.
It being a game day, Johnson like the rest of the football team, was wearing his white jersey with his number and the lettering “EAST” in green. He wore it willingly and with pride.
At all the school rallies, the students have been shouting out, “Go Bears!” and it really does sound right, Herrera said.
“You could sense from the beginning they were establishing their new identity,” he said.
A sampling of former Van Horn students all said they admire their new school. They have absorbed the history behind the glass cases in the halls with the old East Bears memorabilia.
All of them, when asked which name they wanted, voted for East.
“I’m still a Falcon,” senior Jesus Eguade said. “I miss the red. But green’s OK. This is a good school.”
He held up his empty left hand and pointed with his right where he imagines he’ll have a class ring.
“This side will have a falcon,” he said, “and this side will have a bear.” | 9/8/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
By STEVE PENN
September 18, 2008
Olympic competitor Muna Lee deserves KC's praise
Muna Lee was hanging out at Independence Center earlier this week completing a bit of shopping when a young girl recognized her.
The recognition and reaction startled Lee. Even though she's been to two Olympics and has had her face plastered across TV and newspapers, the sprinter from Kansas City still is getting used to her celebrity status.
"That's weird," Lee said. "I'm sort of famous in a way. But I don't see myself that way."
That's probably because Lee hasn't written the final chapter on her track career yet. There's still much more to prove on and off the track.
Before being showered with adoration from the Kansas City School District, the City Council and the entire student body at Central High School on Tuesday, Lee spoke with me on her future.
The 26-year-old made it clear that the competitive fire still burns. She's not hanging up her track shoes anytime soon.
In fact, she plans to make a run at the indoor track championships, the outdoor championships and then, who knows? Maybe even the Olympics in London in 2012.
But tops on the list right now is a deal Lee has to do a bit of fashion modeling in Atlanta soon.
"For me, that's having fun because I really like fashion," Lee said. "I've figured out how to become happy and comfortable with myself and not worry."
As far as being a role model, Lee relishes that responsibility. But she wants the students who admire her at Central High and across the country to see her as a work in progress.
Earning a college degree for Lee is almost as important as medaling in the Olympics. And while she had an outstanding track career at Louisiana State University, where she was All-America, she left with some unfinished business.
"I haven't finished school yet," Lee said. "But I want to. I realize that a degree is very important. Sports isn't everything. I'm young. And it only lasts so long.
"Through sports, it's made me popular and brought me fame. But after this, I've got to have that degree. It's a big deal."
Lee realizes that the 2012 Olympics in London are a long way off. She'll be 30 when the next games arrive. But she believes in setting goals and striving to reach them. And making it to the next games is one of her goals right now.
Wherever she travels, she never forgets to remind herself that she grew up in the 3500 block of Michigan Avenue.
"I lived within walking distance to the school," Lee said of Central. "It's not the greatest area. But I chose sports so I could get away. I always believe that God gave me these talents. So why waste them?"
The false start controversy in the 100-meter race at the Olympics will be one of her motivating factors. A false start by her teammate definitely distracted her. She ended up fifth in that race.
"I was pretty mad after the race," Lee said. "But my coach told me that was the best race he's seen me run. I really felt good. I know I could have medaled."
While she once re-lived the moment over and over in her mind, today she's come to grips with it.
"It took me a while to understand why it happened. But the more I thought about it, it became a lesson to me.
"I'm still happy about the race because it could have been a lot worse. It feels good knowing that I'm sharp. And those girls know I came from dead last to fifth. I was coming."
Lee has handled her disappointments and triumphs with class and grace. She could have lashed out at her teammate Torri Edwards for the apparent false start. But that wouldn't have been Lee.
During her career, she's shown young people how to win and lose. She's made us all proud.
And if she never wins another race or doesn't make it back to the Olympics, it doesn't matter. Kansas Citians will always consider Muna Lee a winner. | 9/18/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
By MECHELLE VOEPEL
September 17, 2008
Muna Gets Her Day
Olympic sprinter Muna Lee was welcomed back by Central High School on Tuesday. And as she looked out at bleachers filled with kids in the gymnasium where she was once a student herself, she wanted to let them know she didn't think of herself as a "special" guest.
"I'm from right here," she said as they clapped and cheered. "I did everything you all are doing. This is my school; Central High is where I grew up."
Kansas City councilwoman Melba J. Curls, also a Central High graduate, felt moved by Lee's performance in the recent Beijing Olympics to honor another former Eagle. Tuesday, she delivered a proclamation from mayor Mark Funkhouser that Sept. 16 was "Muna Lee Day" in Kansas City.
Hanging on the gym wall was a banner for the track state championship Lee helped win as a senior in 2000. After that, she became an All-American at LSU and has competed in two Olympics. She currently lives and trains in Texas, while her family is now based in Arkansas.
Yet Kansas City is still the place that feels like home to her. And when Lee saw the familiar school building and some of the people who were so important to her development -- including her former track coach Richard Samuels -- a lot of memories flooded back.
Lee laughed and said, "It's kind of weird. Considering how shy I was in school. Who would have ever expected me to be the one to come back and speak? Because I wouldn't even talk in high school."
Lee's message to the students was this: I used to be a kid here just like you. I got to do what I wanted to do, and so can you.
Darius Hicks, a senior who plays quarterback on Central's football team, said he has looked up to Lee since he was 6 years old. He met her while he was getting started on a track team as a child.
"I wasn't doing a drill right, and she got on me," he said. "She was like a big sister. I always knew she was destined for success. She was always a leader. That's what I appreciated about her ever since I met her.
"She shows people here that you can make it. It's all about what you put into it. That's what you get out of it. Apply yourself to what you're doing like she has."
Lee is still doing that. She's looking ahead to resuming her training at the beginning of October and then having success during the indoor and outdoor track seasons in 2009.
"I'm still pretty young," said Lee, who will be 27 on Oct. 30. "I think my body will be pretty sharp when I get back to training. I've set some goals already."
Lee didn't get to bring an Olympic medal back from the Beijing Games, and that was a disappointment for her. She was the 100-meter champion and the 200 runner-up at the U.S. Olympic trials, but finished fifth and fourth, respectively, in those events in China.
In the 100, a false start by teammate Torri Edwards -- who acknowledged after the race she did it -- was not called by the official. Lee, reacting to Edwards in the lane next to her, froze for a split second in the blocks. And that's all it took to cost Lee a shot at the top three.
She said she hasn't been able to bring herself to watch that race yet. Nor does she really want to, because of how much it will make the frustration of that night come back to her.
"But I bet at some point, my coach will make me watch it," Lee said of Vince Anderson, a Texas A&M assistant.
As for the 200, Lee actually was very happy with that race -- even though she missed the bronze medal by one-hundredth of a second. She was pleased because she ran a personal-best time of 22.01 seconds and felt it was kind of a breakthrough performance.
She finished that race on Aug. 21 looking ahead to what she called the most fun part of any track meet: the 400 relay. But then Lee headed to mandatory drug testing and was watching on television as a nightmare unfolded.
Not long after the U.S. men's 400 relay squad dropped the baton on the final handoff and didn't qualify for the final, the U.S. women did the same thing. With that mistake, Lee's last chance at a medal in Beijing was gone. She would have run in the final the next night had the U.S. team qualified.
The Americans were virtually certain to win one of the medals if they'd just gotten the baton around in the qualifying round and the final, because they and the Jamaicans had dominated the 400 relay for the entire 2008 track season.
"That was the one secure medal we felt we had," Lee said. "I was sitting there watching, like, 'Oh, my God.' I was in tears.
"I went back to the Olympic village and hung out with a couple of friends there. We just went to McDonald's and had, you know, like 'depression' food. I got over it."
For her remaining time in China, Lee visited Beijing's famous silk market and walked around other sites in the city with her parents and younger sister, Mecca.
"People there took more pictures of my sister than me," Lee said, chuckling. "She dresses so stylish, I think they thought she was somebody famous."
Lee then went on vacation to try to get her mind off track for a little while. But Tuesday, seeing her roots again at Central High, she was reminded of part of the reason she's going to keep competing.
"I'm happy you guys look up to me," she said to the students. "I motivate myself to do good things for you guys."
@ Go to KansasCity.com for video of Olympian Muna Lee's return to her alma mater, Central. | 9/17/2008 | | The Examiner
By ANDRE RILEY
September 1, 2008
Grain Valley outlasts Lincoln Prep with ground game
Grain Valley, MO — Grain Valley employed some basic math in its 59-41 victory over visiting Lincoln Prep on Friday: Two rushing stars are better than one.
The Eagles used a mix of deft running from quarterback Austin Goldsmith and running back Trace Goad to overcome a huge 310-yard individual rushing effort from Lincoln Prep running back Johnny Hall in a back and forth contest.
The offensive fireworks highlighted a season-opening gridiron battle where both teams flashed moments of dominance.
The uneven performance for Grain Valley – the Eagles scored 28 unanswered points in the second quarter only to fall behind later – is a reflection of the team’s inexperience at multiple positions, said Gouldsmith, a junior.
“We have lots of new guys on offense and defense. It was a good experience to fall behind and still keep our composure,” he said.
Grain Valley’s lack of seasoning showed early as Lincoln Prep dominated the first quarter behind the running of Hall. The senior running back rushed for 62 yards on eight carries, including an 8-yard touchdown run, as the Blue Tigers dominated the time of possession and took an early 7-0 lead. After a Grain Valley three-and-out, Lincoln Prep rode Hall for 27 more yards on five carries before the Eagles forced a punt shortly before the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter belonged to the Eagles. Grain Valley capped an explosive drive with a 2-yard Goade goal line plunge to open the stanza.
The Eagles then turned an interception by David Richards and a fumble recovery on a kickoff into a pair of Gouldsmith short touchdown runs to surge ahead 21-7.
The Eagles would tack on another touchdown on a Richards end zone fumble recovery of a Goade fumble before Lincoln Prep’s Hall scored on a touchdown pass to bring the score to 28-13 at half.
Lincoln Prep withstood the early barrage and stayed competitive, said Lincoln Prep coach Roger Franks.
“I’m proud of my guys. To come out against the No. 2 team in the state last year and hang 41 points on them is great,” Franks said. “We made a lot of mental mistakes but we competed.”
Lincoln Prep opened the second half with a heavy dose of Hall, allowing the running back to tally 46 yards on four carries to narrow the scoring gap. The Blue Tigers were poised to score again before Richards intercepted an errant Tyler Smith pass on the 2-yard line to end the threat.
However, Lincoln Prep would strike again on a 23-yard touchdown run by Hall to make the score 28-25.
Grain Valley Coach Forrest Rovello said inexperience on defense showed.
“We got a lot of young kids starting their first varsity football game. We didn’t want them to get rattled and we wanted to get them into the flow of the football game,” Rovello said. “The defense didn’t play well.”
Lincoln Prep scored on a 65-yard touchdown run by Hall, before Grain Valley responded. The Blue Tigers would score once more, on a Smith 1-yard touchdown, before Gain Valley concluded the game with 21 unanswered points on short touchdown runs by Goade, Gouldsmith and running back Robby Sodano to end the game.
Gouldsmith was pleased with the victory.
“On offense, we made plays when we had to and on defense, we made stops when we had to. It was a good learning experience.” | 9/1/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
September 30, 2008
Teach for America brings 50 young teachers to the metro area
August has delivered a last blast of summer, and only one of the two fans in Morgen Leonard-Fleckman’s un-air-conditioned classroom is working.
This adds a second meaning to the question the Teach for America corps member knows she’s answering for herself as she embarks as a high school chemistry teacher in a Kansas City.
Can I stand the heat?
“Someone let me borrow this one,” she says of the listing, floor-standing fan. “But look what happens when I turn it on.”
It lurches and lets loose a pulsing, grinding scream. She winces cartoonishly and snaps it off.
Outside her open windows at Van Horn at East High School, idling buses load with students. A car waiting in line thumps with heavy bass.
Another day in her first week is finished, and the graduate in biochemistry from Washington University in St. Louis — one of 50 top college graduates from around the nation who Teach for America has trained to serve Kansas City schools for at least two years — is smiling.
Weary. A little flushed by the heat. Frazzled a bit by some of her larger classes.
But smiling.
“I knew classroom management would be the hardest part,” she says.
•••
Ding.
Too many of the sixth-graders in Evan Hendon’s social studies classroom have set off on independent conversations. So he taps the button of a silver bell sitting on a desk beside him at the front of the class.
Four days into his new career, some ground rules need to be clarified.
Ding.
The rowed faces look up now at Hendon, a graduate in political science and American politics from Brown University.
The aspirations and expectations Hendon has for these new students at Kansas City’s Southwest Early College Campus are written in large, handwritten signs Hendon has hung on his walls amid the world maps and college promotions.
Respect your school.
Respect classroom time.
Respect the teacher’s time.
RESPECT YOURSELF.
He wants his students to aggressively guard their purpose for being here. They’ve come to learn, he said. He wants them questioning, debating, feeling respect, unafraid to speak their minds.
That’s why he’s here, standing before them in his neatly trimmed beard, his business tie.
He, like other Teach for America recruits, sidetracked other career plans and endured intense, ongoing training in the belief that he can do this — that he can inspire these children sitting before him.
But first…
“If you don’t bring your notebook, pencil and book to class, you will get a zero for that day,” he says, aiming for that fair but absolutely firm tone of voice. “We can’t keep having people running back to their lockers during class.”
A red-shirted boy raises his hand. His empty desk gives it away that he needs at least one more reprieve. They are, after all, sixth-graders new to the middle-school concept of changing classes.
OK, comes the sympathetic look on Hendon’s face.
“This is the last time.”
•••
Teach for America has established a boastful record in its 18 years, bringing thousands of top college graduates to the teaching profession, many staying beyond the required two years, many going into other careers as advocates for schools and education.
The organization cites numerous studies that show that its corps members mostly match or exceed the performance of other new teachers.
But the job comes with no guarantees.
“What (the studies) are showing is that your first year is very, very difficult, no matter how you come,” said Margo Quiriconi of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
The Kauffman Foundation is backing Kansas City’s partnership with Teach for America because it believes the program is strengthening classrooms in schools around the nation that deal with high levels of poverty and low resources.
However, not everyone is convinced that Teach for America’s condensed training and support can match the four years of preparation that traditional teachers gain in four years of college in education schools.
“It’s too short,” said Steve Case, the director of the University of Kansas’s UKanTeach program, “and they put teachers into the most difficult situations in the country.”
UKanTeach and programs like it recruit students in math, science and engineering while they are in college and enroll them in courses to gain teaching certification at the same time they are earning degrees in their chosen fields.
Both ideas can help, and more, Quiriconi said.
The truth is, Kansas City schools and others in cities across the nation constantly run short of qualified teachers, she said. Any program that brings talented people into teaching who otherwise were heading into other fields will help children.
“We’re too stuck in old paradigms, looking for lifelong teachers who stay until they can get their pension,” she said. “There are different pathways to becoming a teacher.”
Filmmaker Chad Heeter, a Teach for America alum, knows the difficulty of the task lying before Kansas City’s new teachers.
The Shawnee Mission South High School graduate spent two years teaching high school science in Macon, Ga., in the mid-1990s. In a 50-minute class, he figured he usually spent the first 15 minutes getting his students settled and focused, and then found he would begin to lose them in the last 10 or 15 minutes.
“In those 20 minutes in the middle,” he said, “I’d get maybe 10 good minutes of teaching.”
He knows other teachers fared better. He also knows how the Teach for America experience changes lives, even for those alums who venture on into other careers.
Much of Heeter’s filmmaking has been in education documentary, like his film “Two Million Minutes.”
“You become an advocate,” he said, “and that’s powerful in itself.”
•••
No one expects to sail on idealism alone.
Hendon, Leonard-Fleckman and other Kansas City Teach for America corps members describe their training as intense work inside and outside of classrooms.
“It was an extreme experience,” Hendon said. “I was learning about myself. It’s not a game anymore. You’re educating children.”
And the training goes on. Teach for America’s staff is continuing support of its fleet of Kansas City teachers throughout the year.
Leonard-Fleckman said she joined because she was moved by stories Teach for America alums told of their experience, how they believed they helped change lives.
She wants all of the students in her classrooms building expectations for college. Her classroom is going to be one of the places where those ideas are grown.
It’s not going to be easy. Her chemistry classroom has only one sink and no gas. She’s figuring out how she might use hot plates in lieu of Bunsen burners, and contemplating how students will clean their glassware around a single faucet.
“That will be pretty tough,” she says.
But she and her students together have signed pledges for the coming year, marking their aspirations.
On one of her bulletin boards, right beside a designated “College Corner,” she has posted the words “I Can’t” with a broad red slash cutting through them.
It’s meant for her students, but it will serve her, too. | 8/30/2008 | |
Northeast News
July 30, 2008
By Kansas City, Missouri School District
Finishing the race: District honors summer graduates
Sixteen Kansas City, Missouri School District (KCMSD) seniors were honored Wednesday, July 23, 2008, for demonstrating perseverance and dedication.
Seniors from throughout the District received their high school diplomas during summer graduation exercises before family, friends and community members. The group used the summer school session to achieve state and local requirements for graduation. The theme of the commencement was “Raising the bar to excellence.”
The keynote speaker for the event was David McGruder, a Morehouse College student whose oratory credits include speeches at Yale University and Georgetown University. McGruder said the students might have taken longer than expected to achieve their goal, but the important thing is they finished.
“The world is full of great starters but very few are great finishers. We’re here to celebrate the beauty of finishing,” McGruder said. “This is only the beginning. Don't let this be the end.”
KCMSD Board of Directors members Airick Leonard West, Duane Kelly and Helen Ragsdale were in attendance.
The participating graduates, with high schools, include:
§ Jamonica Allen, Central High School
§ Michael Ashley, Central High School
§ Ericka Cook, Southeast High School
§ Todd Edwin, Central High School
§ LaShonda Fowler, Central High School
§ Jasmine Hobley, Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts
§ Michael Holmes, Central High School
§ Allen Martineau, Van Horn High School
§ Cameron McMichael, Central High School
§ Tommie Miler, Central High School
§ Michael Moore, Central High School
§ Minh Pham, Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts
§ Jessica Rieck, Central High School
§ Lynn Truong, Northeast High School
§ Olivia Valerio, Lincoln College Preparatory Academy
§ Wayne Young, Westport High School
| 7/30/2008 | | The Wednesday Sun
By Kurt Kloeblen
July 23, 2008
Southwest reopens doors to new style of student
Click here to read the actual story
In a few short weeks, hundreds of students will start filling the halls of Southwest Early College Campus, 6512 Wornall Road.
The school, which opens its doors Aug. 25, will be unlike other schools in the Kansas City area.
Southwest will draw students with heavy interests in math and science, beginning this year with students in sixth and ninth grades. The school will add one class per year until it is filled by summer 2011.
Through a partnership with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the school will offer dual credit courses.
“Our goal is for students to leave with at least 20 college credits,” Vicki Murillo, assistant superintendent, said.
With 20 college credits, students could enter college as sophomores.
“One of the biggest ovations we’ve gotten from our parents is the fact they won’t have to pay on the college side,” Murillo said. “The dual credit will come on the high school side. And dual credit is much cheaper than on the college side.”
Southwest is open to all students residing in Kansas City School District boundaries. The process will start with 120 students in sixth and ninth grades. Murillo said coursework will be somewhat different from typical high school courses. The curriculum has gone over review in conjunction with UMKC and will test students.
“Some creative work is being done with the curriculum, where we are still meeting state standards and preparing for end-of-course exams, but also looking to bring a more rigorous pace and the hands-on learning will be really strong,” Murillo said.
Southwest will be a popular destination for students and teachers, Murillo said
“I think we will have a waiting list every year,” she said. “We had more than enough applications. We had a number of applications from outside the district of teachers who specifically wanted to work at Southwest.”
Three other partners will give resources to the school: Life Sciences, Prep-KC and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Murillo said Life Sciences will help with science curriculum, Prep-KC will work to help foster the relationship between all partners and Woodrow Wilson will give structure to college-style learning.
“It will be such a diverse school. There will be many different ethnic groups,” Murillo said. “The draw is for students who are really interested in math in science. You have the labs and you have the planetarium sitting right there. It really opens up the school.”
Murillo said the early college concept has a foothold in some parts of the country and has gained popularity in North Carolina with support from the state.
Murillo said Southwest has the ability to challenge other high schools in the Kansas City School District, as well as the private schools.
“We need to redesign how high schools work,” Murillo said. “Students need to graduate our high schools with the skill set for post-secondary experiences. That could be a four- or two-year college, a trade school or technical school. Whichever they choose, we’ve got to figure out how to change our schools so they meet the need of workforce demand.”
Murillo said the school has undergone renovations to prepare for hosting students. The building features a new roof, new carpeting and a clean air-conditioning and heating system. With community help, the school also will receive cosmetic painting and landscape work.
The school’s success will be measured by how students and parents feel when they leave, Murillo said.
