Kansas bill would drain funding that helps steer kids out of criminal justice system, advocates say

The One Heart Project works with kids in the criminal justice system.

The group provides counseling, mentorship and job training to help them develop social-emotional skills to create “healthy relationships that they need to navigate life successfully,” said the group’s founder and CEO, Steve Riach.

They are pretty good at what they do.

Riach said recidivism among kids before entering his programs typically hovers around 75%. But kids in his Texas, Kansas and Nebraska-based programs average around 18% recidivism, sometimes as low as 12% depending on the location.

Riach said his group is giving people a second chance.

“We’re seeing young men or young women that we’ve worked with 10 years ago who are now married and raising a family,” he said. “They’ve got their own children.”

Funding for programs like the One Heart Project could be murkier in Kansas if reworking certain grant funding passes.

The bill does a handful of things. It increases the amount of time kids can be jailed and allows Kansas to incarcerate more children, despite that jail time makes the behaviors worse.

It allows courts to sentence any child “to the custody of the secretary of corrections for an out-of-home placement” for a first-time offense, misdemeanor crimes and for children as young as 10, the Kansas Department of Corrections said.

But the bill also spends down a pool of grant money designed to fund programs that help kids. That grant money is currently used for dozens of programs, like One Heart Project. That pool of money would be drained to build new congregate care bed facilities. Kansas previously had programs like that, but they only successfully discharged kids 46% of the time.

That worries Brenna Visocsky, campaign director at Kansas Appleseed — a group that lobbies on foster care and youth justice issues. She said Kansas is taking money currently spent on successful programs and spending it on programs that have failed before.

“I never want to say something is impossible,” Visocsky said. “(But) it seems extremely close to impossible that we would be able to stand something up that’s better than what we had before.”

Congregate care facilities close

A by the Kansas Department of Corrections found that the previous congregate care facilities strategy, called Youth Residential Center II, failed to successfully help youth more than half the time. Only 14% of youth who left the facility went to lower-level placements.

YRCII facilities took kids between the ages of 10 and 22 with a history of aggressive, abusive, impulsive and other high-risk behavior. The 24-hour facilities were group homes that were supposed to teach children social skills, decision-making and addressing underlying problems. These facilities were supposed to get children back into the community.

Kansas then shifted to its current grant funding model where kids get treatment in their community.

Visocsky said YRCII facilities failed because they cost too much, failed too often, took kids out of their homes and didn’t offer enough therapeutic services. It’s possible the new program could do better, but Visocsky said she’s worried there isn’t enough money to fund quality programming.

The pool of grant money would completely run out by 2028, KDOC said.

Kansas lawmakers are more optimistic about the new proposal.

The bill passed with bipartisan support in the House and mostly along party lines in the Senate. It has a veto-proof majority. Foster care agencies and police are pushing for the bill, saying high-risk youth who are a danger to other kids are ending up in foster care.

Kristalle Hedrick, a former social worker and CEO of the Children’s Alliance, told lawmakers during the legislative process that this bill will strengthen prevention services.

Nonprofits who received juvenile justice money from Kansas say there isn’t enough money being spent to help kids up front, and some are seeing cuts to other services that could help kids, like sports leagues.

Hedrick said this bill creates treatment that is sorely needed. Some kids end up in youth detention while others need services at home. The state doesn’t have enough of the middle tier of treatment for kids who need something more but not too restrictive.

This does that.

“This bill supports a more flexible continuum that allows youth to receive the right level of care at the right time – particularly youth who present with complex behavioral needs but do not belong in either detention or foster care alone,” Hedrick said. “A stronger continuum improves outcomes (while) reducing reliance on costly, high-acuity placements.”

Social-emotional services

Moses Wyatt Jr. works with Jegna Klub, a nonprofit in the Kansas City area that got grant money from the state.

Wyatt said successful programs help kids build a brighter future and address social-emotional learning. That’s what his group does.

Jegna Klub teaches kids about multimedia production, like audio and video editing. It has podcast studios, partners with schools to broadcast sports games, and gets kids on the radio. Wyatt said it builds skills for kids thinking about getting into broadcasting, radio, TV, movies, journalism or any similar field.

He said kids need to be optimistic about the future because if they aren’t, they don’t care about their present. That’s why skill building is so important. But they won’t succeed unless they can process their emotions and react to situations differently, Wyatt said.

“Some of them can’t even name or understand their emotions,” he said. “I’m angry. I’m upset. I’m sad. I’m depressed. Like you got to be able to name that.”

Wyatt said he doesn’t think any kid is too high-risk for help. He said the highest-risk children need the most help.

Riach, with One Heart Project, still remembers when the retaining wall at his house needed work. One of the workers who came to fix it was a former One Heart kid. Juan had been incarcerated, he never knew his father and got into trouble.

But then he graduated from the One Heart program and was married with kids. He served as a mentor to his brother — who also spent time locked up and worked at the same company as Juan.

Juan told Riach that he never knew his dad, but that will be different for his kids. This was out in Texas, but the grant funds One Heart received helped them expand to Sedgwick County.

Without the funds, One Heart wouldn’t be in Kansas. If those funds weren’t available, “a whole bunch of kids’ lives would not have been transformed, and that would be tragic,” he said.

Future congregate care beds

The bill was amended in the Senate, so both chambers will need to agree to a final version before it’s sent to the governor.

Sen. Stephen Owens, a Republican representing , said he’s concerned about the youth justice money being emptied, but the proposed bill isn’t the problem.

Money sat in the youth justice fund for years, and prevented groups from being able to use it. In past years, the money was sent to the general fund to be spent on whatever the legislature wanted.

Future legislatures could always add back more money to the grant program, and the youth justice fund is just one of many sources of funding for crime prevention.

“If it is the will of the legislature and the governor to deplete this fund, I would much prefer it be utilized in ways (the bill proposes) because then it is at least being used to help juveniles,” Owens said. “Sweeping it to the general fund does nothing for the juvenile justice population in Kansas.”

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TOPEKA — In what founding document does the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” appear? Why did the United States enter the Persian Gulf War? Why do U.S. representatives serve shorter terms than U.S. senators?

These are among the 128 questions on the U.S. citizenship test, and they could become study material for Kansas students.

Under a bill that also mandates teaching students about the dangers of communism and socialism, high school freshmen would be required to take a 100-question exam based on the civics test that prospective U.S. citizens take during the American naturalization process.

lumps the test into state-mandated American history and civics classes in public and accredited private and parochial schools, and students would have to pass the test before earning a diploma.

