Idea: Consolidate Kansas City, MO school districts (Independence, Lee's Summit: appointed, credit)

[Vicman]

Many of the Kansas City school districts should consolidate.

Here are the districts which I think should consolidate into the new KC district:
* Center (1 comprehensive high school)
* Hickman Mills (2 comprehensive high schools)
* Kansas City, Missouri (4 comprehensive high schools) (Keep in mind that all four have relatively small student bodies, especially since Van Horn HS left and joined the Independence district)
* North Kansas City (4 comprehensive high schools)
* Park Hill (2 comprehensive high schools)
* Raytown (2 comprehensive high schools)

In addition portions of other districts in the Kansas City city limits would be ceded over. That way cities surrounded by KC and KC are all in one school district, while suburbs like Independence and Lee's Summit still have their own districts. The district would be overwhelmingly made up of and controlled by areas NOT within the current KCMO district.

There would be one administration building (It doesn't have to be the KCMO building - It could be elsewhere) - And maybe two or three satellite offices - not many.

The idea is to cut administrative costs and to have effective leadership for the entire city limits; the current KCMO district is only a fraction of the KCMO city limits, and it is really run down. A larger KCMO district dominated by the entire city limits could be effectively operated and act in the interests of all of the students, inner city and suburban.

Schools in the former KCMO district would be consolidated, while new schools would be built in the suburban parts of KCMO. Most of the school attendance boundaries in the suburban areas would stay the same. People would be allowed to transfer from one high school to another as long as the receiving school's attendance counselor approves the transfer. That way the comprehensives would have some magnet programs, while the KCMO standalone magnets would also function to receive students from the entire district.

[kcmo]

Not a bad idea, but this would absolutely destroy growth on the Missouri side of the metro. If this happened, flight to the Kansas side and other MO suburbs would go off the charts. The Northland areas of KC would suffer and stop growing. The KCMO school district is a small part of KCMO now and most people that live in the city are not that worried about schools anyway. If you try something like this to fix the urban schools, you will break the suburban schools in the city limits (NKC, Liberty, Park Hill etc), in the process and the end result would be bad for all of KCMO.

I don't know what the answer is, but I think merging all the districts in the city would be a bad deal. The first thing KCMO SD needs to do is fire everybody at HQ and every single teacher and principle in the district, including my wife.

Then build a new school district council that is appointed by the state or mayor and rehire all the teachers and principles. This would get rid of all the racist people in the HQ and schools that make everything a "black" thing. If you are a white teacher in that district, you will not advance, if you are black teacher, you will. Even if the white teacher is a much better teacher.

The KCMOSD is screwed up and I don't think any suburban district wants any part of it, especially the mass drops in test scores if they had to bring in those students and their worthless parents.

[Vicman]

Hmm... the idea is that the people who live in the northland, Liberty, Center, Raytown, Hickman, and Park Hill would more or less control the district. If the people in the KCMO District don't really care about the schools, I'm sure they wouldn't mind seeing the northland people in charge.

Now, the incompetents in the KCMOSD administration wouldn't like having power wrested from them, but I would say "Too bad" - Competent leaders from KCMOSD would be welcome to share power with the suburbanites, though

Originally Posted by kcmo

Not a bad idea, but this would absolutely destroy growth on the Missouri side of the metro. If this happened, flight to the Kansas side and other MO suburbs would go off the charts. The Northland areas of KC would suffer and stop growing. The KCMO school district is a small part of KCMO now and most people that live in the city are not that worried about schools anyway. If you try something like this to fix the urban schools, you will break the suburban schools in the city limits (NKC, Liberty, Park Hill etc), in the process and the end result would be bad for all of KCMO.

I don't know what the answer is, but I think merging all the districts in the city would be a bad deal. The first thing KCMO SD needs to do is fire everybody at HQ and every single teacher and principle in the district, including my wife.

Then build a new school district council that is appointed by the state or mayor and rehire all the teachers and principles. This would get rid of all the racist people in the HQ and schools that make everything a "black" thing. If you are a white teacher in that district, you will not advance, if you are black teacher, you will. Even if the white teacher is a much better teacher.

The KCMOSD is screwed up and I don't think any suburban district wants any part of it, especially the mass drops in test scores if they had to bring in those students and their worthless parents.

[northbound74]

Originally Posted by Vicman

Hmm... the idea is that the people who live in the northland, Liberty, Center, Raytown, Hickman, and Park Hill would more or less control the district. If the people in the KCMO District don't really care about the schools, I'm sure they wouldn't mind seeing the northland people in charge.

Now, the incompetents in the KCMOSD administration wouldn't like having power wrested from them, but I would say "Too bad" - Competent leaders from KCMOSD would be welcome to share power with the suburbanites, though

If that actually would happen, that would be great. My concern is that it wouldn't happen that way.
It could happen to an extent, maybe, but I'm afraid too many people would have a knee-jerk reaction and move out of the city in droves.

I like KCMO's idea of completely dismantling the current district and starting over.
Another idea would be to break it up into smaller pieces... after that complete dismantling. Each section of town would have it's own district. Parents might feel like they can be more involved in a leaner, more efficient district.
Like many problems in KC, there's way too much old-time politics involved with the current district.

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by northbound74

I like KCMO's idea of completely dismantling the current district and starting over.
Another idea would be to break it up into smaller pieces... after that complete dismantling. Each section of town would have it's own district. Parents might feel like they can be more involved in a leaner, more efficient district.
Like many problems in KC, there's way too much old-time politics involved with the current district.

The thing is also that the current KCMO school district now makes up a small minority of the city, so proportionally the people in charge of the district are far outweighed by the people in the suburban periphery. The KCMO district may be visible, but people should not see it as representative of the education of the average KC citizen.

AFAIK the loss of western Independence and Sugar Creek neutered the KCMO school district.

[butterfly5]

As a retired teacher who taught in Raytown for 20 years, I do not think this would be a good idea. The Kansas City school district is not run well...inefficient, etc. The other districts would end up trying to solve all their problems . Althought Raytown Schools are not what they were 20 years ago, Raytown citizens would never go for this plan...and I don't believe they should.

[cp1969]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Not a bad idea, but this would absolutely destroy growth on the Missouri side of the metro. If this happened, flight to the Kansas side and other MO suburbs would go off the charts. The Northland areas of KC would suffer and stop growing. The KCMO school district is a small part of KCMO now and most people that live in the city are not that worried about schools anyway. If you try something like this to fix the urban schools, you will break the suburban schools in the city limits (NKC, Liberty, Park Hill etc), in the process and the end result would be bad for all of KCMO.

I don't know what the answer is, but I think merging all the districts in the city would be a bad deal. The first thing KCMO SD needs to do is fire everybody at HQ and every single teacher and principle in the district, including my wife.

Then build a new school district council that is appointed by the state or mayor and rehire all the teachers and principles. This would get rid of all the racist people in the HQ and schools that make everything a "black" thing. If you are a white teacher in that district, you will not advance, if you are black teacher, you will. Even if the white teacher is a much better teacher.

The KCMOSD is screwed up and I don't think any suburban district wants any part of it, especially the mass drops in test scores if they had to bring in those students and their worthless parents.

Doesn't happen often, but I agree with you totally on this one, kcmo.

[AJK1535]

I hate to think of what including all of the croneyists in the KCMO SD would do to the good administrators and teachers in the districts that are actually ACCREDITED.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by cp1969

Doesn't happen often, but I agree with you totally on this one, kcmo.

Wow, I don't believe it!

[RjRobb2]

No way.

NKC, Park Hill, Liberty school districts are doing just fine. If you add in KCMO and other struggling school districts then it all goes away.