“Have they got what they believed their school would be about? How do parents and students feel we serviced them? When a student graduates in four years,” Murillo said, “we want them to say ‘This was a great educational experience.’” | 7/23/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By Mechelle Voepel
June 30, 2008
Lee brings out her best at Olympic trials
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/684906.html
EUGENE, Ore. | Harvey Glance, a USA Track and Field coach who works with sprinters, had just watched the men’s 100-meter race Sunday. He was marveling at what the American athletes had shown here at the Olympic trials and what this could indicate for the Beijing Games.
The men’s and women’s 100 finals were loaded with talent. While the favorite, Tyson Gay, won for the men, it was an underdog — Kansas City’s Muna Lee — who took the women’s race.
However, Glance said that Lee’s victory on Saturday, though surprising, really indicated that one of her biggest strengths was as a sprinter.
“All through the rounds, Muna was being consistent,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
Still, Lee’s victory upset a few apple carts, if you will. Allyson Felix had been the sprinter that NBC most heavily featured in its buildup to the track trials.
Felix, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist in the 200, is the favored pick for this distance next weekend. But the 100 meters is the most celebrated race in track, and Felix won’t be in it.
Neither will Marshevet Hooker, the former Texas standout who had the best time in the preliminaries, the quarterfinals and the semifinals — and then ended up fourth in the final behind Lee, Lauryn Williams and Torri Edwards.
Lee ran a personal-best time of 10.85 seconds to secure her spot in Beijing. It was the first time she had won the 100 at a meet of this caliber. But what Glance said about consistency rang true when you looked at Lee’s career.
At LSU, Lee won the 100 and 200 in the Southeastern Conference championships her freshman year. She was fourth in the 100 at the NCAA outdoor meet that year.
As a sophomore, she won the 100 at the SEC meet again and then was third in the NCAA race. Her junior year and senior years, she finished second in the NCAA 100 final.
Lee’s explosive speed also showed in her 60-meter indoor NCAA title in 2003, when she was a junior.
Williams, who raced against Lee in college, said before these trials that Lee was someone to watch. Injuries had slowed Lee for much of this year, but in recent weeks she had started to feel better and saw things click into place.
After the final, the veteran Edwards also praised Lee: “She ran a really good race, with a strong finish.”
Strength has always been an issue for Lee, a tall, willowy sprinter. Although she did not look it, Lee said she had done important work with weights in recent months.
She credits both the time she spent in Los Angeles working with Bobby Kersee and her move this year to Texas A&M as helping her get to this point. In College Station, she works with Vince Anderson, who before coaching the Aggies was at sprint powerhouse Tennessee for many years.
After her 100 victory here, Lee allowed herself to smile a bit with satisfaction, but she was thinking about getting ready for Beijing.
“I am excited … but the Olympics is still the main thing,” she said. “I can’t jump to say I’m the best right now.”
But maybe in August … she can. | 6/30/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
June 17, 2008
Brittle in body, but not in spirit
Full article & photos:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/neighborhood/kansas_city/story/667338.html
Pamela Chavez knew she’d tossed out a puzzler. Her impish teenaged smile showed it.
“I like to dance,” she declared.
She let the thought flutter out there like a butterfly above the other stuff she’d talked about.
Like being born with osteogenesis imperfecta, or bone brittle disease.
She’s broken bones so often — some bones several times over — that she has no idea how often it’s happened. One hundred times? Two hundred times?
And that doesn’t count the 90 broken bones as a newborn when she came out wheezing with tiny lungs crushed inside a shattered rib cage.
She suffered a recent break — fracturing her femur again in March — just sitting on her bed, she had said.
The disease had stunted her growth, crippled her legs and put her in the motorized wheelchair she playfully drove around J.A. Rogers Middle School in Kansas City, where she recently finished eighth grade.
Two of her teachers at Rogers listening in — who knew all that Pamela had overcome to be an inspiring middle school graduate ready for high school — were smiling as big as she.
“Let’s show ’em how you dance,” said Betty Bumgardner, a school district paraprofessional.
Bumgardner and special education teacher Tracey Sullwold knew how Pamela dances because they’d seen her.
They were there last April along with about 100 other friends and family members at Pamela’s quinceañera, the traditional Hispanic coming-of-age party celebrating a girl’s 15th birthday.
Bumgardner reached a hand out to meet Pamela’s as they tried to recreate the waltz she danced with her father at the party. Pamela’s other hand worked the control for her chair — forward one pace, back, then spinning as Bumgardner turned in tandem.
They remembered Pamela in her white dress, trimmed in the colors of her quinceañera, lavender and light green. Her father, Juan Chavez, wore a dark suit, a lavender shirt and light green tie.
“It was an amazing waltz,” Bumgardner would say later. “I got tears in my eyes.”
Ask Pamela what she has learned and she says, above all, patience.
Improvements in her medications have finally cut down on the frequency of her broken bones, but the ordeal takes its toll.
Just because she is accustomed to the familiar cracks and snaps doesn’t mean the pain is any less. When it happens, she usually knows which bone has broken and how bad.
“I don’t need an X-ray to know,” she said.
Patience, she said, gets her through the frustration of missing school and missing friends when she has to heal at home.
Yet she arrives at school with positive energy on her face seemingly every day that shrinks whatever problems might have weighed over anyone she meets, Sullwold said.
“It makes you not complain about things,” she said. “She just enjoys life. Her smile is contagious.”
“Her adventure continues,” said history teacher Marge Eckhardt. “Her friendships grow.”
Pamela loves science, she said, especially biology and studying the human body. She loves music and its rhythms. This year Rogers started a school band and she played the snare drums.
Bumgardner has seen her asserting her independence this year. In the past, Bumgardner sat next to Pamela in most of her classes, taking notes for her and helping her keep up. During Pamela’s eighth- grade year, Bumgardner began watching mostly from the back of her classrooms, available if needed.
Pamela may be small in stature and physically fragile, but friends and teachers have learned she can wrestle just fine over thoughts and ideas.
“They didn’t know at first what to talk about with me,” Pamela said. “Yeah, I can talk,” she said with a smile. “I’m not a little kid.”
People at Rogers have learned what Pamela has learned:
“Everyone is different,” she said. “No one can do everything. Anyone can do anything, just in different ways.” | 6/17/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
June 17, 2008
Silver bullets, superheroes and the Titanic: A conversation with John Martin, KC’s interim superintendent http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/668086.html
The Kansas City school board too often has members who see themselves as “superheroes” who must single-handedly rescue the district.
That’s the candid view of interim superintendent John Martin, who is filling the district’s top job while the board searches for its 25th superintendent in 39 years.
“Boards can’t save school districts,” Martin said in a Q&A with The Kansas City Star. “Boards of education with single superheroes trying to save the district create more chaos than they create growth.”
Two reasons to take notice when Martin talks:
•No. 1: He’s uniquely experienced.
He’s from the Kansas City area. He has watched the school district from the outside as Grandview’s superintendent, tangled with the challenges of urban schools as the top deputy in St. Louis and seen Kansas City from the inside as its current interim chief. He succeeded Anthony Amato, who was superintendent for 18 months.
•No. 2: He’s a short-timer. With the safety of retirement at hand, he doesn’t have to step gingerly through the politics.
Ask him about a school board that is promising to cooperate, the wisdom of sending off superintendents, or the chances that the community can rally together for schools, and he’ll give his answer.
(Some of Martin’s answers have been edited for length.)
Kansas City has tried many times to save its schools. Is the current wave any different?
I don’t know if it’s any different or not. I think what the board and community are trying to do this time is to try to come together with a single focus instead of a multi-pronged attempt.
What’s happened in the past is that we’ve been trying to do too much. It’s the downfall of the schools. Kansas City can’t be everything to everybody. No school district can. It has to be about educating the children. It has to be that focus.
If in the process of doing that you get distracted by issues like who gets a job, which company gets the work, and if you spend all your time focused on that, you lose focus on what’s important.
Whenever we get down to it, the kids will be well-educated whether Joe White Guy or Joe Black Guy or Joe Asian Guy designs the room. The point is, get the room designed. That’s the focus. Get the kids educated. We need to focus on that above everything else.
We get distracted by service providers instead of focusing on the education of the child and making that the focus and letting the rest of the stuff be what it is. It’s background.
The citizens of the task force more than once have turned to you and asked, “What do you think we should do?”
What I’ve said over and over again basically is two issues. One: Get the community behind the schools with a single focus. And No. 2: Stability in the district. With the community divided with what they want from the schools, you wind up with a board that’s divided as to what it wants from the schools. Ergo, you wind up with a school district’s that’s divided as to what its mission is. (pause) No good.
Again, we can’t be everything to everybody. You can’t keep changing administrations or leadership for the same reason. Every time you put in a new leader, you wind up with a new direction. It may not be a 180-degree change. It may not even be a 90-degree change. But a 15-degree variance from the primary course of the district is enough to disrupt the district.
Teachers here and administrators here, in my opinion, have learned to hold out. Because this month’s mission, if I don’t like it, all I have to do is hold my breath for six to nine months. It’s going to change. Or the joker that’s pushing it is going to be changed and I’ll get another chance. It’s not that we change administrations that fast, but they know that the administration is going to be changed.
How long was it before with Mr. Amato the news was out in the community that (he) was in trouble? It only took about nine months.
They know when things are changing. It’s sort of like this K-8 we’re doing now. We’re doing the K-8, but it’s already on the street that it’s subject to change. If you’re teaching in the classroom and you’re uncomfortable with it, how much commitment do you have to it? It’s going to change.
Which is more important, anchoring around individuals and leadership, or solidifying missions and goals?
Given that you could only do one of them, do the leadership. Because if you get consistency in leadership, in most cases leadership has a mission. He or she will have a mission and will be consistent and faithful to their mission regardless of what happens elsewhere. They’ll be faithful.
If you think about the example that I often use with the board, it’s the Bernard Taylor issue. Bernard was here for five years. If you remember those five years, some of the times the board was very calm, some of the times the board was very stormy. But because you had a consistent superintendent, the district consistently moved forward. Did it make leaps and bounds? No. But it didn’t come down by leaps and bounds. It came down by the inch. It’s going to go up by the inch, unless you can get everybody united pushing in the same direction.
If you want greater progress, you’ve got to have both facets. But if you’ve got to choose just one of them, choose the leadership. Consistent leadership will get you in a better position than you are now.
Kansas City and St. Louis have a history of changing leadership in pursuit of elusive goals …
Yes. Chasing the silver bullet. Chasing the magic answer. If we do this (snap), we’re going to be saved.
Well, by golly, it took us 30 years to get here. It’s going to take you close to 10 years to get this Titanic turned around so that you have enough time to turn it and repair the damage from the iceberg you just ran into. It’s not going to be overnight.
You’ve got so many things to repair. First off, you have to repair the administrative structure. The infrastructure in this district has got to be repaired. You’ve got to get processes and stuff in place that are consistently used across the district. You have a whole bunch of training to do. Not because people aren’t trained. But you’ve got to train them in the same direction.
You’ve got to create a single vocabulary across the district so that when people talk about outcomes they’re talking about the same thing. They aren’t using variant definitions.
You’ve got to work on morale so that people tie morale to performance. Morale isn’t a function of my giving you stuff, or this being a jovial place. Good morale is built around good performance. When people do a good job, they feel good about their job. We have to be able to support them to think that. And we’re not in a position to do that now because we don’t consistently define a good job across the district.
We have a couple of islands where there’s really good performance or generally good performance. We fight like heck to save those and to guard them. What we haven’t done a good job of is spreading whatever is happening on those islands to the balance of the district.
Why do Kansas City and St. Louis go through this?
Communities. They go through this because the community is impatient. The community wants instant gratification in terms of schools. They want schools to be good now. So does everybody else.
The reality is it’s not going to happen. So you bring in a board who come to the board with the goal of instant gratification. We’re going to make this right, now. And so each of those board members is elected with the anticipation that they are going to be able to do something individually, working with the board, to save the district.
That doesn’t happen. Boards can’t save school districts. Boards of education with single superheroes trying to save the district create more chaos than they create growth.
School districts are typically saved and brought along by good administrations, by administrations that are allowed to work and work with a board to save a district, to bring about change in a district. That’s a long-term process. But it is a cooperative process where a board sets goals, empowers a superintendent to do the work to save the district.
Boards of education are governance bodies. They were never meant to administer or to do the direct work necessary to save a district. That’s not their function. Their function is to hire a good superintendent, support them and empower him or her to do the job that is necessary.
Did Bernard Taylor need to go?
I can’t answer that. I wasn’t close enough. I know that they did better with Bernard here than they’ve done since then. Was it time for Bernard to go? In the five years he was here, they were better off than they were before and they’ve been since.
Did Anthony Amato need to go?
I can’t answer that. All I can tell you is that while Anthony Amato was here, with a strong superintendent, things began to fall in place. Whether they liked it or not, his style or anything like that, things were happening under Amato.
Was it good? Was it bad? I don’t know. I can tell you what I see on the other side in a forensics kind of examination. I can’t tell you whether he needed to go. I can tell you that this district desperately needs a superintendent that will work with the board and the community to create a good school district, and that he or she needs to be given eight to 10 years to accomplish that, and they need to be excused for certain little quirks.
I don’t know of any leader that’s going to be universally liked by everyone. It just doesn’t happen. If you’re doing leadership, one of the things you’re doing is making decisions. If this thing needs to be corrected — and it does — some of the people are doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Which means when the decision is made to no longer do that, you’re going to tick some folk off.
Is it a deliberate action? Is it something you’re doing because you’re evil, lowdown and no good? I don’t think so. You’re doing it because you don’t see it as being functional.
There are certain leadership styles that create more cooperation than others. In a district this size and a district in this kind of community you need one of cooperation. You need a person who can work with others. But you also need a personality that is sufficiently strong not to be pushed off the mark easily.
How much of a chance do you see a superintendent being here eight to 10 years?
The chance depends entirely on the board. The board has to see the value in that continuity, and they have to see the value in having a good superintendent above — above — the value of their individual contributions. They are going to have to defer to whomever they put in that position, above their own ego. That’s hard to do, especially when you’ve been elected as a superhero.
They’ve got to be able to defer to this person as being the expert on running a school district and the expert on educational processes. That’s going to be difficult. Because board members make commitments to communities that they often have no way of bringing into fruition except through coercion, working through a superintendent.
You said in one of the meetings that we don’t need another revolution — that the next revolution is going to kill us …
Yes. We need evolution.
We need to grow a good school district. It means you do some careful weeding and pruning. You cut out things that aren’t working, carefully. You feed and nurture what you want to keep. You provide the training, support, education and guidance, leadership, so that those that remain know when, where and how to make progress happen.
That’s a process that belongs to administrative leadership. It’s not done by boards.
You were going to go out and recruit a deputy to grow into this job. Why didn’t that work out?
It didn’t work because the gentleman I had in mind had an emergency in his own district. He just couldn’t leave. Then we had an election. And when the election was done there was a new set of sheriffs in town.
Is the perception and the history of the school district making this job you’re holding a hard sell?
Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. If you recall, when Ben Demps was hired as superintendent (in 1999), they had gone out on a nationwide search. I believe they got 15, 16 applications. When Demps left (in 2001), they got fewer, which was the reason Bernard got the job, at least in part. There were so few applications that they wanted to give the district time to appear to be more stable, a more desirable place to work. And Bernard lasted five years.
When they went back out for a nationwide search, they got close to 30 applications. The reputation did affect the interest in the job. Mr. Amato was here 18 months. I’ll be here for looks like nine months. Starting soon, they’re going to start a search. The frequency of change of leadership in this office is going to affect who will apply in that search.
Superintendents are like anybody else, they’re looking for a job, looking for someplace they can go, do a good job and stay. They’re looking for stability. They have families. They have a desire to be successful, a desire to settle somewhere and have a life. They’re not interested in being continually on the interview circuit in one pool after another pool after another pool.
Superintendents are human beings. They want a life like anybody else. Floating from job to job every two years is not a hell of a life. Mr. Amato, I’m sure when he came here, wanted a job. He wanted stability. He’s got a family, got kids. They’re in school. He wants some place where he can go and raise his kids and do his job and be appreciated for the job he does, be reasonably successful and have some stability in his life.
Most people want that. But urban superintendents haven’t been able to find it mainly because of that phenomenon of the superhero board.
St. Louis has an appointed special administrative board. Would that model work for Kansas City? The first question might be has it worked for St. Louis?
That’s a better question. Take a look at St. Louis. St. Louis had a 14-month superintendent when Dr. (Diana) Bourisaw took over. Dr. Bourisaw will have been there two years when she leaves (at the end of July), and it will be roughly 13 months after the (appointed) board took over … June 15, 2007.
Is it better? If the new board was put in place because the old board was unstable or couldn’t keep a stable administration in the district, and their goal was to create stability, have they done that? I’d say no.
Appointed boards in my experience are no different than elected boards. They have all the same kinds of problems and they lose one strength and that is they are not representing particularly anybody except the person that appointed them, or the entity that appointed them.
Describe an effective school board.
An effective school board is one that focuses on what school boards are supposed to do — ones that focus on governance and policy, setting direction for the district, hiring a good superintendent, empowering him or her to meet the mission that the board has set out.
The board’s job is to set the mission, set direction, and hire a superintendent and empower him or her to achieve that goal. They shouldn’t be involved in the everyday operations of the district. They shouldn’t be micromanaging. They shouldn’t burden the central administration with so many reports and obligations to the board that that administration doesn’t have time to do its primary job.
Do they need to keep a check? Yes. But they need to work out a method for doing that in cooperation with their administration so that their keeping check on what’s going on continues to empower the administration to do the job without it becoming burdensome.
How well is Kansas City positioning itself now?
We’re in better position now in terms of the verbiage I hear from the board than what I heard when I first got here. There is more talk about empowering a superintendent and administration to move forward. The board will tell you they have one employee — the superintendent. The board will tell you that their job is governance and policy.
The reality is …?
With the long history of distrust between the board and its administrations, the tendency to micromanage still exists. The current board structures encourage that. All these committees? It’s a form of micromanagement.
How hopeful are you that the verbiage is going to become the reality?
I’d say about 50-60 percent.
Going forward, a large influence on whether or not the verbiage will become reality is the wisdom with which the next superintendent is selected. If the board does what they verbalize, and that is hire someone who can make a commitment to the current programs and plans going forward, and if the board can make a commitment to those same programs and plans going forward, then the possibility of this functioning well is high. But if either deviates, the chances aren’t very great.
And the board right now, in my opinion, still has some difficulty with its own commitments. K-8 is one. The board voted for it. The commitment is eroding. Which leaves an administration hanging.
How hopeful are you that the board can get a superintendent hired so you can retire on schedule?
It’s not an issue. I will retire on schedule. I’m out of here not later than the end of October. My hope is that they’ll have someone identified and on their way in time to come in so they’ll be here by the end of September. I wouldn’t be opposed to some minor role in transitioning. My full-time work will end Oct. 31.
Other thoughts you want to add?
There are a lot of good people here, a lot of bright people who are perfectly capable of doing their job. Success will depend on stability in definition of the job. What is it that people want done and how do they want to accomplish it? You can’t keep changing things. I don’t care whether it’s uncomfortable or not, whether you particularly like the particular goal that has been set. Once you’ve set it, you’ve got to stick with it.
If the political winds change and you change it, the only thing you can be sure of is that you won’t succeed. | 6/17/2008 | | KSHB-TV
By Leeah Brennan
May 29, 2008
Soldier's Family Gets Burst of Support
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Row after row of children in a crowded auditorium at the Afrikanized Centered Education Collegium chanted a message for their teacher, "G-o-o-d J-o-b, good job, good job."
Army Reservist First Sergeant Gordon Brown had not been at his job as a Pre-K gym teacher long when the military sent him to Iraq, away from these kids and his own.
Five year-old Jordan Brown says she worries about her dad. Jordan says,
Today at Brown's school, he got an award for Teacher of the Year.
Brown's wife, Angela, also got a burst of support. Angela says, "It's always difficult with him being gone so far away without us being able to actually see him or physically touch him."
They'll be able to see and touch Brown again in about 6 months. Brown and his family are about 1/2 way through the tough deployment.
The family says todays show of appreciation makes all the difference.
"I have scary thoughts that my daddy will get shot by a gun." | 5/29/2008 | | KMBC-TV 9
May 29, 2008
KC Teacher Serving In Iraq Wins Award
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- One local teacher was honored Thursday for serving his country.
U.S. Army Reservist 1st Sgt. Gordon Brown teaches physical education at the Afrikan-Centered Collegium Campus in Kansas City.
Last December, Brown was deployed to Iraq, where he is still serving.
"Sgt. Brown infused energy and enthusiasm into everything he did. Staff and students have corresponded with him during his entire tour of duty, but we look forward to his coming back to us," Principal Janeda Oliver said.
Back at the school, Brown's wife and 4-year-old daughter were presented with a Teacher of the Year award by the Missouri Department of Education and the Troops for Teachers program.