The bill passed the Senate on Thursday in a 26-14 vote. It also requires the State Board of Education to craft curricula that teaches K-12 public school students about “negative impacts of communist and socialist regimes and ideologies.”

The bill is rooted in conservative circles concerned about anti-Americanism and contested statistics that purport Gen Z Americans are attracted to communist and socialist ideals. Sen. Brad Starnes, a Riley Republican and former school superintendent, put forth the bill and assured the House Education Committee on Monday that neither the civics test nor the curricula will replace existing units on American history.

The committee on Tuesday approved an amendment to the bill to add fascism to the curricula.

Research on younger generations’ inclination toward socialist or communist causes is muddy. A 2019 Gallup poll found millennials and Gen Z, ages 18-39, . As a whole, however, Americans still than socialism.

Joshua Reynolds, a policy analyst for Cicero Action, a conservative think tank’s advocacy arm, backed the bill, citing three separate polls indicating favorable views of communism and socialism among 18-39 year olds.

Reynolds cited in testimony a 2020 poll from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation that “63% of Gen Z and Millennials believe that the Declaration of Independence guarantees ‘freedom and equality’ better than the Communist Manifesto, compared to 95% of the Silent Generation.”

Leah Fliter, assistant executive director of advocacy for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said socialism and communism curriculum might be inappropriate and complex for early grades.

“We feel that this bill has been drafted without looking at the Kansas state standards for graduation,” she said Monday.

The Kansas State Board of Education already recommends instruction on communism and socialism, according to Monday testimony from board members Cathy Hopkins and Beryl New. The board, they wrote, “has established history, government and social studies standards that prepare students to be informed, thoughtful, engaged citizens as they enrich their communities, state, nation, world and themselves.”

If passed, both of the bill’s provisions would go into effect July 1, making next school year’s freshmen the first group to be required to pass the civics test as a condition of graduation.

During the naturalization process, most prospective U.S. citizens must complete an interview and citizenship test, which consists of an English portion and civics portion. People must answer at least 12 of 20 civics questions correctly, which are selected at random from a cache of about foundational American events, figures, principles and procedures. Kansas high school students would have to take a 100-question exam containing questions substantially similar to those that appear on the citizenship civics test, the bill said.

Arizona has required its high schoolers to pass a civics exam based on the U.S. citizenship test since 2017, and in 2026 raised the passing threshold, requiring students to answer at least 70 of 100 questions right instead of the original 60. Wisconsin has required the test since 2015.

Arizona only offers the test in English while Wisconsin offers versions in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

The Kansas proposal does not specify a designated language. Students could request to take the test as early as seventh grade, and they can take it as many times as necessary to pass. Students must get an 80% or higher on the test to pass.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

TOPEKA — Turner Elementary School teacher Lexcee Oddo is recognized as a highly skilled, family-focused and whole-brain educator who taught second-graders before focusing on students learning English as a second language.

Those traits of educational devotion made her Kansas’ latest recipient of a $25,000 Milken Educator Award, which was presented Thursday during a surprise schoolwide assembly in Kansas City, Kansas.

“Drawing from her curriculum knowledge and classroom experience, Lexcee helps students shine by building confidence, a passion for learning and a determination to achieve their goals. She is a valued teacher leader, mentor and trainer, and we are so proud to honor her,” said Jennifer Fuller, vice president of the Milken Educator Awards program and a Texas recipient of the honor in 2017.

Fuller said Oddo’s approach to driving excellence among Turner Elementary’s English language learners incorporated both compassion and kindness.

Oddo earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education at Kansas State University in 2018. Two years ago, she completed a master’s degree in education administration at Emporia State University.

Oddo was the sole Kansas recipient of a Milken Educator Award in 2025-2026. She was the state’s 74th since Kansas joined the program in 1992.

Nationally, Oddo and 29 other educators coast-to-coast were selected to be honored this academic year. They join a group of more than 3,000 K-12 teachers, principals and specialists singled out for recognition through a program established in 1987 by philanthropist Lowell Milken.

“Talented educators play a critical role in preparing students to move successfully to the next stage of learning and life,” Milken said. “For 39 years, the Milken Educator Awards have been calling attention in a very public way to the essential work of educators — all in an effort to attract and retain high-quality talent to the teaching profession.”

The objective has been to highlight educators while in early- or mid-career for what they achieved and for the promise each possessed. Nominated educators don’t receive notice of their candidacy, and awards are presented at events organized to surprise winners. No mandate for a winner’s use of the $25,000 prize existed, but some spend money on their children’s or their own education, to finance dream field trips or establish scholarships.

The Milken Foundation said Oddo was known for creating a learning environment where multilingual learners were empowered to grow in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Her prescription for student success blended high expectations, individualized support and a sense of purpose, the foundation said.

Oddo, who serves as a first-year buddy to new teachers, relied on student assessments to refine instruction and provide real-time interventions. She performed this work with a “culture of joy and collective efficacy” that led to consistent student advances, the foundation said.

The foundation said Oddo was regarded as a whole-brain teacher who valued academic strength and social-emotional development of students. She hosted student recognition assemblies and an after-school tutoring designed to support students’ academic goals, the foundation said.

“Lexcee represents the best of Kansas education,” said Randy Watson, commissioner at the Kansas State Department of Education. “She believes every child can learn and creates a classroom where high expectations and meaningful support help students thrive. Her leadership strengthens her colleagues, and the trust she builds with families reflects her deep commitment to every student’s success.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

A recent college graduate from Kansas, Phipps chose the district, which is about 45 miles east of Denver, because of an unusual job perk: housing for school staff. The district-owned apartments offer monthly rent starting at $200. Phipps, who still lives in the apartments with his wife and infant son, said it’s a main reason he’s remained in the district.

Affordable educator housing has existed for decades, especially in remote school districts like Byers. But teachers are increasingly getting priced out of the communities they work in — causing them to seek employment elsewhere or avoid jobs in high-priced metro areas. To combat this issue, nonprofits and school districts across the nation — in states including Colorado, Arkansas, California, New Mexico and Kansas — are pursuing teacher housing projects to improve educator retention.

For example, rent for a one-bedroom apartment at a for San Francisco Unified staff starts at $1,183 per month, in a district where this year is $79,468 and similar rentals go for around $3,000 or more. First-year Kansas City educators who make a $48,150 can pay $600 to $900 a month to share a duplex with other teachers. Nearby monthly rents start at $1,000. San Francisco tenants are selected through a lottery system, but many other housing projects prioritize new teachers and have waiting lists.