Brown is expected to be back in the states by the end of the year.
Brown has said he plans to continue teaching on his return. | 5/29/2008 | |
May 27, 2008
Midtown area athletes do well at track state meet
Not that she needed it, but Pembroke Hill sophomore Tiffani McReynolds found motivation from an unlikely source last Saturday. Before McReynolds was set to defend her 100-meter hurdles championship in the Missouri Class 3 state track and field championships, her mother and grandmother made her a deal.
“If I win two golds,” McReynolds said, “they will buy me a Batman T-shirt.”
As a big fan of the comic-book hero, McReynolds couldn’t pass up the offer and won both the 100- and 300-meter hurdle events in Jefferson City.
Lincoln Prep junior Jalexis Peterson had no such arrangement with anyone, but she still succeeded by finishing second in the triple jump and third in the long jump.
“I’m so glad I get to be a part of it,” Peterson said. “It’s exciting just to be here and see my classmates run and win.”
Those Lincoln Prep teammates were everywhere. The girls’ 400- and 800-meter relay teams finished fifth and seventh, respectively. The boys’ four relay teams placed within the top five in all four events. Other medalists included Greg Wright (200), Timothy Holman (400), Eric Harden (400) and Kenneth Boyer (110 hurdles). The performances pushed Lincoln Prep to sixth overall in the Class 3 team standings while Interscholastic League rival Central finished third
Senior Mark Morgan led the Central boys with two individual gold medals (100 and 200) and helped the 1,600 and 800 relay teams to first- and second-place finishes, respectively. Also, Dominique Johnson finished fourth in the high jump.
Also in Class 3, Cara Forte of Center was fourth in the 100, teammate Tyrisha Chambers placed sixth in the 100 hurdles and the girls’ 400 and 800 relay teams were fourth in each event.
Among the boys, Max Storms of O’Hara was second in the 3,200 and sixth in the 1,600 in Class 3.
In Class 4, Ivan Charbonneau of Rockhurst was eighth in the 100), and the Hawklets’ 1,600 relay team was seventh. | 5/27/2008 | | The Kansas City Star
May 14, 2008
Teach For America Announces New Teaching Corps in Kansas City
50 New Corps Members Will Work in Kansas City Public Schools
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Teach For America today announced that it will place 50 new corps members in Kansas City Public Schools in 2008, the first year that the organization is placing teachers in the region. These new teachers are among the record 3,700 outstanding college graduates in Teach For America’s incoming corps, selected from an applicant pool of nearly 25,000 to teach in 29 regions around the country. Teach For America corps members commit two years to teach in high-need public schools and become lifelong leaders in the pursuit of educational equity.
“We are excited that so many top recent college graduates have chosen to teach in the city’s highest-need schools,” said Alicia Herald, executive director of Teach For America in Kansas City. “These corps members will make an impact on our children and community during the next two years, and over the long term as leaders in the region.”
Kansas City is one of three new regions where Teach For America is expanding in 2008; the other two are Indianapolis and Jacksonville, Fla.. These three areas were chosen based on the high level of support for Teach For America from public school leaders, community leaders, and local philanthropists. In Kansas City, support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Hall Family Foundation, the William T. Kemper Foundation, and H&R Block, as well as from individual donors like Todd Epsten, was instrumental in establishing the inaugural corps. This year’s entering corps will reach approximately 4,250 students in Kansas City during the 2008-09 school year.
"Kansas City is fortunate to have a huge cadre of new teachers coming here as part of the Teach For America program," said Carl Schramm, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation president and CEO. "The quality of teaching offered through this program provides an infusion of talent that can help energize education reform in Kansas City and across the country. The Kauffman Foundation is very pleased to have played a role in bringing Teach for America to our community."
The strength of the Kansas City corps was fueled by the number of qualified applicants from the region’s top universities. The charter corps includes four graduates of the University of Kansas, three from Washington University, and two from the University of Missouri. Nationally, Teach For America attracted a significant percentage of graduates from top universities. At more than 90 colleges and universities, more than 5 percent of the senior class applied, including 16 percent from Spelman College, 11 percent from Morehouse College and Yale University, 10 percent from Georgetown University, 9 percent of graduates from Harvard University, and even 7 percent from a large university like the University of Michigan.
A growing body of research on Teach For America demonstrates the effectiveness of corps members in the classroom. In March, the Urban Institute’s Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) released a study showing that Teach For America teachers have a positive effect on high school students' achievement when compared with non-Teach For America teachers, including those who are fully certified in their subject areas. “The results were clear,” study coauthor Jane Hannaway said. “Students performed better when they had an inexperienced Teach For America teacher than when they had a veteran educator at the blackboard.”
District officials from the Kansas City, Missouri School District welcomed Teach For America corps members in the region, pointing to the organization’s successful track record. "The District is thrilled and excited about the opportunity to work with Teach for America," said Dr. John Martin, interim superintendent of the Kansas City, Missouri School District. "The teachers provided by the program will give us an infusion of great ideas and enthusiasm to benefit our students."
Teach For America’s impact extends beyond the important work of corps members in the classroom to the long-term engagement of alumni in education and public service. According to a recent survey, two-thirds of Teach For America alumni are still working or studying full-time in education, including 4,000 classroom teachers. More than 300 Teach For America alumni serve as school principals or superintendents, including two-thirds of the leaders from the nationally recognized KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) and Achievement First schools. Teach For America alumni are also working from other fields to help expand educational opportunity. More than 200 alumni work in government or policy, and 14 serve as elected school board members.
Teach For America focuses on recruiting top college graduates who share the racial and/or socioeconomic backgrounds of the communities its teachers serve. Some 28 percent of the incoming corps are people of color, including nearly 10 percent who are African-American—double the African-American enrollment at America’s 400 top colleges, where Teach For America primarily recruits. Some 26 percent of the 2008 corps are Pell Grant recipients.
Teach For America is in the midst of an ambitious growth plan, aiming to place 8,000 corps members across at least 33 regions by 2010. In the 2008-09 school year, some 6,200 Teach For America corps members will teach in 29 regions, serving more than 100 school districts in 23 states and the District of Columbia, placing the organization ahead of its growth targets.
About Teach For America
Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity. Currently, 5,000 corps members are teaching in over 1,000 schools in 26 regions across the country; more than 12,000 Teach For America alumni continue working from inside and outside the field of education for the fundamental changes necessary to ensure educational excellence and equity. For more information, visit www.teachforamerica.org.
Contact:
David Nachtweih, Communications Associate, Teach For America: 212-279-2080 x370
david.nachtweih@teachforamerica.org
Alicia Herald, Executive Director, Teach For America-Kansas City: 816-753-0774 x3001
alicia.herald@teachforamerica.org | 5/14/2008 | | Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY)
April 12, 2008
By JOHN P. CLEARY
Miles, generations away, Ernie becomes a classroom lesson
Waverly High grad uses Davis as role model in his class
There are pictures hanging on the wall of Dave Owen's class at Van Horn High School in Independence, Mo. that, from time to time, catch the attention of his students.
"They ask me, 'Who is that?'," Owen wrote in an e-mail to me. "And I begin to tell the story."
The man in the photos is Ernie Davis, and the story he tells about him is one we in the Twin Tiers know very well.
Davis was a three-sport star at Elmira Free Academy, played football at Syracuse University and, in 1961, was the first black to win the Heisman Trophy, given each year to the best football player in the country. He was the first selection in the 1962 NFL draft and was traded to the Cleveland Browns, where he would have shared the backfield with the legendary Jim Brown, a fellow Syracuse graduate. Davis soon became ill, however, and died of leukemia in 1963 at age 23.
Owen, who teaches world history and American government, graduated from Waverly High School in 1968. He played football, basketball and baseball at Waverly and went on to play sports at Utica College. He was a fan of the writing of Star-Gazette sports editor Al Mallette, and followed Mallette's coverage of Davis' career.
"Through his writings and coverage of him at Syracuse, Ernie became my hero and inspiration," Owen wrote.
Van Horn High School is part of the Kansas City School District, and Owen's classes are made up of inner-city kids from all backgrounds. They yearn, he writes, "for recognition and purpose."
And what better example to offer them Davis, a wonderful example of how hard work, study and good character can provide a stairway to your dreams?
"Ernie's life, I know, has inspired them and given them a role model for life," he wrote.
I guess it's no surprise Owen's students never heard of Davis before attending his class. As compelling as Davis' life story is, it's not one of the pop culture legends arising from sports tragedies like, say, the early death of Yankees great Lou Gehrig. Perhaps if, somewhere along the way, someone had put together a made-for-TV movie about Davis' life and death he'd be as well known as stricken Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo, the subject of the classic tearjerker "Brian's Song."
I don't know why Davis' story didn't stick in the mainstream. If he had played at the University of Notre Dame, with its constant national spotlight, maybe he'd be as famous as George "The Gipper" Gipp or Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger.
Davis was part of the second wave of black pro footballers, so maybe his status as the first black Heisman winner wasn't intriguing to the public.
His story of course, is getting the full-Hollywood treatment as you read this. "The Express," a film directed by Gary Fleder and starring Rob Brown as Davis and Dennis Quaid as his Syracuse coach, Ben Schwartzwalder, is expected in theaters this fall. Perhaps then Davis will get the national recognition he deserves.
I can't wait to see the movie, to see how Ernie and his adopted hometown are portrayed. I also can't wait to see the reaction of a public that might not yet have a clue as to what an amazing person we lost far too early.
| 4/12/2008 | | The Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
April 24, 2008
Click here to see the actual story
Late debate coach, poet inspires a new generation of students
Melvin Tolson wanted to be remembered as a poet.
On Thursday he was honored for a different claim on history.
Two of his sons — college professors in their eighties with doctorate degrees — and a grandson looked out across a classroom full of some of the brightest students at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy.
“How many of you have seen the movie?” asked 84-year-old Melvin Tolson Jr.
He was referring to “The Great Debaters,” the tale of how Tolson, portrayed by Denzel Washington, coached the debate team at the all-black Wiley College in Texas to a stunning national championship in 1935.
Almost all the hands in the room shot for the ceiling.
They were students like 18-year-old Chris Robinson, a senior with a Gates Millennium Scholarship who will be studying pre-medicine at Morehouse College.
Tolson’s sons, who were in town to take part in Debate-Kansas City’s awards ceremony Thursday night, smiled to see that so many youth now knew the story of their father — who graduated from Lincoln 90 years ago when it was an elite, all-black school.
“It was humbling to know he came from Lincoln,” Robinson said, “that people did great things when (in a segregated world) great things weren’t expected of them. It made me feel like I was walking on the shoulders of giants.”
A gratifying moment for sure, even if the debate story wasn’t what Tolson most wanted people to remember.
Clearly, Tolson understood the power of debate, said Robert Farnsworth, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Tolson’s biographer, who joined Thursday’s celebration. He knew how the discipline, channeling and firing one’s intellect, can change lives.
But when the young Tolson emerged from Lincoln in 1918, more than anything he wanted to be a poet and to be remembered as a poet, Farnsworth said.
Our hearts beat fast, our eyes flame with desire!
Our souls long for the battle-smoke of strife!…
So began the poem Tolson wrote for the Lincoln Class of 1918. The walls of Lincoln, his poem sang, harnessed a fire that would make his class …
…Fit for the mighty trials we all must bear;
But out of them we’ll fashion stepping stones,
In black misfortunes we shall not despair.
“He was high-minded, maybe a bit socially naive,” Farnsworth said. But no doubt Tolson was “well-shaped,” with a “Tennysonian” bravura that announced, “Let’s get on with this.”
Tolson, who died in 1966, never compromised. Not in his expectations for his four children and his wife — all of whom attained post-graduate degrees. Not in his leadership as a professor and debate coach. Not in his service to his community as mayor of Langston, Okla.
And not in his poetry.
The mature Tolson challenged his audience, Farnsworth said. He drove a T.S. Eliot-like exploration of complicated intellectualism into the heart of the Harlem Renaissance.
He was widely published. He drew the attention of top writers and critics. He was the Poet Laureate of Liberia. His brilliance was lauded for works like his Harlem Gallery.
But the approval of white critics didn’t necessarily help him when his greatest works were weighed by “the new black militancy of the ’60s,” Farnsworth said. History would find him left out of many of the anthologies of modern poetry.
“His major ambition was to be a great poet,” Farnsworth said. “He came so close to being right there.
“It was a near miss.”
Or so it seemed.
Because now, since the movie, Tolson has a new following.
Jasmine Lynn, an 18-year-old Lincoln senior, has been out with friends, seeking out the home where Tolson’s parents lived in Kansas City. The academic performances Tolson inspired in his students, including a woman on the Wiley team, inspire Lynn today.
“To know that somebody from here was so positive for the community…” said Lynn, who is bound for Spelman College in Atlanta next fall to study psychology. “It makes me want to continue my dreams and aspirations.”
Debate-Kansas City has named its top award for Tolson.
Arthur Tolson, 83, has sensed the revival of his father’s legacy — his family’s legacy.
“The movie is bringing about a revitalization of interest in debating,” said Arthur Tolson, a professor of history at Southern University in Baton Rouge. He and his brother Melvin Tolson Jr., a professor of French and Spanish at Oklahoma University, were the first black students to receive master’s degrees at Oklahoma State University, and pioneered in many other ways themselves.
“It’s bound to have tremendous impact on future generations,” Arthur Tolson said.
Melvin Tolson Jr. remembers when his father first began telling his sons — they may not even have been teenagers yet — that they should persist in their schooling beyond college, to the highest degree.
“He inculcated in every one of us not to stop until we got a doctorate degree,” Tolson Jr. said.
Their mother, Ruth, had left high school before graduating when she married their father. But she went back to school as well, finishing high school as an adult among teenagers, and then getting her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in library science.
Tolson Jr. and his mother walked down the aisle together to get their bachelor’s degrees together at Wiley College in 1942.
“She had the willpower, too,” Tolson Jr. said. “It was the atmosphere we all lived in.”
Top debaters
Debate-Kansas City, a league of 34 area schools and more than 600 students, honored Melvin Tolson at its award ceremony Thursday night.
Top winners included:
•Melvin B. Tolson Award: Christopher Bernard, Northeast High School
•Middle School Student Congress: Olivia Taylor-Butler, Lincoln College Preparatory Academy
•Varsity Team Debate: Jeff Hodson, Patrick Stinson, Van Horn High School
•Novice Team Debate: Taylor Dias, Reggie Roby, Central High School
•Novice Speaker: Taylor Dias, Central High School
•Varsity Speaker: Darrell Hyche, Lincoln College Preparatory Academy
•High School Student Congress: Lane Burris, Central High School | 4/24/2008 | |
The Kansas City Star - Varsity Zone (http://varsity.kansascity.com)
March 26, 2008
MISSOURI ALL-STATE BASKETBALL TEAMS
The Missouri all-state high school basketball team and final rankings are selected by the Missouri Sportwriters and Sportscasters Association.
CLASS 5 BOYS
First team
| Dusty Allen |
6-5 |
Sr. |
Kickapoo |
| Jordan Dressler |
6-8 |
Jr. |
Rock Bridge |
| Drew Hanlen |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Webster Groves |
| Ben Hoener |
5-11 |
Jr. |
Parkway South |
| Josh McCoy |
6-4 |
Sr. |
Ft. Zumwalt Sth. |
| Steve Moore |
6-9 |
Sr. |
Truman |
| Dominique Morrison |
6-6 |
Sr. |
Raytown |
| Torres Roundtree |
6-4 |
Sr. |
McCluer North |
| Garrett Stutz |
7-0 |
Sr. |
N. Kansas City |
| Scott Suggs |
6-7 |
Sr. |
Washington |
Second team
| Ivo Baltic |
6-7 |
Jr. |
Park Hill South |
| Justin Clark |
6-4 |
Jr. |
William Chrisman |
| Michael Dixon |
6-1 |
Jr. |
LS West |
| Tyler Griffey |
6-8 |
Jr. |
Lafayette |
| Anthony James |
6-2 |
Sr. |
Normandy |
| Femi John |
6-4 |
Sr. |
McCluer North |
| Dominique Long |
6-5 |
Sr. |
Waynesville |
| Don Martin |
6-5 |
Sr. |
Oak Park |
| Zach Redel |
6-6 |
Sr. |
Webster Groves |
| Kevin Starr |
6-2 |
Jr. |
Liberty |
Final rankings: 1. Webster Groves, 29-3; 2. McCluer North, 25-5; 3. Fort Zumwalt South, 27-4; 4. Truman, 20-10; 5. Raytown, 27-1; 6. Parkway South, 27-3; 7. Gateway Tech, 24-5; 8. Rock Bridge, 24-3; 9. Waynesville, 22-7; 10. Oak Park, 20-6.
Coach of the year: Jay Blossom, Webster Groves
CLASS 5 GIRLS
First team
| Yvonne Anderson |
5-7 |
Sr. |
Hickman |
| Jasmine Bailey |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Normandy |
| Courtney Gimlin |
5-7 |
Sr. |
Ozark |
| Katherine Harry |
6-3 |
Jr. |
Rock Bridge |
| Channon Haywood |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Hazelwood East |
| Patrice King |
5-9 |
Sr. |
St. Joseph’s Aca. |
| Jaleshia Roberson |
5-6 |
Sr. |
Hickman Mills |
| Drew Roberts |
5-5 |
Jr. |
Blue Springs |
| Freddie Sims |
5-6 |
Jr. |
Raytown South |
| Devonna Smith |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Kirkwood |
Second team
| Sydney Crafton |
5-10 |
Jr. |
Jefferson City |
| Ebony Davis |
5-11 |
Jr. |
Parkway South |
| Jackie Disher |
5-4 |
Sr. |
N. Kansas City |
| Julie King |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Nerinx Hall |
| Kayla Person |
5-8 |
Jr. |
Incarnate Word |
| Katie Pritchard |
5-8 |
Sr. |
Waynesville |
| Claire Schaeperkoetter |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Rock Bridge |
| Lizzy Simonin |
5-4 |
Sr. |
Lee’s Summit |
| LeAndrea Thomas |
5-4 |
Sr. |
Hickman Mills |
| Amaya Williams |
5-7 |
So. |
Rock Bridge |
Final rankings: 1. Rock Bridge, 25-6; 2. Incarnate Word, 29-4; 3. St. Joseph’s Academy, 26-5; 4. Hickman Mills, 29-2; 5. Blue Springs, 25-3; 6. Waynesville, 20-6; 7. Ozark, 23-6; 8. Kickapoo, 21-6; 9. Hickman, 20-7; 10. Nerinx Hall, 24-5.
Coach of the year: Jill Nagel;Rock Bridge
CLASS 4 BOYS
First team
| Beaumont Beasley |
6-2 |
Sr. |
Lincoln Prep |
| Johnny Coy |
6-7 |
Sr. |
St. Joseph Benton |
| Milt Garner |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Ruskin |
| Andrew Jones |
6-6 |
Sr. |
Smithville |
| Michael Porter |
6-5 |
Jr. |
Sikeston |
| Kramer Soderberg |
5-11 |
Sr. |
St. Charles West |
| Abel Tillman |
6-7 |
Sr. |
Berkeley |
| Mike Wiebe |
6-6 |
Jr. |
Branson |
| Ryan Willen |
6-8 |
Sr. |
Cape-Notre Dame |
| Landon Zerkel |
6-2 |
Sr. |
Webb City |
Second team
| Kendrick Brown |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Soldan |
| Jordan Flora |
5-11 |
Sr. |
St. Clair |
| Austin Greer |
6-0 |
Jr. |
Cape-Notre Dame |
| Brennen Hughes |
6-5 |
So. |
Moberly |
| Jerome Jones |
6-4 |
Jr. |
Miller Career |
| Dominique Lane |
6-4 |
Sr. |
Northeast |
| Brian Maurer |
5-10 |
Sr. |
St. Charles West |
| Eric Saunders |
6-3 |
Sr. |
Moberly |
| D.J. Slifer |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Warrensburg |
| Lee Stoppleman |
6-3 |
Sr. |
Pleasant Hill |
Final rankings: 1. Cape-Notre Dame, 24-6; 2. St. Charles West, 30-2; 3. Webb City, 26-5; 4. Sikeston, 22-4; 5. Berkeley, 25-5; 6. Moberly, 23-4; 7. Lincoln Prep, 21-10; 8. Clinton, 23-5; 9. Branson, 23-5; 10. Ruskin, 19-11.
Coach of the year: Paul Hale, Cape-Notre Dame
CLASS 4 GIRLS
First team
| Lacey Boshe |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Marshfield |
| Kristin Burton |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Jennings |
| Casey Garrison |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Bolivar |
| Katelyn Heil |
5-11 |
Jr. |
Dexter |
| Morgan Johnson |
6-4 |
Jr. |
Platte County |
| Courtney Kemp |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Fredericktown |
| Ryan Leifield |
5-6 |
Sr. |
Visitation |
| Meghan Lewis |
5-8 |
Sr. |
Berkeley |
| Kelley Murphy |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Notre Dame de Sion |
| Trenee Thorton |
5-6 |
Jr. |
Central |
Second team
| Kara Blankenship |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Republic |
| Mallory Craig |
5-8 |
Jr. |
Smithville |
| Courtney Henley |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Marshall |
| Kaitlin Jaeger |
6-0 |
fr. |
Webb City |
| Hailee Parks |
5-11 |
Jr. |
Sullivan |
| Chiara Robinson |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Berkeley |
| Natalie Runge |
5-10 |
Sr. |
St. Dominic |
| Catherine Russell |
5-7 |
Sr. |
Miller Career |
| Holly Russell |
5-8 |
Sr. |
Farmington |
| Holly Switzer |
5-9 |
Jr. |
Benton |
Final rankings: 1. Bolivar, 29-2; 2. Notre Dame de Sion, 22-9; 3. Berkeley, 27-4; 4. Marshfield, 26-1; 5. St. Dominic, 25-2; 6. Platte County, 25-4; 7. St. Louis Notre Dame, 21-9; 8. Webb City, 18-9; 9. Benton, 22-5; 10. Fulton, 21-7.
Coach of the year: Mike Dunn, Notre Dame de Sion
CLASS 3 BOYS
First team
| Bryant Allen |
6-0 |
Jr. |
Maplewood |
| Marcus Denmon |
6-3 |
Sr. |
Hogan Prep |
| Charles Dunbar |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Lutheran North |
| Jayme Donnelly |
6-2 |
Jr. |
Linn |
| Kony Ealy |
6-6 |
So. |
New Madrid Co. Central |
| Julian Johnson |
6-3 |
So. |
Whitfield |
| Anthony Jones |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Cardinal Ritter |
| Brandon McCann |
6-1 |
Jr. |
Bowling Green |
| Marc Neef |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Spokane |
| Barry Robinson |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Construction Career |
Second team
| Adam Chesser |
6-3 |
Jr. |
California |
| Travis Howard |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Maplewood |
| Charles Johnson |
6-4 |
Sr. |
Hogan Prep |
| Joe Kassanavoid |
6-6 |
Sr. |
Lawson |
| Josh Kraus |
5-8 |
Sr. |
Willow Springs |
| Jordan Morris |
6-2 |
Sr. |
Eugene |
| Jonathon Nutt |
5-10 |
Jr. |
Palmyra |
| Brian Parham |
6-5 |
Sr. |
Charleston |
| Matt Patterson |
5-10 |
Jr. |
South Shelby |
| Mason Rhodes |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Higginsville |
| Jordan Sallin |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Linn |
| Andy Walter |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Maryville |
| Kelsey Weymuth |
6-5 |
Sr. |
Cole Camp |
| Charonn Woods |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Metro |
| Jonathan Wright |
6-4 |
Sr. |
Bishop LeBlond |
Final rankings: 1. Maplewood, 28-4; 2. Lutheran North, 21-12; 3. Hogan Prep, 25-5; 4. Bowling Green, 27-1; 5. Linn, 27-5; 6. Bishop LeBlond, 21-7; 7. Willow Springs, 25-5; 8. Cardinal Ritter, 24-4; 9. Highland, 22-7; 10. Spokane, 22-7.
Coach of the year: Corey Frazier, Maplewood
CLASS 3 GIRLS
First team
| Samantha Heck |
6-1 |
Jr. |
North Callaway |
| Linsay Henke |
6-4 |
Sr. |
Blair Oaks |
| Dekeisha Mathis |
5-6 |
Sr. |
Metro |
| Erin Mayes |
5-9 |
Sr. |
South Shelby |
| Iesha McDaniels |
5-10 |
Jr. |
Maplewood |
| Kristina Mingos |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Pembroke Hill |
| Kassie Walker |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Arcadia Valley |
| Kirsti Wilkerson |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Skyline |
| Shelby Winkelmann |
5-7 |
Fr. |
Hermann |
| Sarah Woodgeard |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Greenville |
Second team
| Melanie Barnes |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Plattsburg |
| Jasmine Cooper |
5-9 |
Jr. |
Metro |
| Sam Deragowski |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Springfield Cath. |
| Liz Fick |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Fatima |
| Jasmine Kassanavoid |
5-9 |
Jr. |
Lawson |
| Emily Reyes |
5-9 |
Jr. |
Skyline |
| Amber Romstad |
5-8 |
Sr. |
St. Pius X |
| Kara Rosebrough |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Pierce City |
| Kelsey Schulte |
5-8 |
Sr. |
Eugene |
| Julie Teeple |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Versailles |
| Bethany Walkenhorst |
5-8 |
Sr. |
Blair Oaks |
| Brittney Walker |
5-8 |
Jr. |
Portageville |
| Destini Wilson |
5-10 |
Jr. |
Whitfield |
| Haley Yoakum |
5-6 |
Jr. |
Dixon |
| Samantha York |
5-8 |
So. |
Elsberry |
Final rankings: 1. Skyline, 29-3; 2. South Shelby, 26-2; 3. Hermann, 23-7; 4. Metro, 20-12; 5. Greenville, 22-5; 6. Blair Oaks, 26-3; 7. Portageville, 25-4; 8. Arcadia Valley, 23-5; 9. St. Pius X, 14-13; 10. Aurora, 18-12.
Coach of the year: Kevin Cheek;Skyline
CLASS 2 BOYS
First team
| Bryce Huddleston |
6-4 |
Sr. |
Clever |
| Lydell Patton |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Eskridge |
| Taylor Perrigo |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Harrisburg |
| Josh Pope |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Clever |
| David Prater |
6-4 |
Sr. |
South Iron |
| Roscoe Robinson |
6-3 |
Jr. |
Westran |
| Erick Roe |
6-4 |
Sr. |
West Platte |
| Cory Via |
6-4 |
Jr. |
Harrisburg |
| Matt Webb |
6-7 |
Jr. |
LS Christian |
| Joey White |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Concordia |
Second team
| T.J. Brown |
6-7 |
So. |
Crossroads |
| Dennis Dent |
6-4 |
Jr. |
Knox County |
| Garrison Edgar |
6-2 |
Sr. |
Marionville |
| Travis Fishbaugh |
6-3 |
Sr. |
Archie |
| Blake Horton |
6-3 |
Sr. |
Thayer |
| Edward Jamerson |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Eskridge |
| Blake Kimrey |
6-2 |
Jr. |
Plato |
| Micah Mayle |
6-3 |
Jr. |
Laquey |
| Tommy Underwood |
6-6 |
Sr. |
South Harrison |
| Jordan Willimann |
6-4 |
Sr. |
New Haven |
Final rankings: 1. Harrisburg, 28-3; 2. South Iron, 30-2; 3. Clever, 28-4; 4. West Platte, 24-8; 5. Laquey, 26-4; 6. Concordia, 25-4; 7. Knox County, 19-10; 8. New Haven, 18-11; 9. Lee’s Summit Community Christian, 21-7; 10. South Harrison, 21-7.
Coach of the year: Steve Combs, Harrisburg
CLASS 2 GIRLS
First team
| Hailee Deckard |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Naylor |
| Jordan Garrison |
5-5 |
So. |
Osceola |
| Deaven Omohundro |
5-9 |
Jr. |
Clopton |
| Brittany Percival |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Hartville |
| Kayla Rice |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Westran |
| Kathleen Scheer |
6-2 |
Sr. |
New Haven |
| Renae Shippy |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Crest Ridge |
| Miranda Vaught |
5-6 |
Sr. |
Crane |
| Lindsay Vollmer |
5-10 |
fr. |
Hamilton |
| Alina Voronenko |
6-2 |
Sr. |
Smithton |
| Hannah Wilkerson |
5-7 |
So. |
Miller |
Second team
| Kaitlin Bogle |
5-10 |
Jr. |
Crocker |
| Taryn Bruce |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Hamilton |
| Addie Buckler |
5-7 |
Sr. |
North Platte |
| Kelsey Butler |
6-0 |
Jr. |
S. Harrison |
| Jennelle Freeman |
5-4 |
Sr. |
Tarkio |
| Brooke Jurgensmeyer |
5-9 |
Jr. |
Osceola |
| Ayrica Lockett |
5-8 |
Sr. |
Crossroads |
| Tori Niemann |
5-10 |
So. |
Canton |
| Becca Schemmer |
5-10 |
Jr. |
Westran |
| Micah Stevens |
5-3 |
Jr. |
Thayer |
Final rankings: 1. Hamilton, 32-0; 2. Westran, 30-1; 3. Osceola, 26-1; 4. Clopton, 23-8; 5. Crane, 22-8; 6. Crest Ridge, 28-1; 7. Putnam County, 23-5; 8. Naylor, 24-3; 9. Smithton, 26-3; 10. Canton, 23-3.
Coach of the year: David Prather, Hamilton
CLASS 1 BOYS
First team
| Doug Archer |
6-7 |
Sr. |
Jefferson |
| Ethan Burk |
5-11 |
Sr. |
Hardin-Central |
| KJ Cool |
6-1 |
Jr. |
Newtown-Harris |
| Michael Cox |
6-3 |
Sr. |
Leeton |
| Marshall Humphreys |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Tuscumbia |
| Caleb Johnson |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Scott Co. Central |
| Jay Lee |
5-11 |
Jr. |
Glasgow |
| Craig Mattson |
6-4 |
Jr. |
Jefferson |
| Nick Niemczyk |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Bell City |
| Drew Thomas |
6-0 |
Jr. |
Scott Co. Central |
Second team
| Dusty Baker |
6-2 |
Sr. |
LaPlata |
| Garrett Carver |
6-4 |
Sr. |
West Nodaway |
| Daniel Durst |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Fair Play |
| Canaan Fairley |
5-9 |
Jr. |
Newtown-Harris |
| Garrett Gladden |
6-5 |
Sr. |
Everton |
| D.D. Gillespie |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Scott Co. Central |
| Clinton Irwin |
6-2 |
Sr. |
Hume |
| Kyle Schieber |
6-0 |
Jr. |
Jefferson |
| Blake Shrout |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Bunceton |
| Shaun Thomas |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Chadwick |
Final rankings: 1. Jefferson, 29-2; 2. Scott County Central, 28-3; 3. Glasgow, 29-3; 4. Bell City, 25-4; 5. Newtown-Harris, 25-1; 6. Fair Play, 28-4; 7. Chadwick, 24-5; 8. LaPlata, 28-2; 9. Pilot Grove, 25-4; 10. Mound City, 20-8.
Coach of the year: Tim Jermain, Jefferson
CLASS 1 GIRLS
First team
| Whitney Edie |
6-1 |
Jr. |
Exeter |
| Morgan Eye |
5-8 |
fr. |
Montrose |
| Ashley Fleming |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Silex |
| Sarah Keys |
5-5 |
Sr. |
Delta |
| Brandie Roberts |
6-1 |
Sr. |
Cairo |
| Kaci Sargent |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Meadville |
| Kallie Schoonover |
5-7 |
Jr. |
Mound City |
| Hanna Vette |
5-7 |
Jr. |
Rock Port |
| Monica Wilson |
5-3 |
Sr. |
Gilman City |
| Kelsey Wolfe |
5-6 |
Sr. |
DeKalb |
Second team
| Brooke Derstler |
5-9 |
Jr. |
Hardin-Central |
| Karley Evans |
5-9 |
Sr. |
Rock Port |
| Jaime Guffey |
5-5 |
Sr. |
Linn County |
| Lauren Haer |
5-10 |
Sr. |
Mound City |
| Lindsi Jackson |
5-8 |
Jr. |
S. Nodaway |
| Marcy Luke |
5-6 |
Sr. |
Stanberry |
| Kirsten Patterson |
5-6 |
So. |
Tuscumbia |
| Kyla Rice |
5-7 |
Sr. |
Macks Creek |
| Kayla Thomas |
6-0 |
Sr. |
Pilot Grove |
| Courtney Wilmsmeyer |
5-11 |
Sr. |
New Franklin |
Final rankings: 1. Cairo, 28-3; 2. Delta, 25-3; 3. Meadville, 30-1; 4. Macks Creek, 22-8; 5. Rock Port, 26-4; 6. Silex, 20-9; 7. Exeter, 22-7; 8. Gillman City, 25-3; 9. Jefferson, 26-2; 10. New Franklin, 21-6.
Coach of the year: Bob Roberts, Cairo | 3/26/2008 | |
Kansas City Star - Varsity Zone (http://varsity.kansascity.com)
March 20, 2008
Missouri all-district basketball team
The all-district basketball team was selected by the high school sports staff of The Kansas City Star. Only first-teams are selected. The Kansas City-area district is made up of Clinton, Platte, Clay, Ray, Jackson, Lafayette, Cass, Johnson, Bates, Henry and St. Clair counties and is one of seven districts in Missouri.
| CLASS 5 GIRLS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Jackie Discher |
North Kansas City |
5-4 |
SR |
| Jaleshia Roberson |
Hickman Mills |
5-6 |
SR |
| Drew Roberts |
Blue Springs |
5-5 |
JR |
| Lizzy Simonin |
Lee’s Summit |
5-4 |
SR |
| Freddie Sims |
Raytown South |
5-6 |
JR |
| CLASS 4 GIRLS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Mallory Craig |
Smithville |
5-8 |
JR |
| Morgan Johnson |
Platte County |
6-4 |
JR |
| Sam Mollet |
Grain Valley |
5-9 |
SR |
| Kelley Murphy |
Notre Dame de Sion |
6-0 |
SR |
| Trenee Thornton |
Central |
5-6 |
JR |
| CLASS 3 GIRLS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Valerie Lambert |
Holden |
5-6 |
JR |
| Kristina Mingos |
Pembroke Hill |
5-9 |
SR |
| Amber Romstad |
St. Pius X |
5-8 |
SR |
| Lyndsay Swafford |
Lexington |
5-6 |
SR |
| Sarah Tyler |
Knob Noster |
5-8 |
JR |
| CLASS 2 GIRLS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Jordan Garrison |
Osceola |
5-7 |
SO |
| Brooke Jurgensmeyer |
Osceola |
5-11 |
SR |
| Jaala Nierman |
Concordia |
5-9 |
SR |
| Renae Shippy |
Crest Ridge |
5-11 |
SR |
| Brittany Townsend |
Orrick |
5-9 |
SR |
| CLASS 1 GIRLS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Brittany Early |
Leeton |
5-11 |
JR |
| Morgan Eye |
Montrose |
5-8 |
FR |
| Brooke Derstler |
Hardin Central |
5-9 |
JR |
| Callie Graham |
Kingsville |
5-5 |
SR |
| Amy Musick |
Drexel |
5-5 |
SR |
| CLASS 5 BOYS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Ivo Baltic |
Park Hill South |
6-7 |
JR |
| Michael Dixon |
Lee’s Summit West |
6-1 |
JR |
| Steven Moore |
Truman |
6-9 |
SR |
| Dominique Morrison |
Raytown |
6-6 |
SR |
| Garrett Stutz |
North Kansas City |
7-0 |
SR |
| CLASS 4 BOYS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Beaumont Beasley |
Lincoln Prep |
6-2 |
SR |
| Milt Garner |
Ruskin |
6-1 |
SR |
| Andrew Jones |
Smithville |
6-6 |
SR |
| D.J. Slifer |
Warrensburg |
6-1 |
SR |
| Lee Stoppleman |
Pleasant Hill |
6-3 |
SR |
| CLASS 3 BOYS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Marcus Denmon |
Hogan Prep |
6-3 |
SR |
| Charles Johnson |
Hogan Prep |
6-4 |
SR |
| Darren Ralston |
Lexington |
6-1 |
SR |
| Mason Rhodes |
Higginsville |
5-10 |
SR |
| Cullen Rosine |
Knob Noster |
6-6 |
JR |
| CLASS 2 BOYS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Michael Chouinard |
Cass-Midway |
6-4 |
SR |
| Travis Fishbaugh |
Archie |
6-3 |
SR |
| Greg Fox |
Barstow |
6-4 |
SR |
| Matt Webb |
Lee’s Summit CC |
6-7 |
JR |
| Joey White |
Concordia |
6-0 |
SR |
| CLASS 1 BOYS |
SCHOOL |
HT |
YR |
| Ethan Burk |
Hardin-Central |
5-10 |
SR |
| Michael Cox |
Leeton |
6-3 |
SR |
| Justin Howerton |
Kingsville |
5-11 |
SR |
| Clinton Irwin |
Hume |
6-2 |
SR |
| Austin Reyelts |
Lutheran |
5-11 |
SR |
| 3/20/2008 | | The Kansas City Star
April 9, 2008
Lincoln Prep sprinter wins twice
When it comes to sprints, the Lincoln Prep boys track team has been impressive.
Gregory Wright won the 100- and 200-meter events and was a member of the Tigers' 400 and 800 relay teams that finished second last Friday at the Kearney Invitational.
"We are doing pretty good, no we are doing a little better than pretty good," coach Lee Allen said. "We are doing all right."
Allen said Wright is in mid-season form.
The Tigers head to the Pittsburg State Invitational on Friday. Allen said it will be a good event for Wright and Eric Harden. Both athletes have signed to attend Pittsburg State next fall. | 4/9/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
April 15, 2008
Students excel at science fair
Many Kansas City students competed this month at the Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair in Kansas City.
The Afrikan Centered Education Collegium Lower Campus
Taelar Stevens – First Place Intermediate Environmental Science
Brookside Frontier Math and Science School
Victor Armstrong – First Place Junior Chemistry, Linda Hall Library Project Display
Tamara Ojedo – Linda Hall Library Project Display
Daneshia Morgan – Linda Hall Library Project Display
Malik Puryear –Air & Waste Management Association & US Environmental Protection Agency
Jhaylen Brown – United States Navy/ Marine Corps Science Award
Jasmin Hatcher –Third Place Junior Physical Science
William Vandenburg – United States Navy/ Marine Corps Science Award
Joe Dukes – Western Chapter of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers
Laura Lisette Galindo – Kansas City Garden Club
Calvary Lutheran School
Thomas Miller – First Place Intermediate Chemisty - 6th grade
Pembroke Hill School
Michael Dieterle – Grand Award Honorable Mentioned, First Place Senior Cellular Biology, Medical Society of Johnson & Wyandotte Counties, Scientific American Young Scientists Award
St. Peter’s School
Kyle Herrington – First Place Junior Cellular Biology, Medical Society of Johnson & Wyandotte Counties, Linda Hall Library Project Display, Greater Kansas City Association of Family and Consumer Sciences
Meaghan Coble – Linda Hall Library Project Display
Mabry Keel & Hunter Thomas – Modern Supply Co. and Linda Hall Library Project Display
Lizzy Imperiale & Celia O’Flaherty – Linda Hall Library Project Display
Ava Jurden & Taylor Migliazzo – First Place Junior Environmental Science Group, Linda Hall Library Project Display, The American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing
Matt McCombs & Ben Hire – First Place Junior Behavioral & Social Sciences Group
Sarah Wittaker – Third Place Junior Botany & Zoology, Kansas City Garden Club
Kevin Hornbeck & Brian Fosselman – First Place Junior Engineering Group, Kansas City Society for Coatings Technology
Isaac Wilmot & Jack Leslie – Second Place Junior Physical Science Group
Visitation School – Diocese KC-St. Joseph
Lauren Taylor – Linda Hall Library Project Display
Emma Stanfield – Western Chapter of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
Erica Wind – Sigma Theta Tau- Graceland University | 4/15/2008 | | The Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
April 13, 2008
Top debater garners respect his own way
Sean Easterwood doesn’t back down. No one sees any hint of weakness.
That’s how you stand face to face with steely-eyed brainiacs and win top speaker in a national debate tournament representing Kansas City’s Central High School.
That’s how you survive as a self-described “misfit.”
That’s how, at 17, you bear the weight of having walked up the steps to your home after returning from another out-of-town tournament and finding the window blinds gone, the furniture gone…
Want Easterwood’s photograph? He’ll consent to that. After all, it is a big deal for the senior, who just turned 19.
Thirty-four teams from 19 debate leagues across the nation battled it out in Chicago last weekend at the Chase Urban Debate National Championship. He earned a $2,500 scholarship for snaring the top individual award.
And he did it while attacking some of the hectic, rapid-fire tactics of debate even as he showed he could dominate that style, said judge Andrew Brokos.
“He was charismatic and principled,” Brokos said. “He had all the skills … to play within the game while getting the judges to acknowledge his criticism of the game.”
So take a picture, but don’t expect him to smile.
“Actually,” he said first off, “I despise debate.”
His debate teacher, Jane Rinehart, overheard and shook her head with a wry smile.
She knows better. She’s not just his teacher. She’s his legal guardian.
Rinehart is the one who saw him the day after that tournament in May 2006. She was driving away from the school and saw Easterwood walking. She knew he had not come to school that day. Something looked wrong.
Easterwood doesn’t remember what he was thinking or where he was going. He’d spent the night at a cousin’s house.