Between 2019 and 2025, housing costs increased by roughly 50% on average, outpacing the average 24% growth in entry-level teacher salaries, according to a .

“Until all teachers can reliably afford basic necessities like housing, the challenges of attracting and retaining a diverse, high-quality teacher workforce will likely persist,” the report said.

‘I don’t have much turnover’

Phipps interviewed with multiple Colorado districts, including one that paid more than what Byers was offering. But he liked the high school social studies job in Byers the most because of the school community and low-cost housing. Rental units are scarce in the district, with monthly payments starting around $1,400 — a high price tag for Phipps’ $50,738 salary. Having a boss who was also his landlord wasn’t an issue, he said.

“The demand and prices of housing — especially rent — is very high out here,” he said. “I don’t know if I would have moved out to Colorado without this teacher housing. I didn’t know what was going to be do-able with my teacher salary straight out of college.”

The Byers school district has owned staff housing since the 1960s. It has 10 apartments and two houses — all occupied, with a waiting list. Superintendent Tom Trudell said the rent pays for occasional renovations or repairs. Housing has always been part of the district’s strategy to attract and retain teachers, he said, and it allows them to save money to eventually buy a house of their own.

“There’s a kind of a bond that builds between [me and my tenants], because if they’re quality employees, they’re typically not going anywhere,” he said. “So I don’t have much turnover.”

In the Vilas School District in southeastern Colorado, Superintendent Abby Pettinger is the landlord for 11 rental homes that house eight single school staff members and one family with children. Two units are vacant. The homes have become outdated because the district lacks money for repairs and remodels.

“It’s really hard to be somebody’s landlord and be their boss,” she said. “We wanted [the units] to be an asset for our staff, but I wish that we could be at a point that it could be self-sustaining. We’re not at that point.”

Some teacher housing complexes are owned and managed by local nonprofits rather than the school district. That’s the case for Harrison School District 2 in Colorado Springs. An organization called We Fortify is raising $6 million for that consist of 325-square-foot tiny homes. Rent will start at $825 per month. 

Construction has already begun, and teachers will begin to move in next summer, said district spokesperson Christine O’Brien. 

“We did poll all of our staff before we … started designing the idea for the village,” she said. “We could have filled five villages with just our initial interest.”

District plans don’t always come through

Of the 12 teacher housing developments in California, seven have popped up in just the last three years, according to a from the Center for Cities and School at the University of California-Berkeley.

“Generally, recruitment has become more and more challenging, so districts are motivated to look for other ways to enhance their ability to recruit staff,” said Sara Hinkley, the center’s program manager. “High costs of housing have become pretty entrenched. And then most states are experiencing declining enrollment, which means there are more properties available.”

The Santa Clara Unified School District was the first in the state to complete a teacher housing project, in 2002. This year, three developments for multiple school districts opened in Silicon Valley, in , and . Educators in Mountain View and Palo Alto were offered free rent as an incentive to move in.

Building affordable teacher housing can be a rocky process, especially if schools or nonprofits run into problems with city zoning laws, insufficient funding or a lack of community support. It to build modern, five-story apartment buildings for San Francisco Unified teachers because of housing density concerns and other issues. And once the lottery opened, some teacher applications .

In 2021, California’s Oakland Unified School District for future teacher housing. The apartments have yet to be built. The project hasn’t received enough funding, and union members have to focus first on raising wages.

“We’ve definitely seen districts realize that what they want to do isn’t going to be financially feasible,” Hinkley said. “They may get as far as choosing a parcel of land, coming up with an idea of what they want to build and [find out] that they are going to have to charge rent that’s way too high in order to make the project work.”

Rural schools in New Mexico have access to , but larger districts like Sante Fe Public Schools don’t qualify. In recent years, the in funding for a 40-unit housing complex project, but that was well below the needed $15 million. Now, Santa Fe is trying to fund it through a .

An initiative in Bentonville, Arkansas, stalled last year when a rezoning request to turn school district property into 40 cottages for low-income staff. The Bentonville School District had next to its high school to the Excellerate Foundation, a local nonprofit that was funding the $35 million housing project. 

Superintendent Debbie Jones said she thought it was the end of a project she had worked on since 2021, when Bentonville began to lose newly hired educators who couldn’t afford to live in the district. But then the foundation included the teacher housing plans in a that’s slated to open in 2026. Two-bedroom cottages will cost $1,000 a month.

“It’s actually better than our original plan because they have built in a 3,000-square-foot child care center that we will run and it serves the families in that neighborhood,” she said.

Giving new teachers a boost with education and a home

The housing projects for the Bentonville and Harrison school districts have guidelines to allow low-income young staffers like new teachers or paraprofessionals to qualify. Residents also have a time limit for staying in the housing. For Bentonville, educators have to move out after five years. In the Harrison district, the maximum is three years.

In both, residents are required to participate in financial management classes that are designed to help them prepare to move out. In Bentonville, staffers can pay an extra $500 a month in rent as part of a program that will give tenants $50,000 toward their next house.

Kelly Davis, president of the Bentonville Education Association, said young teachers in the district are getting excited for the development to open because monthly rent costs anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000.

“When I came to the district back in 2003, I couldn’t afford to live here. I still don’t live in Bentonville,” he said. “They are trying very hard to make sure that the lowest-paid people in the district have a place to live, so that they don’t have to leave the community.”

Kansas City has a similar housing project that not only provides financial education, but helps college graduates get their first teaching job.

In 2020, Trinity Davis left her post as assistant superintendent of Kansas City Public Schools and founded to increase the number of local Black educators. A by the University of Missouri-Kansas City reported the metro area had more than 53,000 Black students but fewer than 1,200 Black teachers.

Teachers Like Me recruits recent college graduates by securing them a job in one of eight partner Kansas City school districts while also providing low-cost housing. School districts pay the organization $15,000 for every educator they receive through the process. The nonprofit has three homes and is in the process of building seven more to create a duplex neighborhood. 

“Suburban districts that don’t have any teachers of color are coming to us to say, ‘Hey, can you help us recruit some Black teachers?’” Davis said. “I have an elementary school where the fourth-grade, fifth-grade and sixth-grade teachers are all Teachers Like Me [participants]. They’re like a family and they live together.”