Rinehart and her husband took him in.
She isn’t surprised by his success. Easterwood has cousins who also excelled at debate. Easterwood came home with a sixth-place award from St. Louis early in his freshman year, despite being paired with a partner he’d never worked with before.
He was making it as a debater, and that earned status at Central.
“There are sides you have to choose at this school,” Easterwood said. “You have your sports, ROTC, hooligans and intellects.”
The intellects — the debaters — were clearly his niche. Debate was a cool place to be. Under Rinehart, the school’s debate program has achieved great acclaim, racking up awards and triumphs.
Easterwood contends that the only reason he came around his freshman year was because “J.R.” — as he calls Rinehart — provided peanut- butter-and-jelly sandwiches after school.
“I just came for the sandwiches,” he said. And Rinehart rolled her eyes.
He stayed, and here’s why.
“You see the walls of this school,” he said, gesturing out into the hall. “White-painted cinder block.” The structure reflects high school environments that are “intellectually restricting,” he said. “More like a holding cell.
“Debate is the place to reach outside those walls. There are no limits. You can gain the knowledge to do the stuff of CEOs, policymakers, doctors and lawyers.
“Critical thinking. Independent thinking.”
It doesn’t always work, rebelling against some of the rules of the game, biting back at protocol.
Easterwood and his usual partner, Deshawnta Brunson, won’t necessarily follow the conventions of what Rinehart calls “machine-gun debating” — packing as much information as possible into an affirmative or negative argument. They may invoke poetry, or even rap. Sometimes they win raves. Other times, judges or opponents object.
“Sometimes we’ve walked out on a debate,” he said.
“That just happened once,” Rinehart interjected.
“There were other times you don’t know about,” Easterwood said. Rinehart sighed.
Both she and her student/ward have made a lot of adjustments to each other. She and her husband had to learn the idiosyncrasies of an adolescent male. Her husband has two grown children, but Rinehart has no children of her own.
Easterwood had to accept regular meal times, eating together, telling his guardians where he’s going when he’s heading out the door and whom he’s going with.
“It’s been an interesting two years,” Rinehart said.
And it’s been a thrill, seeing the success of a teenager who is bound for the University of Missouri-Kansas City next year to debate and study political science or communications or philosophy — he hasn’t made up his mind yet.
In many ways, Easterwood has followed the path of many previous champion debaters at Central.
“He’s so focused,” Rinehart said. “Students here are very competitive. It becomes personal.”
That’s why, Easterwood said, he and Brunson “don’t just spit out facts and information” to try to rebut every opponent “who brings tubs (of data) stacked six high.”
“My motivation is not success,” Easterwood said. “We share how we feel. We go in with our will and our ideas, and we come out with respect.
“That’s the only reason I am in it.”
The details
Four Central High School seniors with Debate-Kansas City won awards at the inaugural Chase Urban Debate National Championship in Chicago last weekend. Sean Easterwood was the top speaker, Matheno Fraizer-Bey was awarded 11th place, Aaron Thomas got 14th place and Deshawnta Brunson got 18th place. Thirty-four teams from across the country competed, and Central’s two teams reached the quarterfinals.
| 4/13/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
April 6, 2008
Schools vie in recycling contest
For the Earth's sake, Kansas City School District students are competing to see which of their schools can gather the most recyclable plastic grocery bags.
Of course, there's also a $7,500 first prize.
The finish line is Earth Day, April 22. The district will post how the schools stand periodically throughout the month on its Web site, www.kcmsd.net.
Wal-Mart will reward the school that fills the most 60-gallon collection [barrels]. Every school that fills at least one [barrell] will win a prize. | 4/6/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
April 3, 2008
School board candidate forum set
The Black Hat Society is hosting a forum to hear candidates for the Kansas City School District Board of Education at 6 p.m. today at the Southeast Branch of the Kansas City Public Library, 6242 Swope Parkway.
The society, a neighborhood improvement organization of African-American women, is holding the forum. | 4/3/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
March 19, 2008
New effort aims to get dropouts back to class
The name on Larry Jones’ clipboard belonged to a 10th-grader who was missing too much school.
He might be here.
Jones stood with Rosalyn Robinson on a buckled sidewalk near Linwood Boulevard and Jackson Avenue, peering up the narrow stone steps to a house that looked as though its entryway had been beaten. The doorknob dangled limply. A dog barked somewhere near.
“Where’s the dog?” Robinson said.
As case managers for the Kansas City School District, Jones and Robinson are on the front edge of the district’s intensified efforts — with new help from NAACP volunteers — to track down dropouts and get them back in school.
They find families under stress. Some have left no trace but legal notices for past-due rent. Some parents or guardians don’t know where their teenager has gone.
This school year, the district has tried to track more than 1,750 students who either dropped out or did not enter school at the start of the year. The district recruited more than 300 students back into school and is still looking for about 1,000 students. Most of the rest have moved or left for other schools.
What’s peculiar to Michelle Metje, the district’s director of transition services, is that most students don’t think they’ve dropped out. It’s not as if they made any such decision.
“They say they just weren’t going to class,” Metje said.
She read from a checklist used to record why a student dropped out: Problems with physical fitness, disabilities, mental illness, parental influence, economic reasons, pregnancy.
“There are ways to help with all of these,” she said.
The district’s nine truant officers and 13 case managers talk to families about solutions to get students back in school.
They make up ground: Since early January, the district has accounted for 273 students on the dropout or did-not-enter-school list.
And they lose ground: In that same time, 237 dropouts were added to their list.
“We’re always running uphill,” Metje said.
• • •
Finding dropouts isn’t easy, not for the case managers in the field or for community volunteers making phone calls from a district calling center.
“Don’t get discouraged,” Ed Marquez, director of pupil services, told members of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who have been meeting regularly to call families of dropout students.
“You will get many disconnected numbers. Those who tend to withdraw from school are the ones who will be harder to find. That’s why the more we do this, the tighter the grip we’re going to get on it.”
Previously, the volunteers called on 112 cases and talked to someone in 51 of them.
“And that’s success,” Marquez said.
It helps when someone who’s not a district worker calls on families, said the NAACP’s Rosa James. The person on the line is a neighbor who wants to help.
“You’re always hearing how kids don’t think anybody cares,” she said.
One of their connections found Sterlin Johnson.
Winter was coming and Johnson, a 19-year-old Southeast High School senior last fall, needed clothes.
“I needed money,” he said.
He felt stress at home. His mother was having trouble keeping up with bills.
He still had plans to get some business education and start his own barbershop someday.
But he figured he could move out of the house, move in with a roommate, find a job and still get to school.
His job at a discount store paid $6.80 an hour. He worked 35 hours a week, and he frequently had to ask co-workers to swap shifts to make class. Soon, he let classes slip.
“It’s hard to balance work and school,” he said, holding out his hands like a set of scales. “You’ve got to pay bills. What’s more important? At that point, I was thinking it was work.”
In January, a volunteer called Johnson’s grandmother. The district had options for her grandson, the caller said. Johnson said his grandmother told him about the 21st Century credit recovery program with the Full Employment Council that would enable him to graduate this May.
He would have to quit his job and look for a new one compatible with school. He might need to move back in with his mother.
Jones the case manager wasn’t sure what Johnson decided. So he and Robinson made a side trip to the Full Employment Council.
“Oh, yes, he’s enrolled,” the director of the 21st Century program said. “He’s in the class.”
As Johnson would explain later, with his hands back out as scales, “School came to be more important.”
• • •
At the house with the broken doorknob, no one was home but the dog. It howled at Jones and Robinson from behind a padlocked accordion grate stretched across a broken garage door. They left a note wedged in a hole in the door.
At another home, grandparents were there, but not their 18-year-old grandson, who’d said he’d be there.
“He’s house jumping,” the woman said. “I think I know where he is, but I don’t know the address.”
Jones thought the student had agreed to enter a state credit recovery program, but now he had stood up Jones and left his grandparents to try to explain. Not a good sign.
The grandfather sat with his elbows on his knees.
“He’d have trouble in math and I’d tell him, ‘Bring your homework home. I’ll help you with it,’ ” he said. “Then I call the school, and they say he’s seldom seen.”
Jones left a card with his cell phone number.
“I need to get some face time with him,” Jones said.
Behind an apartment door, they found one student they were looking for — Chanelle Owens, 18 — and another who wasn’t on anyone’s list anymore, Michael Williams, 19.
It was Williams who opened the door, facing strangers, and asked, “Are you the police?”
Owens, standing inside the sparse apartment, was expecting Jones and Robinson. She said she was ready to fill out paperwork, finish her credits and maybe go to community college.
“A family therapist or something?” she said, pondering her shapeless plans.
Williams, somewhat perplexed, said to Owens, “You’re going back?”
But when the case managers left, they had Williams’ contact information.
“Some folks give up on kids like these,” Jones said later.
He had one last visit to make, to the district’s teenage parent center. He wanted to make sure another of his students was indeed at the school.
He waited at a table just inside the front door while the principal sent for her. She came softly down the corridor and only nodded shyly when he smiled and said, “I’m glad to see you here.”
He watched her drift back to class, staying until he heard the heavy door click.
“To me, they are the future,” he said. “They don’t see hope, but we see hope for them.” | 3/19/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
March 25, 2008
Southwest Principal Named
The Kansas City School District has selected Steven Scraggs to serve as the first principal of the Southwest Early College Campus when it opens at the former Southwest HighSchool this fall.
Scraggs, who heads the middle school at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, was chosen over three other finalists.
| 3/25/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
February 18, 2008
By Joe Robertson
Teams gear up for FIRST Robotics Competition
Wondering what to expect from this year’s fleet of area high school robots?
The onlookers Monday who flinched in the face of Paseo Academy’s onrushing machine — just before the kill switch brought it to a halt — would agree:
This year’s FIRST Robotics Competition is going to feature speed.
For six weeks, 50 Kansas City area teams on both sides of the state line have joined some 1,500 other teams from eight nations rushing to design and build robots for 41 regional competitions throughout March.
Fifty-five teams, including most of the local teams, will do battle at the Greater Kansas City Regional March 6-8 at Hale Arena in the American Royal Complex.
Today is shipping day. The contest’s deadline required that teams box up their robots, whatever shape they are in, and send them to the regional sites. Many will finish them there the week of their tourneys.
Some teams, like Paseo Academy’s “Paseliens,” gave their machines a public test run Monday before sealing them in their crates.
That name is Paseliens, freshman team member Shontae Cobb explained, because they are from Paseo and their robot “is out of this world.”
For 17 years, FIRST Robotics has been coming up with a new contest each year to test the creativity and ingenuity of high school students. FIRST — For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — was founded by inventor Dean Kamen to get students working with teachers and engineering mentors in a competition that would inspire more students to pursue engineering careers.
In this year’s contest, the teams designed robots for a game called First Overdrive. Robots will race around a short oval track while trying to knock 40-inch inflated balls off an overhead rack. They will try to get their machines and the balls around the track as many times as possible. Teams get bonus points every time they can pass the balls over a 6-foot, 6-inch overpass.
Every year the game is different. Every year the teams are supplied a box of parts — and no instructions.
The students have to work out a design with their engineering partners and then spend hours after school and on weekends building, testing and making their robot work.
Now, Paseo teacher Paul Kehmeier noted, a team of freshmen who would have had trouble at the start of the project explaining an electrical circuit would be able “to have a Victor 822 speed controller wired into your circuits if you needed one.”
The robot, a brightly orange, yellow and green contraption heavy on sprockets and battery power, showed off its quick acceleration in front of a small crowd at the Midwest Research Institute — one of Paseo’s partnering agencies.
Team members gave several reasons for joining the Paseo team.
“Looks good on a college application,” said Ashia Bishop.
“A good lifetime experience,” said Mariah Garcia.
Said Sara Johnson: “Who doesn’t want to build a robot?”
This is the second year Kansas City will be host of a regional competition. Kansas City’s is one of the larger regionals, partly because of the high number of schools in the area competing in FIRST.
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation spurred the growth when it invested $2 million in the robotics program. This year Kauffman is sponsoring 47 area teams and 53 teams overall. Many of the teams have made additional partnerships.
Click here to read the actual article. | 2/18/2008 | | Kansas City Star: 'As I See It'
By Interim Superintendent John A. Martin
March 16, 2008
KC Schools Moving Ahead After Independence Split
On behalf of the Kansas City School District’s leadership team, I want to thank you for your patience and support as we’ve worked through the details of the Independence annexation. The effort to draw new school boundaries, develop staffing assignments and create a transition plan requires much due diligence. It is difficult to convey all that is occurring.
The June 30 departure date is looming and we’re on task developing solid answers regarding the future of this district. We plan to keep our community partners well informed as decisions are made while seeking input on the road ahead. The following is a listing of some immediate post-annexation activities:
The school board is close to selecting a proposal for the reorganization of the district’s boundaries. Those options include creating a K-8 school at J.A. Rogers Middle School and returning East Elementary School to its former status as a high school. We recently held a forum at J.A. Rogers to present options to the community. We have taken that input and woven it into our plans.
We are determining how to best reintegrate the employees currently working in Independence. At this point, there will be positions to allow each employee to remain part of the district. The district’s normal number of retirements and other employee departures will leave openings for relocated employees. An incentive program to identify retirements/resignations has begun.
We understand there is a desire among teammates to remain together as they transition to their new schools, and we’ll do our best to accommodate all employees. We anticipate the announcement of assignments as we get closer to the end of the school year. The leadership team hopes to keep successful teams together, and we’ll do all we can to make that a reality.
Students transitioning from Independence will be folded into their neighborhood schools. As we open our K-8 schools, relocated students will be placed at the school nearest to their home. This is unless they are currently enrolled in a signature school such as Lincoln College Prep, Paseo Academy or KC Middle School for the Arts. Many schools could see a small increase in enrollment.
Our curriculum strategies and programs will remain intact and full accreditation by 2010 remains priority No. 1. The board recently reaffirmed its support of K-8 neighborhood schools, meaning we’re on track to allow our students to attend school close to home. PE4life, Pre-K for All, dual language schools and other major initiatives will not be altered.
As we move forward, the district encourages anyone with concerns or input to share them with the leadership team or board members. We’ll use that information to craft actions that reflect the community’s desires and create the best possible future for our students. The school board, administrators, staff and students thank you for your continued support. | 3/16/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By Mike Sherry
March 3, 2008
Enrollment set up for switched schools
The Independence School District has announced enrollment dates for the seven schools it inherited through last year’s boundary change with the Kansas City School District.
Enrollment for Van Horn High School will run from 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at the school, 1109 Arlington Ave. Students should bring a parent or a guardian.
Enrollment for students in the six other schools involved in the boundary change will be two weeks later.
Kindergarten through eighth-grade enrollment will run from 5 to 8:30 p.m. March 25, 26 and 27 at Nowlin Middle School, 2800 Hardy Ave.
Kindergarten students must be 5 years old by Aug. 1 to enroll for the coming year. Individual school assignments will be made when boundaries are redrawn.
No appointment is necessary for any of the dates.
Items needed for registration:
•Proof of residency (two forms). Acceptable forms are a gas or electric bill and one of the following: copy of deed of trust, copy of rental agreement or a copy of Jackson County paid personal-property tax receipt for 2007.
•Proof of student health immunization.
•Birth certificate.
•Social Security number/card.
•Transcripts/school records if the student currently is attending a private, charter or home school.
• For special-education students, the most recent individual education plan and evaluation report.
For additional information, call 816-521-2700. | 3/8/2008 | |
The Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
March 7, 2008
Wheeler, once schools chief, dies at 86
Superintendent from 1977 to 1982, he was a powerful speaker and an innovative educator.
Practically speaking, Robert Wheeler was a 33-year-old bricklayer when Sue Wheeler met the man destined to be superintendent of schools during some of Kansas City’s most turbulent times.
The masonry teacher was home that summer of 1954 from Columbia University in New York. The orphaned child who had gone hungry most his life was on the cusp of something great. They both felt it.
“I didn’t know what,” Sue Wheeler said, “but I knew he would not continue to work in masonry the rest of his life.”
Robert Wheeler, who died Wednesday night of cancer at 86, would serve as Kansas City school superintendent from 1977 to 1982.
Along the way, he was an innovator in urban education and scholarship programs. A powerful speaker, Wheeler would draw national attention, becoming a top choice for superintendent in numerous cities’ school systems.
But Wheeler, who had gone to Washington, D.C., in the 1970s as a deputy commission in the U.S. Office of Education, turned them all down until his hometown called him back in 1977.
“He loved the people here,” said Sue Wheeler, an elementary school teacher for more than 50 years. “He always wanted to do what he could for kids who lived in Kansas City.”
As superintendent, he took on what had become one of the toughest jobs in the city — running a school system facing declining enrollment, decaying facilities, administrative turmoil and desegregation litigation that would place the district under federal court oversight for 26 years.
Those who knew his roots figured he had the mettle for the job.
Wheeler’s mother died when he was 9 months old. When he was 4, his father died. He was reared by an aunt in Kansas City and was on his own at 15.
He spent a decade getting a bachelor’s degree in building engineering at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. He persisted through a three-year interruption to serve in the Army in World War II, splitting time between school and whatever work he could find.
He earned 10 cents an hour pouring concrete, Sue Wheeler said. Childhood illnesses mostly kept him out of sports, but, being 6 feet 5 inches tall, he found his way onto the bench of Lincoln’s basketball team because there would be a meal for him every day after practice.
But he was an actor too, with skills honed in college theater, and his ability to stand before crowds and deliver his ideas also drew attention.
After getting his master’s degree at Columbia, the district made him a counselor at Manual High School, then a vice principal at Central High School. In the early 1960s, he created a college scholarship program that drew wide attention. Now more people were hearing him speak.
“He was a dominating person,” said Leonard Pryor, a former administrator in the district and the former dean of the Kansas City Art Institute. “A big voice. People respected him.”
Pryor remembered a day in the late 1960s when emotions were running high and students at Lincoln High School, where Pryor was on staff, were threatening to march downtown. Police were on the scene. Neighbors were agitating, talking about getting their guns, he said.
“The principal called downtown for help, and he (Wheeler) came right out. No one else would come.”
Wheeler, who was assistant superintendent at the time, herded everyone into the auditorium, Pryor said, and calmed them down.
He was a popular choice for the superintendent job, but, as would be the case for every superintendent in the past 35 years, it would be hard to sustain broad support, at least with the school board.
Under Wheeler, the district began opening magnet school programs, including the successful program now known as Lincoln College Preparatory Academy.
He resigned under pressure from a divided school board over issues of leadership, planning, communication and morale. His tenure, though only five years, would be the longest for a superintendent during the district’s desegregation era.
“He was one of the last local superintendents,” said Carol Duncan, a reading specialist during Wheeler’s tenure. “He was a man who came up through Kansas City schools. He knew the area, the schools, the history.”
The Wheelers always figured on staying in Kansas City. Even when Robert Wheeler was working in Washington, D.C., they never sold their Kansas City home. It was the same home that Wheeler went home to for hospice care in his final days after the fight against cancer was done.
He is survived by his wife, three children, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Visitation will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday at St. James United Methodist Church, 5540 Wayne Ave., with a service at 11 a.m. Private burial will be at Leavenworth National Cemetery.
“For an orphan kid,” his wife said, “he’s had a good life.” | 3/7/2008 | |
The Kansas City Star
By Debra Skodack
March 6, 2008
Paper collar project to show scope of pet overpopulation
Students at Holliday Montessori school, including Naijah Lee (from left), Stephen Collins and Kyndall Robinson, helped make 5,000 dog and cat collars on Wednesday for Spay and Neuter Kansas City’s Chain of Reality project.
It took all of 45 minutes Wednesday for the 200 students at Holliday Montessori School to craft 5,000 paper dog collars — and get a sense of a community problem.
Their 5,000 collars will be combined with other collars to add up to 15,000 — the number of dogs euthanized each year in Kansas City. The collars will be displayed at Spay and Neuter Kansas City’s Chain of Reality project March 17-22 at Union Station.
The school’s collar project was the idea of Holliday teacher Melissa Lands Hanke, who volunteers at Spay and Neuter.
As sections of the chain began to develop Wednesday morning, the students began to visualize the scope of Kansas City’s pet overpopulation problem, Lands Hanke said.
” she said. “A child said, ‘Wow, this is a lot, but it’s so sad,’
The students also petted and hugged several dogs that have been rescued, including Buddy, a Labrador mix adopted by the Witt family.
Bonnie Witt, whose daughter, Claire, is a second-grader at Holliday, said several children had seen abandoned dogs in the neighborhood.
“Some want to help, some are scared of the dogs,” Witt said.
But Wednesday’s effort, Witt said, was an ideal way to show the students how they can help in the community.
“They start now and hopefully it continues throughout their lives,” she said.
Gwyn Doran, a Holliday third-grader, knows about rescuing dogs. In November her family adopted Millie, a Labrador-poodle mix just under a year old.