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A transplant from Miami, Anallive Calle learned her way around Kansas City from behind the wheel of a big yellow school bus.

The tablet near the dash provides turn-by-turn directions to every stop and checks each kid on and off the bus throughout her route. It’s helped her navigate the narrow roads and one-ways that stretch through one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

And from her phone, she can check on the status of her own son and whether he made the bus each morning and afternoon.

“So it’s transparent all the way,” she said. “You know when your child is picked up and where they’re at every moment.”

Last school year, Kansas City Public Schools started a new transportation contract with Zum, a company that provides busing services for districts across the country.

With the new vendor, drivers welcomed updates like air conditioning and tinted windows that keep the new fleet comfortable. But they also were given a suite of new technology — a main driver of the 15,000-student urban school district’s decision to ink a $100 million, 5-year contract with Zum.

Aside from navigation, the buses are loaded with live cameras inside and out. Checking in at the tablet allows parents to track their kids and schools to get a headcount on that day’s breakfast and lunch. From the bus barn’s dispatch office, a large screen shows the location of each bus, its exact speed, whether it’s running on time — and even the driver’s rating from parents.

Derrick Gines, a Zum driver and safety trainer with 10 years of experience, said the technology built into today’s buses make drivers and students safer.

“Versus yesteryear, they were designed for freight — human freight,” he said. “But now, there’s so much safety wrapped around this thing.”

While the iconic yellow buses might look like those of yore, school systems big and small are increasingly investing in a new wave of on-board technology.

New software programs monitor engine components, alerting transportation departments to maintenance needs. Other tools create the most optimal routes, saving on fuel, staff and bus costs. Turn-by-turn navigation and student manifests help ensure that no driver is lost and no kid is left behind. And live video feeds can help with student behavior issues — even allowing a school principal to speak to students on the bus in real time, in some cases.

This newfangled technology is a stark contrast to the machinery and aesthetics of the yellow bus, which have remained largely unchanged for decades, said Ryan Gray, editor-in-chief of School Transportation News, which covers the industry.

“Even when you walk onto a school bus, it still looks the same,” he said. “But the inner workings have just completely changed. All of the advanced electronics in it — the wiring to make all of this technology work, whether it be the hardware or the software — it’s grown by leaps and bounds.”

Schools see some of these technologies as intuitive progress: Technology has reshaped many other facets of public education, while many bus drivers were stuck with paper maps and CB radios. But with the rise of new technology comes new risks, and some advocates are cautious about the security of all the data flowing through yellow buses.

A booming market of vendors and limited regulations on bus tech has given more responsibility to school IT and transportation departments. But Gray said most school districts are embracing these new tools — if they can afford them.

“It always comes down to money,” he said. “I think that if they think they have the money, they’re going to want to buy this stuff.

School systems and tech companies say these tools can improve student safety, create efficiencies and help alleviate the chronic shortage of bus drivers.

“It’s a huge recruiting tool,” said Jason Salmons, transportation director for Bentonville Schools in northwest Arkansas.

Bentonville contracts with Transportant, a Kansas-based company, to equip its buses with new camera and tracking technology. Salmons said the navigation and student tracking provide peace of mind to drivers, who can easily traverse new neighborhoods. The seven live cameras on each bus also provide security if an incident arises.

About 13,000 of the district’s 20,000 students ride buses across 135 daily routes. In addition to an upfront cost, he said the school system pays a subscription of about $90,000 per year.

The software tracks not only every bus, but also every student’s boarding and disembarkment, even taking photos of the kids. If something happens, law enforcement can see where a child was and what they were wearing at dropoff — providing a “priceless” service, Salmons said.

With real-time tracking — much like a rideshare customer would see on their screen — parents and students view buses as more reliable, he said. With more precise pickup times, students don’t wait outside in the cold as long and older kids can even get a few more minutes of sleep, Salmons said.

“High schoolers use the app as their bible,” he said.

Data privacy

Given the national driver shortage and parents’ focus on reliability, Cassie Creswell understands the appeal of the new bus technology. But she has concerns about the growing loads of data being collected.

“It’s a mixed bag on this stuff,” said Creswell, the co-chair of the national Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, which advocates to protect student data.

That group has pushed to keep cameras out of classrooms, but hasn’t taken a formal position on school buses, she said. Creswell, a parent of a Chicago Public Schools student, said the more data that is collected — such as GPS locations and video footage — the more opportunities for that data to be sold or illicitly .

“Are we actually clearing away stuff that you really shouldn’t hold on to forever?” she asked. “We’re so careless with student data — even very sensitive data — and we’re very careless about the long-term protection of that data.”

School systems interviewed by Stateline said their bus data is being securely stored separately from other student records and that data such as videos are routinely deleted.

Alan Fairless, a founder and chief technology officer of the tech provider Transportant, previously worked in building encrypted tech products.

He said the company doesn’t sell any student data and encrypts the memory of each device — so, someone stealing a tablet off a bus would have no access to its memory. The company was created in 2018 to tackle parent and school concerns about bus reliability and delays.

Fairless said he quickly learned many districts struggle with high driver turnover because of student behavior issues on board.

By providing multiple cameras that can be accessed live, he said, the company’s product provides a new layer of support to drivers.

“Now, when something happens, they push a button and a dispatcher or principal is going to watch that bus in real time,” he said.

Fairless said one school district has what it calls a seven-minute rule: When a driver alerts of an incident, a dispatcher aims to watch the video, figure out what happened and notify parents over text or phone call within seven minutes.

“The effect is, that video arrives to the parents, and now they know the real problem, and they know that before the student comes home and creates some other version of the story,” he said. “So now, it’s like the parents and the school district are working together to solve the problem.”

Since launching, the company has contracted with 88 school systems in 19 states to provide its all-inclusive tech suite that includes the app for families, on-board Wi-Fi, camera systems and routing services.

While prices can vary, school districts typically pay about $3,600 per bus up front and an annual subscription cost of about $69 per bus, said Jeff Shackelford, vice president of sales.

Changing parent demands

The addition of Transportant has helped keep parents informed in Oregon’s Estacada School District, which sprawls across 750 square miles southeast of Portland.

“It’s been great customer service for our families to just see, just like when someone orders an Uber, they can keep track of where their kid is at,” said Maggie Kelly, a spokesperson for the school system of about 2,000 students.

Kelly said the district expects to make up some of its initial investment in the technology as it realizes savings from more efficient bus routes.

Parents are demanding more real-time information on bus times and locations, said Rick D’Errico, a spokesperson for Transfinder, whose products build more efficient bus routes and provide tracking apps for parents.

“If I can track a burrito order, why can’t I track a bus?” D’Errico said. “Parents these days expect their districts to have ways to notify them on individualized ETAs and alerts for when their kid is on their routes, and not rely on schoolwide email blasts.”

Recently, school districts in Alaska, Texas and Wyoming have launched the company’s apps, which are free for parents.

Such services can provide savings by cutting back on the number of drivers and buses in operation. But they also relieve pressure on dispatchers, who can be besieged with parent phone calls during disruptions or delays.

Since rolling out a new bus tracking app this year, the St. Johns County School District in northeast Florida has fielded far fewer parent calls.

That app is just the latest addition to a portfolio of advanced onboard technology, said Jonah Paxton, transportation fleet technology foreman at the district, which serves about 27,000 bus riders.

The 52,000-student school system intentionally purchased separate products for bus cameras, parent tracking and driver navigation. Paxton said that allows the school system to avoid getting stuck with a single provider that could demand higher prices in the future.

“We’re not locked into a single sort of a walled-garden of products, which gives us a lot more freedom to pick and choose which products we like, which ones we don’t like, and gives us a little more negotiating power,” he said.

To ensure security, the school system stores video files on its own servers rather than those of outside vendors, he said. The district has a specific video retention policy and it blurs out student faces if videos are ever requested under the state’s public records law.

Paxton said student and driver safety drives many of the tech decisions for the school’s fleet of more than 300 buses.

“Buses are vastly different than they were even five,10 years ago,” he said. “I think many people who haven’t ridden a bus in a while can think of the bus as sort of an unpleasant place, or kind of the Wild West of schooling, but they’ve really come a long way.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira contributed to this story. Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

School nurse Jennifer Comer vividly remembers the number of students she had to exclude from Clark Middle School in Bonner Springs on a single day in 2013: 289.

Why? They weren’t up to date on their state-required immunizations. 

In the past, the Bonner Springs-Edwardsville School District in Wyandotte County technically required vaccines. But if families flouted the rules, their kids could still go to school. 

School nurses had been pushing district leaders to take the requirements more seriously. Twelve years ago, they finally got their wish. 

So when the school’s deadline for vaccinations hit, staff members started calling families to come pick up their kids. 

It wasn’t fun, and it didn’t get better right away. 

“It was painful the first couple years,” said Kimberly Bolewski, the district’s nurse coordinator, stationed at McDanield Preschool. She noted that families weren’t used to the requirements being enforced. “Here we are saying, ‘No, really, you can’t start school.’” 

But that pain has paid off.

 — the most recent available — show kindergarteners at Bonner Springs schools had the best , mumps and rubella (MMR)  in Johnson or Wyandotte counties, a rate of nearly 98%. 

Earlier this month — 25 years after the United States declared measles eliminated — nationwide measles cases  annual number . But the district is “in a pretty good spot” to weather a local outbreak without widespread illness and quarantines, Bolewski said. 

“If our vaccination rates weren’t really high, it would be a nightmare,” she said. “The higher the vaccination rate, the less likely of a lot of our students becoming ill.”

Not all districts in the state or county are equally secure. While Kansas’ Department of Health and Environment determines  for school and the state , districts control enforcement. 

That’s partially why neighboring Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools had a kindergarten MMR vaccination rate of about 67% percent in 2023-24, though less than 2% of students had medical or religious exemptions. KCKPS says its overall vaccination rate is now 80% and rising.

KCKPS stopped excluding unvaccinated students when they were learning remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, Director of Health Services Lajasmia Bates said. The district plans to resume enforcing the policy for the 2025-26 school year. 

“We do realize that when those compliance rates are low, that we’re at a higher risk,” Bates said. “We wanted to do something about that to make sure that we can get as close (as possible) to having a herd immunity to be able to stop the spread of those communicable diseases, including measles.” 

State vaccine requirements

Kansas law  to decide which specific vaccines or tests families must obtain before children can attend school. 

The state currently , some of which immunize against multiple illnesses. 

For example, the MMR vaccine protects against measles, mumps and rubella. Kansas says children should have two doses: one at age 12-15 months and another before entering kindergarten. 

There’s a  if children fall behind, and exemptions if a physician certifies that vaccines “seriously endanger” the child or a parent says that the child’s religious denomination opposes vaccines. 

Federal laws also ensure children can enroll without all of their required paperwork, including proof of vaccination, if they’re in the  or . 

Schools must notify parents of vaccine requirements before May 15 each year. And  the school board “may exclude from school attendance” any students who haven’t complied. 

School officials told The Beacon that gives districts leeway to determine exactly when — or even whether — they exclude students who fall behind on required vaccines.

Measles vaccination in Kansas

That’s led to a situation where vaccination rates can range wildly. 

In 2023-24, Riley County schools recorded the state’s lowest kindergarten MMR vaccination rate: 36.67%. The neighboring Manhattan-Ogden district had a rate of 97.27%. Meanwhile, about three dozen districts claim a 100% rate. 

About one-third of the 238 districts with public vaccine data have an MMR kindergarten immunization rate at or above the 95% threshold needed for herd immunity for measles. Herd immunity means that enough people are vaccinated that the disease is unlikely to spread. 

MMR vaccine rates  have followed a similar pattern, falling from about 95% in 2019-20 to about 91% in 2023-24. Missouri does not report individual districts’ data. 

In Johnson and Wyandotte counties, the Bonner Springs, Piper-Kansas City, Blue Valley and Shawnee Mission school districts had kindergarten measles vaccination rates high enough for herd immunity during the 2023-24 school year. 

Olathe is barely below the herd immunity threshold. De Soto, Turner-Kansas City, Spring Hill and Gardner Edgerton range from approximately 1 to 4 percentage points below, and Kansas City, Kansas, is well below. 

Comparing two districts’ policies

KCKPS policy already says that unvaccinated students may be excluded. But it hasn’t actually taken that step in recent years. 

As it moves to enforce its policy again, the plan is to enroll students whether or not they’re vaccinated, Bates said, and give them 30 days to comply. 

In Bonner Springs, vaccine records are required for enrollment. But the rules aren’t one-size-fits-all there, either. 

Nurses are flexible when it’s clear a family is doing their best to get vaccination figured out, said Kristi Flack, the school nurse at Delaware Ridge Elementary. 