“I think this is important because of the overpopulation of dogs,” Gwyn said while taking a break from creating the chain. “This will help a lot of dogs.
“We are helping something that is very important to our world.” | 3/6/2008 | |
The Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
March 3, 2008
High-tech high school on the drawing board
Homegrown engineers and construction workers from academy would benefit KC.
The Kansas City School District and industry partners are brewing plans for a $40 million campus to homegrow the engineers and skilled workers needed to keep building the city.
At least 1,000 new workers are needed each year, and too much of that talent now must be recruited from outside the area, said Garry Kemp of the Greater Kansas City Building and Construction Trades Council.
A new Engineering and Construction Academy could be the solution, proponents say.
"We've got to get the opportunities within our kids' reach," said Jack Bitzenburg, the district's director of career and technical education.
Plans call for a high school that would blend high-tech curriculum with teamwork on projects. It would prepare students whether they aim to study engineering at a four-year university or gain apprenticeship in a skilled trade.
It would be a complete high school adhering to state academic standards, and it would give students the chance to earn up to 20 hours in dual college credit.
The campus also would have a hands-on construction laboratory for middle school and high school students.
The school district, industry backers, and state and federal sources would jointly pay for the construction.
The first phase will open in the fall of 2009 -- if the school board approves and if advocates can raise the money.
"Business is going to support this because businesses will be hiring those students," said Lonnie Scott, president of the MidAmerica Minority Business Development Council. "Unless we get more qualified students, the infrastructure of Kansas City and cities across the country is falling apart. We need resources."
Scott is a board member of the National Institute for Construction Excellence, which is helping the district plan and build support for the campus.
It's been a long time coming.
"Many of us have been dreaming about this," said Kemp, who estimated that the construction and engineering industries employ about 30,000 people in the area. "We've been at this for 10 years to make this a reality in the community."
Some of the industry leaders got behind a charter school in 2000 -- the Kansas City Career Academy -- that leased the vacated Bingham Middle School in Waldo. But the school lasted only a year.
Meanwhile, the National Institute for Construction Excellence saw its Crayons to CAD program growing in middle schools. And Project Lead the Way began to expand its high school engineering curriculum.
A lot of the players came together when the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity convened government and business planners in 2006 to address the poor representation of minorities and women in city projects.
"I told them, 'If you want to solve this problem, you need to talk to me,' " Bitzenburg said. " 'You need to talk to the school district. It's not about putting people in jobs. It's getting young people into careers.' "
The preliminary plan calls for the school district to cover $3.3 million of the construction cost annually for three years, or just under $10 million.
Industry partners would help raise the balance of the $40 million, seeking support from business and public sources.
In the first phase, about $8 million would be spent to renovate Anderson Annex, previously an alternative high school connected to Manual Career and Technical Center, 1215 E. Truman Road. The building would house the giant construction laboratory and classrooms.
The second phase would invest $32 million in constructing an earth-friendly building west of Anderson that would be ready with 11th- and 12th-grade classrooms as the inaugural class of ninth-graders are ready to begin upper level coursework.
The building would have visible electrical and mechanical systems to serve as teaching tools, and its engineering designs would use more natural energy sources and protect air and water quality.
School board members saw the preliminary plans last week, but interim superintendent John Martin said that his administration needs to propose a budget for the project before asking the board to approve it.
School board member Marilyn Simmons, who said that she supports the concept, warned that development of the academy must be backed by improved math instruction in middle school and elementary school.
"Otherwise we're just setting (students) up for failure," Simmons said.
Craig Wright, the executive director of the National Institute for Construction Excellence, said industry leaders and local politicians are ready to support the project and work with the school district.
Martin said he wants to give the school board something to vote on before the end of March.
"We want this completed," he said, "so we can plan -- and so the ladies and gentlemen who want to help us can start raising money." | 3/3/2008 | |
The Kansas City Star
By Lynn Franey
March 7, 2008
Robots, for show and tell
At first glance, the FIRST Robotics Competition that opened Thursday at the American Royal Complex appeared to be about making robots zoom around a track.
But really it was about cooperation, character and confidence.
Teams from dozens of area high schools practiced moving their robots and getting them to punch balls of a bridge over the track.
At the same time, the students learned how to work together, gained experience in presenting themselves professionally and grew to believe in their own abilities.
Teams began designing and building robots in January.
“I have seen a lot of growth since the first day,” said Paseo Academy team leader Paul Kehmeier, a science teacher who oversaw a team of eight girls and one boy, all freshmen.
“I hope they gain confidence to try new things they haven’t done before,” Kehmeier said. “I hope they gain skills, too.”
This is the 17th year for the FIRST (First Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) international robotics competition. Organizers say the competition includes more than 37,000 students from every state and countries such as Mexico, Canada, China and Israel.
The Kansas City regional began with practice rounds Thursday at the complex’s Hale Arena and will continue through Saturday with the actual competition. The national competition is set for mid-April in Atlanta.
Pop music blared as Hale Arena took on the look of a sports tournament; some schools’ mascots made an appearance; students were interviewed on camera for a Sports-Center-type show; and officials in referee shirts lined the track.
Lincoln College prep junior David Adeola said the competition lets him meet people, gain self-confidence and experience engineering, a career he might pursue. | 3/7/2008 | |
The Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
February 25, 2008
Kansas City: School board Candidate forum
School board candidates for the Kansas City School District will speak at a forum at 6:30 p.m. today in the auditorium at Manual Career and Technical Center, 1215 E. Truman Road.
The forum is sponsored by the District Advisory Committee to help voters prepare for the election April 8. | 2/25/2008 | |
The Kansas City Star
By Joe Robertson
February 25, 2008
Help select new principal
The Kansas City School District has four finalists to be principal of its new Southwest Early College Campus, and it wants to introduce them to the community.
The district will unveil the candidates at a public forum at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the school, 6512 Wornall Road.
Southwest will be an open-enrollment school with a math and science focus that will give students a chance to earn up to two years of college credit. The district plans to open the school in august for grades six and nin, then add new grades every year until it is serving grades six through 12. | 2/25/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
By JOE ROBERTSON
February 14, 2008
School board extends a hand
A community task force is one way the KC district hopes to make “amends for the past”
In its first meeting post-Anthony Amato, the Kansas City school board resolved Wednesday to repair the damage caused by its difficult split with the former superintendent.
The board got started in more ways than one.
Members unanimously approved a resolution to create a community task force to discuss education reform.
It also reached an easy accord with the administration on the future of Van Horn High School. The board agreed to move Van Horn students to the former East High School next year. East’s K-8 school will move to Rogers Middle School.
While the night went well, the board is going to have to keep working with the community to build confidence, board President David Smith said. That is why he proposed the task force.
“The public sentiment is totally off the scale toward us,” Smith said. The board’s work with the task force, he said, “has to be a change of behavior. We have to be so genuine … and make amends for the past.”
The board last month reached an agreement with Amato to end his tenure halfway through his three-year contract. Former Grandview Superintendent John Martin was brought in as an interim.
The return to the district’s history of rapid superintendent turnover comes amid another legislative session where various lawmakers have made repeated overtures about splitting the district or calling for a state takeover.
The task force, board Vice President Ingrid Burnett said, needs to help resist campaigns to dismantle or seize control of Kansas City schools.
“How do we come together as a community,” she said, “to keep local control in a way that will give people hope?”
Several board members recognized that the challenge will be to gather an effective group that can succeed where past plans for community collaboration faltered.
“We did them wrong in the past,” board member Marilyn Simmons said. She noted past frustrations, such as the community’s work in 2006 to help guide the district through potential school closings. Many participants felt their input ended up being ignored.
“We need to explain to people that we made mistakes in the past and that we’re trying to move forward.”
The task force will consist of 15 members representing teachers, administrators, parents, students, community organizations, neighborhood associations, faith-based groups, business organizations, elected officials and the mayor’s office.
Its objectives include gathering thoughts on the public’s expectations and its ideas for workable school reforms.
The timetable is fast — with the meetings beginning in March and a final report by May 1.
Board member Bill Eddy said the board must be willing to consider broad ideas.
“We have to go into it open to major change,” he said. “Or people are going to say we’re just playing games. Are we willing to consider major sea changes?”
Earlier in the meeting, the board gave the administration the go-ahead to keep together Kansas City’s Van Horn students and create a new high school at East.
Van Horn in Independence was one of seven schools — the only high school — located in the eastern fringe of the district that will be annexed into the Independence School District for the next school year.
Students in the seven schools who live in Independence will join the Independence district, but some 1,500 students with Kansas City addresses will go to schools in Kansas City.
While the district will split the elementary and middle school students into existing schools, the district determined it needed to create a high school for the more than 700 Kansas City students at Van Horn. | 2/14/2008 | | Kansas City Call
Week of February 1-7, 2008
Youth Advocacy Office Announces Scholarships For Low-Income Residents
The City of Kansas City, Mo., Youth Advocacy office, a division of the City Manager’s office, will help administer a 10-year scholarship grant program funded by the Port Authority of Kansa City, and area casino gaming operators.
The scholarship will serve city residents living in households that have a total annual income of 80 percent or less of the median income of city households.
Scholarship applicants also must be between 17-25 years old, pursuing educational opportunities at an accredited or certified college, university and vocational/technical school and have a high school diploma or GED equivalent.
The scholarships will provide a minimum of $1,000 per academic year and can be used for tuition, books, room and board and activity fees.
Scholarship applications, along with a high school transcript or GED certificate, a 300-word essay, a letter of recommendation from a teacher, counselor, employer or clergy member and the most recent IRS tax forms of all members of the household are due by May 1 of each year.
Scholarships are renewable if recipients remain full-time students, stay in good academic standing with the institution attending and continue to live in a household that has a total annual income 80 percent of less of median income of the city, defined as:
Person per household
One – less than $28,294
Two – less than $36,274
Three – less than $44,255
For more information, call (816) 513-1356. | 2/1/2008 | | Kansas City Call
Week of February 1-7, 2008
Parent Power Institute Plans Additional Forum
The Parent Power Institute will host an additional informational forum from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 9, in room 250 on the Pioneer Campus of Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley, 2700 E. 18th St. The forum will provide parents with a program overview, enrollment information, a question and answer session, and a skills in assessment in math and English needed to enter the institute.
The innovative Parent Power Institute prepares adults for college by offering a mix of preparatory classes, life skills sessions and rigorous curriculum. Participants will develop mastery in writing skills, math and computers equivalent to a college freshman. Also participants will receive a certificate of completion and be eligible to take part in Parents to College program, the follow-up program.
For more information, call the Adult Basic Education, (816) 418-8202 or the Parent Resource center, (816) 418-8615. | 2/1/2008 | |
Kansas City Call
Week of February 1-7, 2008
Central Alumni Foundation Holds Annual Luncheon
The Central Alumni Educational Foundation (CAEF) recently held its annual luncheon at the Webster House, 1644 Wyandotte.
The CAEF honored Ms. Jane Rinehart, English teacher and debate coach of central high school (sic), for her dedication and genuine concern for her students.
Ms. Rinehart has been Central’s debate coach for several years. Central’s debate team is ranked nationally.
Joe Miller was the keynote speaker for the luncheon. Miller is the author of Cross X, which features Ms. Rinehart and her students.
Miller spent two years with Ms. Rinehart to witness how she motivated and coached the students to become great debaters.
She prepared them for the debate tournaments and traveled to various tournaments locally and nationally.
What Ms. Rinehart has done as Central’s debate coach has produced some great debaters, with numerous awards and trophies to prove it, said a foundation spokesperson.
Other guests in attendance include Ms. Rinehart’s sister, Cathy Rinehart; Donna Bullock, a former teacher who taught college algebra at Central; Charles Wurrey, from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, who initiated and set the wheels in motion for the College Head Start program; and Lynne Clawson-Day, assistant director for the high school/college program.
Dr. Glenn Mitchell, principal of Central High school, spoke during the luncheon as well as Sean Easterwood, student/debater at Central High school.
The CAEF is a staunch supporter of the Central High school Debate team. The CAEF also supports the College Head Start program, and has been since 1991.
The CAEF pays half of the tuition and purchases of all books and supplies needed for college courses.
The foundation is seeking Central High school alumnae (sic) to join. The foundation will hold its annual Spring Gala on June 21.
Alumnae (sic) interested in joining, contact Iola Riley at (816) 587-6634. | 2/1/2008 | |
Kansas City Globe
By ANDRE RILEY
Kansas City, Missouri School District
January 31, 2008
School district reaches out to dropouts
Multi-faceted program helps recover wayward students
A group of volunteers is spearheading a multi-faceted push by the Kansas City, Missouri School District to bring its dropouts back to the classroom.
In December, the District began a partnership with the NAACP to locate students who have stopped attending school. Volunteers from groups affiliated with the renowned civil rights organization work a bank of phones weekly, following leads and tips that could help locate students no longer on the District’s attendance rolls.
The volunteers made nearly 400 calls in the program’s first month. Preliminary statistics show volunteers made contact with dropouts 35 percent of the time. In all, 15 students either returned to school or indicated a desire to head back to the classroom.
When the volunteers’ efforts are combined with the District’s internal dropout tracking efforts, including calls and visits, KCMSD staff has the tools needed to reach out effectively. Each day a school dropout spends away from the classroom, the chances of a return to education diminish, according to Ed Marquez, KCMSD Director of Pupil Services.
“It’s very important as soon as we make contact that we stay current, that we talk with grandmothers and cousins,” Marquez said. “If we don’t make a connection and lose contact, the student can be anywhere.”
The phone calls from volunteers and KCMSD staff are just the first step in the District’s Dropout Recovery Program. Once students are located, District staff works with the student to identify the best educational route based on age and credit accumulation. The student sometimes has a chance for high school graduation, Marquez said, while in other instances the students are funneled toward GED or other alternative programs.
The results have been promising. During the 2005-2006 school year, approximately 75 percent of students that returned to school stayed for the remainder of the school year.
KCMSD Superintendent Anthony Amato credits those results not only to the recovery program, but to the staff that welcomes the students back.
“It’s important to get as many dropouts back as possible,” Amato said. Once they’re back, we want to support them with better learning opportunities. With a caring adult, the suspension and expulsion rate for those students goes down.”
The District plans to expand the program further by identifying staff at schools to enhance that welcoming presence, Marquez said. While staff is always welcoming to returning students, the plan is to select teachers, administrators and others who can best relate to students and keep them focused on their educational goals.
Ultimately, the Dropout Recovery Program is about taking responsibility, Marquez said.
“We have to accept responsibility if the students don’t graduate and the student has to accept responsibility for their part,” Marquez said. “There’s responsibility in all facets. If everybody is willing to accept responsibility, it’s not about placing blame. It’s about doing what we can to do better.”
The Kansas City, Missouri School District is committed to retaining students and helping them become lifelong learners.
“We’re far from satisfied. I don’t want any child ever dropping out,” Amato said. “Until we get to zero, we haven’t done our job.”
“No excuses. No exceptions. All students should finish school.”
SIDEBAR:
Are you interested in helping with the Kansas City, Missouri School District’s Dropout Recovery Program? If so, you should attend the program’s training and informational meeting at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 22, in the small meeting room on the first floor of the Board of Education building, 1211 McGee St., Kansas City, MO 64106.The hour-long meeting will feature an explanation of the program, a role playing exercise, an explanation of dropout data and phone training. For more information, call KCMSD Pupil Services at (816) 418-7000. | 1/31/2008 | | Kansas City Star
By ANDY NELSON
Special to The Star
February 13, 2008
YouthFriends forever
Students and mentors forge special bond
Mike Vieux (right) has been a YouthFriends mentor for Darrell Smith since Darrell was in first grade.
He was only a first-grader, but Darrell Smith still remembers the day he met Mike Vieux.
He had been to the dentist and when he came back to Longfellow Elementary, his teacher told him there was someone in the principal’s office she wanted him to meet.
Darrell remembers walking down the hallway and being introduced to Vieux, his new mentor in the YouthFriends program, which has matched 28,000 mentors with more than 198,000 students in Kansas and Missouri schools since its founding in 1995.
Eight years later, Vieux turns to Darrell and tries to gauge what must have been going through the youngster’s mind.
“You didn’t know you’d be getting a wrinkled old white guy, did you?” Vieux says.
Darrell is now a freshman at Westport High School. At 6 foot 1 inch, he towers over the man he looked up at for years. And yet every Monday at around 11:45 a.m., just as he has for most of the last decade, Darrell walks down the hallway to the office to meet Vieux, have lunch, talk school, talk life, play a game or two and say goodbye until next week.
“We stay on school — he asks if there are any subjects I need help in,” Darrell says. “He has an answer most of the time. He keeps me going forward.”
Forward, the two friends say, to graduation from high school — and beyond.
“I want to see him go off to college,” says Vieux, a senior project manager at J.E. Dunn Construction. “Darrell can be a real good student. I just have to encourage him.”
Of course, talking about school is just a part of how the two spend their 30 to 40 minutes (before Darrell entered high school, it was an hour) together. Sports is another common topic of discussion.
Vieux, a Kansas State graduate, has tried his hardest to get Darrell, a University of Kansas fan who hopes one day to play basketball for the Jayhawks, to see the light.
“I try to get him over that,” Vieux says. “We haven’t talked yet about K-State beating KU yet.”
Darrell wastes no time putting that particular discussion to rest before it’s begun.
“We won’t talk about that,” he says.
Actually, Vieux says, the Super Bowl was about the only sports-related topic the two found themselves on the same side of, with both expressing delight at the New York Giants’ win.
There’s been plenty of time for laughs, too, over the years, the friends say.
“He has good jokes,” Darrell says.
When Darrell was in second grade, his hair was tied in two braids. He tried to talk the balding Vieux into doing the same. When he asked where the braids would go, Darrell suggested tying them behind his head.
Then there are the games: Sorry was the game of choice at the beginning of their friendship, then Uno and now gin rummy.
“He beats the living daylights out of me,” Vieux says. “In all these years, I’ve won maybe six times.”
The longer mentors and kids stay together, the better, said Sandi Grimm, director of marketing for YouthFriends. Youths who last at least 12 months with the same mentor experience more self-worth and social acceptance, do better in school, get along better with their parents and are less likely to use drugs and alcohol.
“Every kid at this age needs help,” Vieux said. “No matter where you’re from. I grew up as far away from here as possible (Greensburg, Kan.) and I needed help.”
Of course, Darrell’s and Vieux’s relationship also can be expressed in more mutually beneficial terms.
“We just enjoy each other’s company,” Vieux says.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ON THE WEB
For more information on the YouthFriends program, go to www.youthfriends.org or call 816-842-7082. | 2/13/2008 | |
The Call
Week of Jan. 18-24, 2008
Beauty Issues on Generation Rap
Generation Rap panelists will take on the issue of “beauty” during its weekly discussion period, tomorrow on KPRS Hot 103 JAMZ. In line with the King Celebration activities, the panelists will broadcast “live” from the Community Christian church, where King-related workshops will be held.
Essence Mitchem (Paseo) will produce the show and Danielle Coleman (Notre Dame de Sion) will host the show. The radio talk show will convene at 8 a.m., and all panelists will be at that site.
In keeping with the “beauty” theme, Debbie D., music director and radio personality for Gospel 1590 will be the guest expert on the show.
Debbie D. Is associated with the King-related, Miss Black USA pageant. | 1/18/2008 | | The Call
Week of Jan. 14-24, 2008
Books and Beyond
Former KC CALL Intern and Central High Alumnus Now Veteran In Book Publishing
Behind most publish authors is an agent who works behind the scenes to land the book deal. Janell Walden Agyeman is a veteran in the New York publishing industry circles and a native Kansas Citian.
Among her past and current clients are Tananarive Due (science fiction and fantasy author), Sharon Draper (Coretta Scott King Literary Award winning author) and syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.
“So much of publishing is built on relationships. That’s one reason why being agented is a definite plus,” the highly sought after agent shares.
Ms. Walden Agyeman’s Kansas City roots run deep. She graduated from Central High school in 1970, where she wrote for the school newspaper. She also worked as a reporter intern with the Kansas City Call during a summer in the early 1970s under the leadership of legendary editor and publisher Lucille Bluford. “The world does not begin and end in New York City and some of us know better,” Ms. Walden Agyeman reflects. “I give thanks for the grounding I received. I’m always proud and grateful to say Kansas City is home.” She credits her parent with instilling a strong sense of community and history within her. Both of her parents worked at the former Wheatley – Provident hospital, the city’s first hospital operated by black citizens. Her later father, James M. Walden Sr., was a physician and staff member. He mother, Nellie Walden was a lab tech for many years and actively contributed to the efforts to build the King Memorial hospital (which replaced Wheatley-Provident. I’ve been blessed with a family that’s provided me with support so that I could invest myself in this industry,” she shares.