Students can start school if they show proof of an upcoming vaccine appointment, she said, or if it’s obvious they had a mix-up about which vaccines they were supposed to get. 

In those cases, she said, “The parents clearly took the time to do it. I’m not going to say, ‘OK, sorry, you didn’t get it. You can’t come back.’ I work with them.”

Nurses also work with families who have special circumstances such as getting medical records from overseas. If proof doesn’t arrive, they can help plan a catch-up schedule. 

Vaccine skepticism

Bolewski said she’s starting to see more vaccine hesitancy at the preschool age. 

“I think that’s from misinformation,” she said. Nurses have to ask: “‘How can I help you understand? Who can I connect you with?’ It doesn’t work to just simply say, ‘Well, you just have to do it.’”

Comer has run into issues as well. 

“I’ve had threats. I’ve had very, very angry parents,” she said. Some will abruptly claim religious exemptions. “But most parents want what’s best for their kids, and they just get busy and time gets away from them.”

Comer said she’s followed news of outbreaks around the U.S. and tracked state and national-level conversations that could complicate efforts to vaccinate kids. She’s worried Kansas could broaden vaccine exemptions and said misinformation, including from the federal level, is “very scary.” 

Doctors and major medical organizations overwhelmingly recommend childhood vaccinations, which have been used for decades to prevent diseases like measles, diphtheria and whooping cough. 

But now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine skeptic, leads the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, public health officials worry that vaccine skepticism is growing.

In June, Kennedy dismissed members of an advisory committee that is charged with recommending vaccines and, ultimately, influences which will be covered by insurance. Kennedy’s appointments to fill those vacancies have included vaccine skeptics, fueling fear that long-standing vaccine protocols could be uprooted. 

Kennedy has also  whether vaccines are linked to autism, a debunked claim. And in May he released a  that included calls for increased scrutiny of childhood vaccines. The report was  inaccurate citations and reportedly .

Dr. Christelle Ilboudo, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at Children’s Mercy Hospital, said she often gets referrals to consult with parents who are questioning whether to move forward with recommended childhood vaccinations.

“Oftentimes we spend up to an hour in our clinic … going over the different vaccines,” she said. “Ultimately, the decision is up to the parents. But our duty is to make sure that they are truly making an informed decision based on the facts that we’ve discussed and presented to them.”

Overcoming other barriers

In addition to skepticism or health concerns that make some parents hesitant about having their children vaccinated, some families also run into logistical barriers related to language, transportation, cost and scheduling, the school nurses said.

Flack said her district tries to help parents by sending reminders, scheduling appointments and finding interpreters if needed. 

Comer suggests families with insurance try pharmacies like Walgreens, CVS and Walmart that may have longer hours if appointments during the workday are tough. For walk-in appointments, she recommends the , which she said accepts residents of other counties as well. 

In addition to its normal walk-in schedule, the department is offering . Public information officer Ashley Follett said in an email that those clinics are meant to offer a “more convenient and efficient option” for school vaccines specifically.   

The Wyandotte County Health Department also offers low-cost vaccinations to  and plans to offer vaccines at back-to-school events. 

In KCKPS, Bates said the district has been communicating with families and warning them about the upcoming enforcement, which helped increase the K-12 vaccination rate to about 80%.

KCKPS has worked to translate information into languages families understand, direct them to where vaccines are available and give context for requirements, she said. 

“The nurses aren’t just sending out a letter telling them what immunization their student needs,” Bates said. “We’re telling them, OK, if the student doesn’t get the immunization, what could happen? What are the benefits of getting the immunization?”

Preparing for a measles outbreak 

Both districts said they’d heavily rely on the Wyandotte County Health Department for guidance in the case of a measles outbreak. 

Flack got a preview when a student came down with whooping cough, another disease that can be largely prevented with a vaccine. She said the department told her exactly what to do, spoke to the family and gave her information for other families in the class. 

“They handled it really well, and made me feel confident that I could do what I needed to do,” she said.

If a suspected or confirmed measles case were to appear, Flack said the district would have to contact the county and state health departments within hours. 

“​​We would mask them, wear gloves and then keep them separate from the general population until they’re able to be picked up from school,” Bates said. 

The Bonner Springs nurses said a measles outbreak in a district with a low vaccination rate would be very serious. Not only is the disease highly contagious and capable of causing major health complications, but quarantine times are long for unvaccinated students who get exposed. 

An outbreak would mean contact tracing and kids missing lots of school. 

Even if an unvaccinated student were lucky enough not to catch the disease from an exposure, they would have to be out of school for three weeks, Flack said.

If that child still doesn’t get vaccinated and is exposed again, she said, “then they have to start their exclusion all over again.”

In a district with fewer unvaccinated students such as Bonner Springs, the disruption could be much less severe. Most students could stay in school even if exposed. 

And parents shouldn’t forget, Ilboudo of Children’s Mercy said, that vaccines prevent dangerous and sometimes life-threatening diseases.

“Our biggest challenge is that vaccines have worked too well,” Ilboudo said. “When you talk to people who have seen their classmates or their neighbors go through polio, they remember. They remember their neighbor who died from measles. They remember their neighbor who was paralyzed because of polio. 

“Nowadays parents truly don’t know the risks that these infections will present because we haven’t seen them. We haven’t seen them for years and years and years.”

Suzanne King contributed to this story. 

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There were 82,000 special education students in Kansas public schools in 2024-2025. That’s 12,000 more than a decade ago.

The 12,000-student increase is not a massive share of the 500,000 students in Kansas public schools. But the steady increase in special education students is making more demands on already overworked teachers.

“We are feeling that as a district,” said Ryan Alliman, executive director of student support services at Wichita Public Schools.

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The increase contributes to a broader trend in education. Teachers are handling more students with less help, leading to longer days and more stressful work. Districts are trying to hire additional staff, but they can’t find qualified applicants.

It’s a cycle that leads to burnout.

“I understand that it might sound like a broken record,” Alliman said. “I do think burnout is a thing with our teachers.”

From 2015 to 2025:

• Wichita Public Schools went from 7,035 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act students, or IDEA, to 8,479 IDEA students.
• Olathe went from 3,720 IDEA students to 4,638 IDEA students.
• Shawnee Mission went from 2,601 IDEA students to 3,294 IDE students.
• Blue Valley went from 2,320 IDEA students to 3,066 IDEA students.

Teaching is not easy, but special education teachers face unique challenges. A Texas-based teacher was killed when a student pushed them over. Others have concussions, bite marks and bruising from managing students.

These students aren’t all dangerous, teachers . But these student populations may need more staff on hand. Sometimes that’s staff to take kids to the bathroom or manage behavioral outbursts.

“They may need an out-of-class cooldown,” a teacher told Texas Public Radio. “Well, then one person goes with them, and it leaves only . And then without extra staff there’s no moving anyone around. We have to call someone from somewhere else, and then now they’re short staffed.”

JaKyta Lawrie, executive director of special education at Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools, said the steadily increasing number is due to earlier identification of students who need extra attention, increasing complexity of student needs and improved awareness with families and teachers.

Her district also has seen an increase in special education students in the past few years, though the overall number has slightly dropped over a 10-year period.

The increasing demand has been impacting staff, Lawrie said, and the district has hired contractors to fill gaps. The district is trying to beef up recruiting efforts by working with universities and increasing support to retain staff. Wichita Public Schools have offered additional pay to special education staff.

Sara Schwerdtfeger, dean of the teachers college at Emporia State University, said her university is getting a lot of requests from across the state for special education teachers. A wave of retirements after the COVID pandemic has increased the demand for teachers.

Teachers can’t just grab a special education degree at the drop of a hat. It takes additional education, which varies but is about two years on average, Schwerdtfeger said.

Emporia State is rolling out a new degree program and accelerated courses to help students get into the field faster. And there is reason to be optimistic.

Schwerdtfeger said more prospective education majors are interested in special education. That could address the shortages, but this is far from the final solution.

“Wouldn’t it be great if it was just a one-answer-fits-all kind of thing?’” she said. “There is a teacher shortage in the state of Kansas. So if these teachers that could be filling general education (openings) … are sliding over to the special education area, that’s going to leave a gap in other areas.”

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Students began asking questions soon after President Donald Trump took office.

“How old do I have to be to adopt my siblings?” an area student asked a teacher, worried that their parents could be deported.

“Can I attend school virtually?” asked another student, reasoning that they would be safer from being targeted by immigration agents if they studied online at home.

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A straight-A student from a South American country stunned and saddened her teacher by saying, “So when are they going to send me back?”

“Can I borrow a laminator?”  asked another, who wanted to make a stack of “Know Your Rights” flyers sturdier. High schoolers have been passing the guides out, informing people what to do if stopped and questioned about immigration status.

Trump campaigned on a vow to of undocumented immigrants, boasting of .

What that might mean for the children of targeted immigrants, or whether they would be rounded up, has been the subject of speculation, rumor and fear.

In early March, the Trump administration began at a Texas center, with the intention of deporting the children and adults together.

Kansas City area school districts are responding, training teachers and staff on protocols in case immigration agents try to enter a school and sending notices to parents.

“Not every school district, not every charter school, not every private school, has addressed the issue,” said Christy J. Moreno with Revolución Educativa, a Kansas City nonprofit advocating for .

Parents in some local schools have had their fears calmed through district communication.

“There have been some districts that have been a little bit more public about their stance on this, but in general terms, they’re not being very public,” said Moreno, an advocacy and impact officer. “It’s because of all the executive orders and the fear that federal funding will be taken away.”

Indeed, when asked to comment, most area districts declined or pointed to district policy posted online.

Immigrant children’s right to attend public school, K-12, is constitutionally protected.

A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision, , guarantees it regardless of immigration status.

The also ensures that schools do not ask the immigration status of children as they enroll, something that area districts have emphasized in communication to parents.

The Shawnee Mission School District relies on policies that are the responsibility of building administrators if any external agency, such as law enforcement, requests access to or information about a student.

“We strongly believe that every child deserves free and unfettered access to a quality public education, regardless of immigration status,” said David A. Smith, chief communications officer, in a statement. “While we cannot control the actions of others, we can control how we respond.”

Schools were once understood to be off limits for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Schools were considered to be along with hospitals and places of worship.

that nearly 14-year-old policy by executive order immediately upon taking office in January.

In February, the the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, arguing that the schools’ duty to educate students was hindered by the change.

Students were missing school out of fear, the Colorado educators said. And administrators and teachers were forced to redirect resources to train staff on how to react in case immigration agents entered school grounds.

On March 7, a federal judge sided with Homeland Security in denying the injunction.

The ruling gleaned some clarity for schools, with the government noting that the current policy requires “some level of approval on when to conduct an action” in a school.

But that guardrail doesn’t negate anxieties, the judge acknowledged.

In the Kansas City area, one mother, with two children in public school, indicated that her district’s support was too hesitant.

“I know that the districts at this time have not come out in support of immigrant families in these difficult times,” she said. “They are just being very diplomatic, saying that education comes first.”

Plyler v. Doe: Constitutionally protected, but still threatened

isn’t as universally understood as Brown v. Board of Education.

The U.S. Supreme Court case guaranteeing immigrant children’s right to a public K-12 education is a landmark decision, said Rebeca Shackleford, director of federal government relations for , a national nonprofit advocating for educational equity.

“Kids are losing out already, even though they still have their right to this education,” Shackleford said. “There are kids who are not in school today because their parents are holding them back.”

The class-action case originated in Texas.

In 1975, the state legislature said school districts could deny enrollment to children who weren’t “legally admitted” into the U.S., withholding state funds for those children’s education.

Two years later, the Tyler district decided to charge $1,000 tuition to Mexican students who couldn’t meet the legally admitted requirement. James Plyler was the superintendent of the Tyler Independent School District.

The case was brought by the .

Lower courts ruled for the children and their parents, noting that the societal costs of not educating the children outweighed the state’s harm. The lower courts also ruled the state could not preempt federal immigration law.

Eventually the case was taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1982 upheld the rights of the students to receive a K-12 education, 5-4, citing the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause.

“By denying these children a basic education,” the court said, “we deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions, and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our Nation.”

The court also said that holding children accountable for their parents’ actions “does not comport with fundamental conceptions of justice.”

There by state legislatures to challenge the ruling.

In 2011, Alabama saw a dramatic drop in Latino student attendance, even among U.S.-born children, when the state ordered districts to determine the immigration status of students as they enrolled.

The law was later permanently blocked by a federal court.

passage of a law similar to the Texas law that led to the Plyler ruling.

The proposed law would allow districts to charge undocumented students tuition, and would require districts to check the legal status of students as they enrolled.