Ms. Walden Agyeman’s career in publishing began after she graduated from Syracuse university and entered Doubleday Publishing legendary training program (which is now defunct) in fall of 1974. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect because it was shortly before Alex Haley’s Roots was published, which helped to provide some-what improved opportunities for African American writers to be published. “Publishing has long been know was and accidental profession,” she states. For instance, I trained for journalism but did not get the job I wanted when I graduated. However, when the opportunity came up to enter publishing, I jumped at it. It just made sense. Many colleagues have similar stories.”
She also worked at Howard University Press from 1980 to 1985 and began working as an agent for Marie Brown and Associates Literary Agency in 1993. Today she runs the Miami branch of the agency as well as facilities publishing workshops and serves as treasurer for the Miami Book Fair International, the largest and longest running community – based book festival in the country.
After more than 30 years in the industry, Ms. Walden Agyeman says she still has to convince publishers that sufficient numbers of black people read and buy books to justify publisher interest, and that black authors deserve a chance to publish across the spectrum of our experiences.
It’s not true that all we read are the so-called ‘guns and booty books’, she comments. “We are a multi-dimensional people. We have many taste and interest, like any other readers.”
While Ms. Walden Agyeman isn’t accepting new clients, she has advice for aspiring writers.
“Don’t force yourself to do something that doesn’t come natural to you,” she advises. “There are opportunities in non-fiction as well as fiction. Be more open to exploring the many avenues of expression available to serious writers.”
| 1/14/2008 | |
The Examiner
January 11, 2008
Van Horn student wins essay contest award
Katie Temple, a student at Van Horn High School, recently placed first in the 2007 Democracy Day High School Essay Contest at Park University in Parkville, MO.
The essay contest is part of the University’s annual Democracy Day and is designed for high school seniors. The topic this year was “Propose and Defend a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” As a first place winner, Temple received a $250 prize.
| 1/11/2008 | |
The Examiner
January 18, 2008
Help Van Horn head in the right direction
Anderson hopes to lead Falcons to special season
When Vondal Anders was in the eight grade, he had to make a tough decision.
“I could go to Van Horn High School or another high school,” said the Falcon’s 6-foot -1 senior guard.
“The other school had a better basketball team, but I wanted to go with my friend to Van Horn. We all kind of talked and said we wanted to do something special at Van Horn, help turn the program around. “It took a few years, but we’re getting there.” Anderson has enjoyed one of the most spectacular weeks in recent Van Horn hoops history, leading the 5-8 Falcons to a stunning 50-40 victory over the host school in the championship game of the Lathrop Tournament last Saturday. He then scored 18 points in a 77-67 loss to Lee’s Summit Community Christian School Monday and lead the Falcons with a career-high 31 points in a thrilling 61-60 Interscholastic League victory over Paseo Wednesday night. Anderson has been named The Examiner’s Player of the Week and was Wednesday’s Star of the Day. “The young man deserves everything that comes his way,” said first-year Falcons head coach Albert Collins, a former standout player at Sumner Academy, who was a part of coach Randy Spring’s staff the past five years. I just have one wish – I wish I could have worked with Vondale more than one year. I feel very fortunate to be his coach this season and I have seen him grow as a player and as a person – but if we could have worked together two or three years oh my goodness the sky would be the limit. “The young mans has the potential to be a Division I player.” “I think anyone who sees him play can see that he has so much talent and desire and he’s getting much better and better every day.” Anderson topped the Falcons with 17 points in the upset win over Lathrop. “Walking out and getting that first place trophy was about the greatest feeling I ever had at Van Horn,” Anderson said. “We hadn’t won a trophy in a long, long time (1995 at the Odessa Tournament). It’s been a long time since this team has had any confidence and now, we are very confident. “And a lot of that has to do with Coach Collins. He makes us confident and helps us believe in ourselves. If you believe in yourself and the guys you play with, you can really accomplish a lot.” Anderson was down Monday night, following that loss at Lee’s Summit Community Christian. “We should have von this game,” He said, matter of factly. They had the big guy (6-7 junior Matt Webb, who scored a career high 34 points on 17-19 shooting from the floor), but we could have won if we’d have done a better job (shooting from) outside.” Anderson opened the game with back to back 3 pointers. He followed with a couple of no-look, behind the back passes that resulted in jaw-dropping assists. “He can do it all, “Collins said, grinning. “He gets everyone involved on the floor. The guys like to play with him because if they’re open, they’ll get the ball.” Anderson’s finest individual moment came Wednesday against Paseo when he hit the second of two free throws with one second left to help Van Horn claim its first conference win of the season. Anderson was 14 of 18 from the line and added three assists and three steals. “I want to be complete player,” Anderson said. “I don’t care if I score two points if we win. I want to be a part of the team that people say, “They started something good.” He doesn’t have a thing to worry about. “This team is special, because of players like Vondale and all the other guys,” Collins said. “We want to make them better players, but we want to make them better individuals. They aren’t going to be playing basketball all their lives and we want to prepare them for what lies ahead.” Anderson and Phillip Wallace form one of the area’s most dynamic backcourts. “Vondale is a great teammate and a great player,” said Wallace, who scored a team high 20 points in the loss at Lee’s Summit. “He does a great job seeing the court and getting everyone involved. “And he’s so unselfish. He passes up a lot of shots to get the ball to the other guys on the team.” When asked what he wants to bring to the Falcons on a nightly basis, Anderson has a quick answer. “No.1, focus,” Anderson said. “I want all the guys on the same page. I want to play hard and I want to get my teammates involved. “If we can do that every night, we’re going to be all right.” | 1/18/2008 | | HISPANIC NEWS
February 7, 2008
New day for historic field house
District spruces up flagship sports venue
By ANDRE RILEY
After nearly 45 years of service to Kansas City, Missouri School District student-athletes, the Interscholastic Field House is receiving a facelift.
The school district is working on a three-phase, $350,000 renovation of the field house, 3500 E. Meyer Blvd., Kansas City, Mo., that will give new life to the home basketball court for the Interscholastic League’s six member teams. The upgrades, both cosmetic and structural, will give the league a facility on par with other local school districts.
“One of the District’s most important goals is to give our student –athletes modern, quality facilities,” said Ed Corporal, KCMSD Athletic Director. “The upgrades to the field house will not only provide a top-level facility, it’ll allow us to showcase our District to non-conference opponents.”
The fixes will touch every part of the Interscholastic League Field House, which opened during the 1962-63 school year.
In the first phase of renovations, completed in November 2006, cosmetic work was done to the field house, including painting both indoors and outdoors and the installation of new tile around the entrance, court and restrooms. Miscellaneous electrical repairs were done and new ceiling tiles were added indoors.
The first-phase work, including in-house repairs by KCMSD maintenance staff, came in nearly $3,000 under budget. The capstone of the effort was a new scoreboard installed in December. New banners for each of the league’s member schools and a new team store with apparel are also in place.
The second and third phases will include new exterior signage, the replacement of backboards/goals, upgrades to ADA standards, repairs to the bleachers, and the addition of a new floor complete with the Interscholastic League logo.
The work isn’t done. In the near future, the KCMSD Athletic Department plans to add a new scorer’s table with rotating space for advertisements and a built-in clock. The district also hopes to add a video board or similar capability.
Concentrating the upgrades at the field house was the best use of District resources, Corporal said.
“We could have taken the same amount of money and spread it over all the schools, but the benefits would have been small,” Corporal said. “By spending the money on the field house, we’re able to benefit all the schools and make better use the field house.”
----
The Interscholastic League will showcase the renovated field house in a series of showcase games in early February.
• On Feb. 1, the Northeast and Lincoln Prep boys’ basketball teams will resume their rivalry during a 7 p.m. showdown at the field house. Northeast, the defending league champs, were beaten by Lincoln during the state divisional playoffs.
“Lincoln and Northeast have some unfinished business on the basketball court,” Corporal said. “For the Interscholastic League, this is a chance to showcase two of our top basketball programs.”
• On Saturday, Feb. 2, the field house will host its first non-league game in recent history when the Central boys’ basketball team takes on Sedalia Smith-Cotton High School in a 5:30 p.m. contest. Smith-Cotton will also bring its varsity girls and junior varsity programs to play in games scheduled earlier in the day. The four-game slate is an important benchmark for the league, Corporal said.
“It’s been quite a while since we hosted a non-conference opponent in the field house. We’re excited to bring in a quality opponent to break that streak,” Corporal said. “This is the start of a new tradition for our league.”
A notable local non-conference opponent is coming to the field house on Feb. 9, when the Hogan Prep boys’ hoops team visits host Northeast. The game has an intriguing side note because Hogan Prep’s star guard, Marcus Denmon, was a former Interscholastic League player. He’ll play basketball for the Missouri Tigers next season. | 2/7/2008 | | NORTHEAST NEWS
February 6, 2008
School district remembers, honors pioneers
Black history focus of celebration
BY ANDRE RILEY
Black History Month is a time for all Americans to honor the contributions of African-Americans to our society. The Kansas City, Missouri School District’s staff and students are taking a unique approach to meeting that standard.
From the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday through Black History Month, the KCMSD will be celebrating the everyday contributions of African-Americans nationally and on the local stage. The capstone of the effort is “Lifting As We Climb,” a program to honor notable African-American graduates of the District.
Since Black History Month’s origins in 1926, young students throughout the nation have learned about African-American icons such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner and George Washington Carver. However, students and educators alike have struggled to identify local achievements and everyday actions students could identify with. “Lifting As We Climb” fills that void by naming achievers who share the same roots as today’s KCMSD students.
Each weekday on the Black History Month page on the District’s Web site, www.kcmsd.net, a local achiever will be profiled. In all, 21 notable graduates will be honored. Some names you’ll recognize and some will be people you know but never considered in this light. The District hopes students will view these graduates as the more well-known African-American icons they see in textbooks – role models who show what hard work and perseverance can bring.
At the school level, students at the elementary and high school levels are celebrating the legacy of Dr. King and Black History Month in distinctive ways.
At Westport Middle School, special education teacher Gayle Hill wrote and directed “Remember the King,” a theatrical production that used dramatized skits to re-create special moments in the civil rights leader’s life. The play documented the pivotal moment in King’s childhood when he was told he could no longer play with a white neighbor, to the March on Washington. Nearly 50 Westport middle students took part in the program.
Other KCMSD schools also had efforts of note.
At Blenheim Accelerated Elementary School, parents took the lead in presenting a production about King’s life. Students at Border Star Montessori performed “African-Americans: The Past, the Present, The Future,” a mix of classroom plays, songs and speeches. At Askew Elementary, students created art projects to honor Dr. King. At Northeast High, students are participating in a contest to create murals showing the spirit of diversity at the school.
Through a united effort, the Kansas City, Missouri School District is making Black History Month truly a celebration for all. | 2/6/2008 | |
FOX 4 TV NEWS
January 17, 2008
'Gilead Table' Focuses On Public Education
Education News | Kansas City News
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Senior Pastor, Rev. Michael Brooks, Zion Grove Missionary Baptist Church, The Metropolitan Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (MORE2), has formed an Education Task Force to address the challenges of public education in the metro area.
The "Gilead Table" has been created to gather key members of the community that will be able to influence changes in four key areas: early intervention, community involvement, legislation, and alternatives for re-engagement. Many of the big school districts' Superintendents and Board Presidents have agreed to serve on this Table (including Anthony Amato). Also community leaders from LINC, the Urban League and the Kauffman Scholars will be joining this effort.
Goals include reducing the dropout rate, community involvement, legislative solutions and engagement for those who dropped out.
There is still room for educational professionals to join the board.
The next meeting for the Gilead Table on February 5 from 4 - 6 p.m. | 1/17/2008 | | Kansas City Star Editorials
January 18th, 2008
KC School board needs mix of skills
Craft a list of necessary qualifications for a school board member, and topping most people’s choices would be a strong desire to help children. Such a passion for education is commendable and warranted. But, when the day-to-day tasks of a school board member are considered, especially in a provisionally accredited district like Kansas City, skills akin to those found on corporate and foundation boards are also useful.
Tuesday is the deadline for candidates to submit petitions to the election board to put their names on the April 8 ballot. Compelling candidates have expressed interest in the four seats up for election. Still needed are more volunteers with the intricate mix of available time, some business acumen as well. The board oversees a $357 million budget, the careers of more than 4,000 teachers and administrators and the academic success or failure of more than 22,000 children. The time commitment involved is the equivalent to a part-time job. But, there is no pay.
In general, school boards that share a clear direction and vision with their superintendent function better. That is according to the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a group the current Kansas City board has wisely used for guidance in many matters. That includes preparation for the spring state assessments determining if the district is on track to gain full accreditation by 2010. The Kansas City board is evaluating the performance and future of Superintendent Anthony Amato. New board members will either have to join that process or deal effectively with whatever follows the current board’s decision. | 1/18/2008 | | The Kansas City Globe
January 10 – 16, 2008
KCMSD Paseo Fine Arts Academy to Hold Auditions, Open House
Paseo Fine Arts Academy will hold auditions and an Open House on Tuesday, January 15, 2008. Auditions in each arts genre (theatre/technical theatre, vocal/instrumental music, dance, visual arts, creative writing) will be held from 3:00-5:00 p.m. Parents, family members and community are invited to an open house immediately following from 5:00-7:00 p.m.
The January 15 auditions is only for the Kansas City, Missouri School District wishing to enter Paseo second semester (beginning Tuesday, January 22, 2008). Eligibility will be determined in the criteria outlined in the Audition Packets available at Paseo Fin Arts Academy (4747 Flora, Kansas City, Missouri, 64110) or at the KCMSD Admissions Office (Board of Education Building, 1211 McGee, Kansas City, Missouri, 64106). Students are requested to come prepared according to Audition Packets Instructions. Selections and notifications will be made the same day.
Auditions for the fall semester 2008 will begin in March, 2008. Students from other districts, as well as charter and private schools, will have opportunities to audition for entry into Paseo during the months of March, April, May, and July (see Open Audition Dates below). The audition is part of the admissions process.
The Paseo Fine Arts Exhibition Troupe is available for a 45-minute lecture/demonstration to 8th grade classes at charter, private, and other academies; as well as middle schools within KCMSD.
Open Audition Dates for the 2008-09 School Year
Auditions are open to all students of the Kansas City, Missouri School District in grades 9-12 as well as new students entering the District for the first time.
Thursday, March 13, 2008 3:00 p.m.
Thursday, April 17, 2008 3:00 p.m.
Thursday, May 29, 2008 3:00 p.m.
Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:00 p.m.
To confirm audition dates, ask questions about audition requirements, or request a performance by the Exhibition Troupe, call Mr. Dennis J. Walker, Arts Program Administrator, and (816) 418-2346. | 1/10/2008 | | The Call
January 11 – January 17 2008
Paseo Academy Auditions and Open House
Paseo Fine Arts Academy will hold auditions and Open House on Tuesday, Jan. 15.
Auditions in each arts genre (theater, voice, dance, music, and visual arts, creative writing) will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Parents, family members and community are invited to the Open House from 5 to 7 p.m.
Auditions are open to all students of the Kansas City Mo School District in grades 9-12. Eligibility will be determined on the Criteria outlined in the audition packets available at Paseo Fine Arts Academy, 4747 Flora.
The Paseo Fine Arts Exhibition Troupe is available for a 45-minute demonstration to 8th grade classes at charter, private and other academies.
Open audition dates for the 2008-2009 school year are, Thursday, March 13, 3 pm; Thursday, April 17, 3 p.m.; Thursday, May 29, 3 p.m.; and Thursday, July 24, 3 p.m.
| 1/11/2008 | |
NORTHEAST NEWS
January 16, 2008
Training is paramount to protecting our students
KCMSD safety department overhauls instructional series
By ANDRE RILEY
Kansas City, Missouri School District
Year round, a group of 90 officers keeps watch over the Kansas City, Missouri School District’s students and property. A new training program initiated this year will allow those officers to do their jobs better.
Initiated by the District’s Safety and Security Department this school year, the training program focuses on core skills such as conflict resolution, customer service, firearms usage and CPR rescue, with an emphasis on in-house certification. This school year, the department will take part in 10 programs designed to measure and sharpen its expertise.
The best way to guard the safety of the District’s students, staff, faculty and property is with a professional, certified security force, according to Nathaniel Lacy, Safety Department communications and training manager.
We’re trying to make our department one of the best in the nation, if not one of the most professional,” Lacy said. “To be at a high level, you need training.”
The activity of the revamped instructional program, a significant departure from the “sporadic” training of the past said Lacy, has been rapid. Since September, the department has averaged at least one training event per month.
In August, security officers participated in a night weapons firing qualification session similar to those required by police departments. One day and night qualification session is required per year.
In September, the department’s alarm engineers – the group responsible for managing the District’s fire and burglary protection – received their annual training. The lessons learned will help as engineers attempt to reach the highest certification level in their field, the National Institute for Certification of Engineering Technologies’ level 3 ranking.
The Safety Department had two additional training sessions in October. The first was crisis intervention training, instruction that will help officers better handle disruptive situations through measured body language and techniques. That training was followed Oct. 25 by a night and day firearms qualification similar to those required by other police agencies.
November brought freshened instruction in the use of metal detectors at schools and a refresher on District polices. In December, the officers worked on judgmental shooting, a skill that will help the department recognize the proper moments to use firearms and less lethal weapons such a pepper spray. At the other end of the spectrum, the Department’s dispatchers – a group that works around the clock daily – underwent customer service training to improve their skills.
In the new year, officers will undergo training that not only will improve their expertise, it will also provide a lasting benefit to taxpayers.
This week (Jan. 11) in Columbia, Mo., three assistant managers in the safety department will undergo training in the use of pepper spray that will earn them an instructor’s certification for three years. Those managers will then teach other officers, preventing the need to spend District money to bring in an out-of-area consultant. A similar situation will occur in May, when two officers will attend Smith & Wesson’s handcuff training, receive three-year instructor certifications then train their brethren the following months.
Add planned training events for CPR rescue in February and first-time supervisors and lead officers training in March, and the Department will be on the cutting edge of techniques needed to best serve students and the community, according to Major Marcus Harris, director of the Safety and Security Department. To implement the training overhaul, the department reduced line items in its budget for vehicles and other planned purchases. Staffing levels were not impacted by the budget shuffling.
Harris said the sacrifices were worth it.
“I want to be able to show people are officers are qualified to do many things,” Harris said. “I want to show them we’re qualified to protect their babies.” | 1/16/2008 | | Hispanic News
January 3, 2008
KCMSD QUICK NOTES
Coach Inducted Into Missouri Track Hall of Fame
The Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches Association recently inducted former Kansas City MO School District Coach Richard Samuels into its hall of Fame during a banquet in early December 7, 2007.
Ed Corporal, director, “We are honored to have him as part of our staff and the service he gives to our student athletes and fellow coaches. Coach Samuels expresses the true meaning of what coaches stand for, integrity, hard work and passion for their students, and players.”
Richard Samuels’s distinguished career consists of one year at the Paseo Academy of Fine Arts, 16 years at Southwest High School and 13 years at Central High School. He has served 26 years as cross county head coach at Southwest and Central. His team have won 30 conference championships and emerged as the 4A Girls State champions in 2000 and 3A Boys State champions in 2004, among five state trophy teams. He has trained over 300 All-State athletes and 38 state champions.
MTCCCA educates coaches and provide access to the best equipment, research and resources available through an annual open clinic. It celebrates the achievements of Missouri coaches and athletes through its Hall of Fame, MTCCCA also advocates for coaches and athletes on the state and national level regarding issues connected to the well –being of cross country and track and field in the state of Missouri. | 1/3/2008 | | Hispanic News
January 3, 2008
KCMSD QUICK NOTES
Central High School Player Makes All-State
Defensive end Kalieg Mohammad Jr., of Central High School in Kansas City, MO made the 4A All-State football team this month.
The 6 foot -4, 240-pound junior is a 3.8 grade point average student. According to Central Football Coach Henry Newell, Mohammad “rarely says a word,” but is “an outstanding young man with great character” who leads by example. “He will make an impact on his world.”
“I am very excited and proud that Kalieg made all-state. He is a very good football player and represents the best of the IL, said director of KCMSD Athletics Ed Corporal.”
| 1/3/2008 | |
Kansas City Globe
Thursday, December 26, 2007 – Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Richard Samuels Inducted into Missouri Track Hall of Fame
The Missouri Track and Cross County Coaches Association (MTCCA) inducted Kansas City School District Head Track Coach Richard Samuels into its Hall of Fame at its annual banquet on Friday, December 7, 2007.
“The Athletic department would like to congratulate Coach Samuels,” said Ed Corporal, director. “We are honored to have him as part of our staff and the service he gives to our student athletes and fellow coaches. Coach Samuels expresses the true meaning of what coaches stand for, integrity, hard work and passion for their students, and players.”
Richard Samuels’ distinguished career consists of one year at Paseo Fine Arts Academy, sixteen at Southwest High School, and thirteen at Central High School. He has served 26 years as cross county head coach at Southwest and Central. His teams have won 30 conference championships and emerged as the 4-A girls’ state champs in 2000 and 3 A-boys’ state champs in 2004 among five state trophy teams. Samuels’ trained over 300 All-State athletes, with 38 state champions.
MTCCCA educates coaches and provide access to the best equipment, research and resources available through an annual open clinic. It celebrates the achievements of Missouri coaches and athletes through its Hall of Fame, MTCCCA also advocates for coaches and athletes on the state and national level regarding issues connected to the well –being of cross country and track and field in the state of Missouri. | 12/26/2007 | |
Kansas City Globe
Thursday, December 26, 2007 – Wednesday, January 02, 2008
KCMSD Library Media Specialist Special Guest at Guadalajara International Book Fair
Maria –Elena Singelmann, Library Media Specialist of Northeast Middle School of the Kansas City, MO School District, was selected by the Organizing committee of the 21st Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), and the American Library Association (ALA) as and FIL 2007 special guest librarian. The FIL took place in Guadalajara, Mexico from November 24 – December 2, 2007. The Guest of Honor country was Colombia, which presented the best of its publishing production as well as its art, culture, gastronomy and music. This book fair is the second largest in the world and it brings in publishers from the world over, librarians from the continental States, plus from other parts of the world.
Ms. Singelmann has been with the KCMSD since 1983, and has taught 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade at Swinney, Melcher and Troost Elementary Schools. This is her eight year as a librarian. She began at Milton Moore, and this is her third year at Northeast Middle. In addition to buying and selecting for the Spanish collection at Northeast Middle School Library, Ms. Singelmann also chooses books for the international collections of each and every one of the other District libraries. She has complied lists for the various levels, elementary, middle, and high schools for recommended purchasing.
She is fluent in Spanish, and this is what enables her to appreciate Spanish literature at the children’s and adult levels – as well as the problems facing those trying to find good literature at all levels, especially for young adults. Ms. Singelmann made a special presentation to a library group last November, the topic of which was books for the Latino teen group. In doing the research for the presentation, she found out about the Guadalajara Book Fair and the scholarship supported by the American Library Association. | 12/26/2007 | | Kansas City Globe
Thursday, December 26, 2007 – Wednesday, January 02, 2008
KCMSD Central High School Player Makes All State
KCMSD Central High School’s Defensive End Kalieg Mohammad, Jr. made the AP 4-A All State Football Team this month. The 6’4”, 240 junior is a 3.8 GPA student who, according to Central’s Head Football Coach Henry Newell “rarely says a word” but is “an outstanding young man with great character” who leads by example. “He will make an impact on his world.”
Director of KCMSD Athletics Ed Corporal proudly states that, “I am very excited and proud that Kalieg made All State. He is a very good football player and represents the best of the IL.” | 1/26/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
January 9, 2008
Paseo Academy Auditions
The Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, 4747 Flora Ave., will hold auditions Jan. 15, beginning at 3p.m. for high school students wishing to enroll for the second semester, which begins Jan. 22. The district also is holding an open house for the community form 5 to 7 p.m. Jan. 15. to arrange an audition, call 816-418-2346.
| 1/9/2008 | |
Kansas City Star
January 8, 2008
Open House
The Kansas City district’s Holliday Montessori School, a magnet school at 7227 Jackson Ave. will hold an open house from 5 to 7 p.m. today.
Teachers will be on hand to talk about the Montessori teaching method. The school serves students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade.
| 1/8/2008 | |
The Call
January 4 – January 10 2008
(ACE Student) Receives Defensive Player of The Year
A year-end banquet was held for the Kansas City Bulldogs football team on Sunday, Dec. 30, 2007, at the View Community center.
All of the children earned trophies and medals during the ceremony. Marcus Leesean Zweifel, 11, of Kansas City was given a lifetime achievement helmet and he also received the honor of best Defensive Player of the Year 2007.
The founder of the black and gold Bulldogs is Steve Brown. The banquet honored all of the participants of the organization for the 2007 season.
Zweifel held positions of full back and middle line backer during this season and won the title of Super Bowl champions in which they defeated the Falcons.
He is the son of Mikisha S. Adams and he is a sixth grader at the ACE Collegium campus. | 1/4/2008 | | Kansas City Star
January 8, 2008
School Board Race Gets New Candidate
Airick Leonard West, a 28-year-old computer programmer, is joining the field of candidates for an at-large seat on the Kansas City school board.
Incumbent Bill Eddy has filed for re-election, and Ray Wilson, former president of the District Advisory Committee, has said he intends to run. The filing deadline is Jan. 22. The election is April 8.
| 1/8/2008 | |
The Call
January 4 – January 10 2008
Parent Power Institute To Host Forum For Degree Seeking Parents
The Parent Power Institute will host informational forums from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 5, and from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., at the Hospital Hill, Chosholm building, 22nd and Holmes, for parents seeking to prepare themselves to tackle the rigors of college.
The forum will provide a program overview, enrollment information, question and answer and skills assessment in math and English needed to enter the institute.
The institute is open to parents who have children enrolled in the Kansas City MO, School District, have a high school diploma or GED, are willing to sacrifice a minimum of six to 12 hours of academic classes per week, and sign a participation agreement. Assistance with financial aid applications, child care and transportation is available.
| 1/4/2008 | |
The Call
December 28, 2007 – January 3, 2008
Through the Eyes of a Teenager ‘Great Debaters’ Is Great
By Taylor Rene’e Brown
Special to The Call
My name is Taylor Brown and I am a varsity debater at Paseo Academy of the Fine and Performing Arts. I am also a producer for the Generation Rap talk show on KPRS Hot 103 JAMZ.
Today, I am just a teenager who just witnessed a great movie, on Christmas Day, afternoon. In my opinion, “The Great Debaters,” is the greatest. Here are three good reasons why everyone should go see it.
First, the acting was superb. Somehow, the movie- makers made every actor believable. With style and grace, each of them spoke in a high-brow, Southern accent, making the strong plot even more powerful.
And as always, Denzel was Denzel. Add to that the effective Forrest Whitaker, whose character set the tone for a difficult – to- portray character. And to include teenage actors was important to me as a sophomore currently enrolled in a public high school.
Second, the movie was a good history lesson. It took place in Texas in the 1930’s.
Surprisingly, the issues among African Americans were the same, as now. In fact, had I been blind, I would have thought it was 2007. The movie dealt with sexism and of course, blatant racism, at its worst. And most of all, this movie dealt with the implied but real notion that African Americans have to be intellectually superior to their white counterparts.
But, most importantly, this great movie portrays the intellectual capacity of African Americans.
It demonstrated how important it is to have mentors and teachers for our young budding population.
Personally, I am sick and tired of black movies suggesting that crime and entertainment are all we think about.
Thus, to see young African Americans, debating policy and using the English language effectively, should raise our own self-expectations.
I was so inspired and excited that it took me several minutes to calm down, after seeing this movie.
Finally, it is a “must see” for all African Americans and especially urban high school debaters. As a debater myself, I was proud to see something other than sports and romance up on the big screen.
Let’s all give it up to Oprah (a co-Producer of “The Great Debaters”) for again she came through for all of us. Because I was so overjoyed, I went back to see it a second time. You should too. | 12/28/2007 | |
The Call
December 28, 2007 – January 3, 2008
Order of Eastern Star Chapter Donates School Supplies
The Twinkling Star Chapter No. 89, Order of the Easter Star, recently made its annual delivery of school supplies. The school supplies were delivered to Graceland Elementary school in Kansas City, MO. Dr. Patricia Nard is the principal.
The school was appreciative of the following items donated: 17 book bags containing a calculator, two pencil sharpeners, two glue sticks, four ink pens, four pencils, one pencil box, 11 markers, one package of notebook paper and one spiral notebook.
Other school supplies donated seven rulers, five protractors, 29 boxes of crayon, 24 count; six packages of notebook paper, four binder pouch, four bottles of hand sanitizer, 11 boxes of colored pencils-12 count; four boxes of markers -10 count; 37 glue sticks, 10 packages of pens-10 count; eight packagers of pencils -10 count; five packages of pencils -12 count;, 101 spiraled notebook paper, five compasses, four sharpies, 15 bottles of glue, 23 folders, two packages of construction paper, 100 erasers, five pair of scissors, and 14 pencil boxes.
“Dr. Nard and the entire staff and students thanked us and sent thank you letters. Everyone was appreciative of the donations. It was a pleasure for Twinkling Star Chapter No. 89 to make these donations. Our mission is to help those in need,” a spokesperson for the chapter said. | 12/28/2007 | |
The Call
December 28, 2007 – January 3, 2008
Alumni To Host Generation Rap Saturday
Melesa Johnson, former host of Generation Rap, now attends Columbia University in New York.
Monique Cooper and Amanda Morrall now attend Duke and Kansas University respectively. All three will share their college vicissitudes tomorrow at 8 am, on KPRS Hot 103 JAMZ.
As former panelists on Generation Rap, each will reflect on the differences between high school and college life i.e. social life, academic expectations and self-determination.
In the second half of the show, Melesa Johnson will recognize people who have been important to her development, leading up to a scholarship at an Ivy League school.
Melesa was Kansas High school Athlete of the Year and was host for Generation Rap in 2006.
Selected individual will appear and celebrate an abbreviated version of Kwanzaa.
After that, current Generation Rap panelists will interact with the alumni on how Generation Rap has helped the alumni post-high school.
Next week’s show will concentrate on the legacy of Martin Luther King.
Shanice Hayes (Lincoln), Essence Mitchem (Paseo) and Taylor Brown (Paseo) will be among those paying a talent tribute to King’s legacy.
Also, the January 5, show will be taped for later broadcast on Channel 62 on January 13.
All Generation Rap panelists will appear on that show. For further information, email jnunnelly@jacksongov.org | 12/28/2007 | |
The Call
December 28, 2007 – January 3, 2008
Coach Inducted Into Missouri Track Hall of Fame
The Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches Association recently inducted former Kansas City MO School District Coach Richard Samuels into its hall of Fame during a banquet in early December.
Samuels’s career consists of one year at the Paseo Academy of Fine Arts, 16 years at Southwest High School and 13 years at Central High School. He has served 26 years as cross county head coach at Southwest and Central. His team have won 30 conference championships and emerged as the 4A Girls State champions in 2000 and 3A Boys State champions in 2004, among five state trophy teams. He has trained over 300 All-State athletes and 38 state champions including Olympian Muna Lee.
“The Athletic department would like to congratulate Coach Samuels,” said Ed Corporal, director. “We are honored to have him as part of our staff and the service he gives to our student athletes and fellow coaches. Coach Samuels expresses the true meaning of what coaches stand for, integrity, hard work and passion for their students, and players,” Corporal said. | 12/28/2007 | |
The Call
December 28, 2007 – January 3, 2008
Central Football Player Makes All-State
Central High school’s defensive end Kalieg Mohammad Jr., made the 4A All-State football team recently in academics.
The 6 foot -4, 240-pound junior is a 3.8 grade point average student who, according to Central Football Coach Henry Newell, “rarely says a word,” but is “an outstanding young man with great character” who leads by example. Said Newell, “he will make an impact on his world.”
District Athletic Director Ed Corporal stated, “I am very excited and proud that Kalieg made all-state. He is a very good football player and represents the best of the Interscholastic League.” | 12/28/2007 | |
The Call
December 21, - 27, 2007
Lincoln Prep Named ‘Best High School’ By U.S. News Magazine
Lincoln College Prep Academy is one step closer toward its goal of being a “world class school for world class students.”
U.S. News and World Report magazine recently named Lincoln Prep one of the “Best High Schools 2008.” The school is one of four in the Kansas City area to receive the designation, joining Lee’s Summit North, Sumner Academy and Blue Valley North.
Over the past five years, Lincoln Prep exceeded state averages in both ACT scores (22.2 to 21.6) and graduation rate (98.3 to 76.2). In addition, the school has been honored through the U.S. Department of Education Secondary School Recognition program, the Rotary Excellence in Education Award, and has been a participant in the Missouri A-plus Grant program. The school continues to expand its International baccalaureate and college preparatory offerings.
“I’m very proud to be part of the Lincoln community and continue to be astonished by the achievements of our students and staff,” said Lincoln Prep Principal Dr. Cheryl Wright. “We see this as a significant achievement but we don’t want it to be the last achievement we receive. We want to go higher.” | 12/21/2007 | |
Kansas City Globe
Thursday, December 20, 2007 thru Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Local Student Among Artists Named for National Award
Miami, FL – Ten thousand dollars in cash; master classes by world-class artist’s and arts educators; a chance to be nominated as Presidential Scholar in the Arts; an off-Broadway performance or exhibit in New York and much more will fuel the ambitions and dreams of 142 of America’s best young artists when they come to Miami in January for young ARTS™ Week, the core program of National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA). Chosen from nearly 8,000 applicants in nine disciplines, these 17 and 18-year-olds will embark on this once –in-a-lifetime experience January 7-13, 2008. The cost of the trip is paid for by NFAA. Morgan Dameron of Kansas City, MO received a young ARTS Honorable Mention in Cinematic Arts. | 12/20/2007 | |
Kansas City Globe
Thursday, December 20, 2007 thru Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Lincoln Prep Named ‘Best High School’ By
U.S. News Magazine
Lincoln College Prep Academy is one step closer toward its goal of being a “world class school for world class students.”
U.S. News and World Report magazine recently named Lincoln Prep one of the “Best High Schools 2008.” The school is one of four in the Kansas City area to receive the designation, joining Lee’s Summit North, Sumner Academy and Blue Valley North in Kansas. Lincoln was given the bronze designation. The Magazine, with the help of School Evaluation Services, a K-12 data research and analysis business run by Standard & Poor’s, analyzed the data of more than 18,000 high schools to compile its inaugural list. Schools in 40 states were judges using a three-step process. The first two steps measured reading and math test results on state exams, with extra weight given to the number of economically disadvantaged students who performed above expectations. Schools that exceeded the state average were advanced to the third level, college readiness. Readiness was measured based on AP participation rate for 12th grade students, how well students did on those tests and passed. Schools that ranked highest in college readiness were given the gold designation, with the next 405 earning silver, and the remaining 1,086 earning bronze awards.
Over the past five years, Lincoln Prep exceeded state averages in both ACT scores (22.2 to 21.6) and graduation rate (98.3 to 76.2). In addition, the school has been honored through the U.S. Department of Education Secondary School Recognition program, the Rotary Excellence in Education Award, and has been a participant in the Missouri A-plus Grant Program. The school continues to expand its International baccalaureate and college preparatory offerings.
Overall, Lincoln Prep’s selection by U.S. News & World Report is a continuation of the school’s success, Wright said.
“I’m very proud to be part of the Lincoln community and continue to be astonished by the achievements of our students and staff,” said Lincoln Prep Principal Dr. Cheryl Wright. “We see this as a significant achievement but we don’t want it to be the last achievement we receive. We want to go higher.” | 12/20/2007 | |
Kansas City Globe
Thursday, December 20, 2007 thru Wednesday, December 26, 2007
KCMSD’S DOUGLASS EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER RECOGNIZED
KANSAS CITY, MO - Superintendent Anthony Amato Monday, attended the recognition event of Douglass Early Childhood Center as a Model Program by Neighborworks America ® Collaborating partners Westside Housing Organization and the Community Action Network (CAN) were also present. Cathy Renner, is principal on at 6:00 pm.
A few years ago, Douglass Elementary School was literally under attack. Rocks were being thrown, windows broken, graffiti appeared, and trash was strewn over school grounds. However, the blocks surrounding the school were all Model Blocks, organized by Westside Housing with the help of Neighborworks. As soon as Westside heard what happened, they “circled the wagons” and the neighborhood residents came to the rescue. A solid working relationship was formed between the residents and the Kansas City Missouri School District. According to Renner, “the momentum was amazing, the problem was solved and neighbors continue to watch over their school.” Westside Housing came in with advisors, volunteers, and even dumpsters, and they could do it quickly thanks to grants and experts provided by Neighborworks.
What is Neighborworks? It is a national nonprofit organization created by Congress to provide financial support, technical assistance, and training for community-based revitalization efforts. Rather than watching – or waiting for people from outside a community to come in and “do things” for its residents, resident leaders actively take responsibility for the outcome of their community, and recruit neighbors to join in. When residents work together to improve their community, bonds are built that foster cultural and social understanding. Community leaders also help ensure that strong local partnerships are formed to increase resources and that time and money will not be spent on mismatched programs.
The West Side Housing organization and Neighborworks are highlighting Douglass as an example of how a school and neighborhood should work together. KCMSD’s Director of Facilities, Director of Security, the school principal, CAN and the West Side Housing Organization have formed a close partnership that has met at Douglass for the past few years.
| 12/20/2007 | | The Star’s Editorials
Upcoming elections offer opportunities for Kansas City, Independence districts
Wanted: Quality school candidates
1/3/08 Section B-6
A common mantra among educators is “All children deserve a good education.” But for that to be possible, all students need strong advocates on school boards.
Board members need to be able to work effectively alongside other members. At the same time, they must be willing to stand up for the students in their area with informed conviction and professionalism.
The recent decision by voters to slice a portion of the Kansas City Mo School District off into the Independence School District offers the opportunity to ensure the remaining students and families in the Kansas City system are well-represented on the board.
Now that west Independence and Sugar Creek have been transferred to the Independence School District, Kansas City will need sub-district boundaries drawn by the election board to equalize the sub-districts. But it won’t happen in time for the April 8 school board elections.
Independence elects school board members entirely at-large. Two of the six-year seats – those held by board president Jana Waits and board member Robert Clothier – are up. Both members have filed for re-election.
For Kansas City, little time remains for community leaders to seek out viable candidates for the open board positions and begin working on campaigns. Finding the best candidates will take time Jan. 22 is the deadline for the candidates to file.
Four seats in the Kansas City are up for election. Of particular interest is the seat in Sub-district 3, currently held by Duane Kelly. Kelly has said he plans to move out of Independence to remain a candidate for the Kansas City board.
But Kelly has demonstrated a penchant for deviating from board business for an impromptu astrology lesson. His lackluster representation culminated when he missed the vote that hired Superintendent Anthony Amato.
Budgeting, approving programs and ensuring that the superintendent and district staff work toward the best interest of the students are tremendous responsibilities. They demand passion as well as competence.
Local leaders who have chastised the school board for inefficiency in the past should seize this opportunity to improve it for the future. The children of Kansas City deserve it. | 1/3/2008 | | Kansas City Globe
Thursday, December 20, 2007 thru Wednesday, December 26, 2007
On the MAP to Success in 2010;
District Sees Gains in Test Scoring
A column by Anthony S. Amato
Superintendent, Kansas City, Missouri School District
This is a very exciting time for the Kansas City, Missouri School District.
After a dedicated effort by the District’s staff, faculty, students and the community, we’re beginning to reap the fruits of our labor as we near the cusp of accreditation. Last week, state officials credited the District with meeting two additional standards toward that end.
Before we talk about the big picture, we need to look in our classrooms. There you’ll find students are achieving at a rate unprecedented in recent years. In 2007, the District saw its highest increase in students judged proficient/advanced on the Missouri Assessment Program in more than five years. Overall, Students scored nearly 2 percent higher in communication arts and more than 2 percent in mathematics. This means students are learning at a rate that’s equal or better than their peers throughout the state.
Two percentage points might not seem like much until you put them in perspective. Both figures exceeded the growth rate in those scores statewide, and outpaced cities with populations of more than 70,000 people. Just as our students equal their performance of their peers they’re lifting up the District, enabling its to improve at rate better than other peer cities. We’re moving forward. Many times people focus only on the test scores and not what they mean to our students and their educations. The improvement in test scores has a definite correlation to the District’s goal of providing a quality education. Currently the district is provisionally accredited. These gains and other efforts will help the District in the upcoming assessment cycle, which begins with a visit by state officials in late April 2008.
As I mentioned, the District has met two additional standards (career education placement and graduation rate. This means the district has met five standards toward accreditation. The district is also expected to receive a bonus credit in 2008 for improvement for the number of students who advanced to college. However, it must be noted that one additional adequate yearly progress (AYP) standard will be added in 2008. Meeting all six standards will enable the District to keep its current provisional accreditation. With those six standards, we’re within shouting distance of earning the nine standards needed for accreditation in 2010. District staff is projecting that we’ll meet three additional standards – elementary mathematics, ACT participation and sub-group achievement – at that time.
All the while we’ll stay on task with programs such as PRE-K For All pre-kindergarten program and the 8th Grade Conversion Plan. We’ll continue to make strides in the number of students taking the ACT. We’ll continue to increase enrollment in our rigorous advanced placement offerings, improving upon 121 percent gains of recent years.
While we don’t want to get ahead or ourselves and get distracted from our task, we’re looking at the real possibility to putting our children back on equal footing with their peers. The journey isn’t over; it’s just beginning. As I said, this is an exciting time for the District.
For more information, call 816-418-7420 or visit our Web site at www.kcmsd.net. Also, look for ways to get involved with your neighborhood schools – be a part of our journey.
The best times are yet to come. | 12/20/2007 | |
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