The bill recently passed out of an education committee.

The chilling effect of such proposals, like current calls for mass deportations, can be widespread for children, advocates said.

“How can you learn if you’re worried about whether or not your parents are going to be home when you get home from school?” Shackleford said.

Teachers nationwide are seeing the impact as students worry for themselves, their parents and friends.

“I think sometimes we forget that the words that we use as adults and the messages that we send are affecting our kids,” Shackleford, a former teacher, said. “And no one feels that more than teachers and classroom educators, because they’re right there in the rooms and hearing this and seeing the pain of their students.”

Information vacuums contribute to rumors

Voids in information leave room for misinformation, which is quickly spread by social media.

Local advocates for immigrant rights have been tamping down rumors about raids, especially in regard to schools.

There have not been any reported incidents involving ICE agents inside or on local K-12 school grounds.

But in February, near a Kansas City school, presumably as he was getting ready to drop a child off for the day’s lessons.

Homeland Security officials arrested a man they said had previously been deported. Staff of the Guadalupe Centers Elementary & Pre-K School acted quickly, escorting the child into the building.

For districts, managing communications can be a balance.

North Kansas City Schools began getting questions from parents about ICE and Customs and Border Protection early this year.

On Jan. 24, the district sent a notice to parents emphasizing policies that had been in place for several years.

“In general, law enforcement has the same limited level of access to student records as members of the public with no special permissions,” according to the notice. “Law enforcement agents are not permitted to speak with nor interact with students without a valid subpoena, court order or explicit parent permission unless it’s an emergency situation.”

Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Jennifer Collier addressed immigration in a late January board meeting.

Collier said that work had begun “behind the scenes” after Trump rescinded the sensitive-places policy.

“What we didn’t want to do was to get out front and begin to alarm everybody, to create anxiety,” Collier said, noting the “feelings of heaviness and in some cases feelings of hopelessness.”

All staff would be trained, including legal and security teams, in identifying valid court orders or warrants.

She emphasized the emotional well-being of students. And the district has online.

“We’re going to make it to the other side of this,” Collier told her board. “So hold on. Don’t lose hope.”

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KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Marialexa Sanoja publicly quit her job as a Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools police officer over concerns with the district’s handling of student safety needs and founded a nonprofit to help kids escape the challenges in Wyandotte County.

In the three-and-a-half months Sanoja was stationed at Wyandotte High School, the district’s largest school with 1900 students, Sanoja said she filed 140 incident reports and that in most instances the district failed to take action. The district, through its YouTube channel, disputed her figures and asserted it handled concerns responsibly.

“It didn’t take long for me to find out that the students were not in the best interest of anybody,” Sanoja said. “When the police officer becomes a safe space for students, there is something wrong with that.”

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After her resignation in December 2023, Sanoja founded Missión Despegue, translated to “mission takeoff,” a nonprofit that helps parents and students document their grievances with the school district to hold the district accountable for its handling of safety issues.

Sanoja saw the district’s response to a sexual assault case and its communication as inadequate, and experts echo her concerns. Now, Sanoja works with current and former students to get their GED certificates, drivers licenses, mental health care and prevent substance abuse.

Sanoja’s concerns

Sanoja said much of the Latino community, which makes up , is afraid to complain or make a scene because many of them are new to the country. She aims to empower them, and help them achieve the “American dream.”

One reason Sanoja resigned — and a former student dropped out — was because of the district’s response to the former student’s experience of being sexually assaulted at school. Kansas Reflector doesn’t identify minors who have been sexually assaulted.

According to an incident report filed by Sanoja, the former student was a freshman and alone in the Wyandotte High School stairwell when a group of older boys groped her and made sexual remarks. She began recording the boys with her phone, which prompted them to leave, the report said.

Sanoja was off duty that day. The former student asked the on-duty officer to file a report, which Sanoja says she never saw. The day after, Sanoja and the former student said they filed an incident, criminal, and Title IX report. The former student wanted to press charges.

“After that, I just stopped going to school, because I didn’t feel safe,” the former student said in an interview with Kansas Reflector.

Sanoja said security camera footage and the former student’s video showed the boys’ faces. The former student said the district told her that because the boys never returned to school, it could not suspend them. However, the former student said she continued to see the boys on campus.

“Ultimately, the district didn’t do anything about it. We were asking, at least, for suspension. That didn’t happen,” Sanoja said.

A spokesperson from the district told Kansas Reflector it was unable to provide comment on the former student’s case, or the district’s responsibility to handle reports of sexual assault.

Sanoja with a letter that accused the district of failing to communicate with parents. She wrote that she was worried about instances where students brought guns to school property and all parents weren’t notified.

In a to Sanoja’s resignation, district superintendent Anna Stubblefield said “those incidents are not always relayed to all families. Not because we’re hiding anything, but because the impact is low and to protect the privacy of our students.”

A district spokesperson told Kansas Reflector the “administration is required to contact parents regarding student issues — such as absences, drug-related concerns, or fights — in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct.”

Expert opinions

Ken Trump, an expert in school safety communications who is not related to the president, said parental anxiety over school safety is rising nationwide.

“It’s very easy to get caught up if you’ve got a couple thousand kids in a school, dealing with incidents and other things. But you need to take a tactical pause in this, and go back to looking at the communications,” Trump said. “You can’t go back to the old-school mindset of if someone finds out about it we’ll talk. That doesn’t work anymore.”

Sanoja said that after a student overdosed at school and she contacted the parents directly, the high school principal told Sanoja to route all communication with parents through administration.

Sanoja said that she continues to receive videos of physical fights in the schools, totaling in the hundreds, since her resignation.

Michael Dorn, a school safety expert who assists schools after major acts of violence, said  Sanoja’s allegations were concerning. He said he would have responded to her concerns differently than the school district did.

“I was a school district police chief for 10 years,” Dorn said. “If an officer in my department wrote that kind of resignation letter, I would request a state police investigation. I would ask for a polygraph test, and I would ask that she be polygraphed. I wouldn’t do anything like that, but if someone alleged that I did and I didn’t do it, I would request that to clear my name.”

Sanoja worked as a police officer in Lenexa before transitioning to the school district and said Wyandotte High School presented the most significant challenges she’s seen. She believes the problems are “within the culture” of the school.

“Everybody’s tired of the way the district is handling things,” Sanoja said. “They’ve been failing these kids for years.”

Fixing root causes

Through her nonprofit, Sanoja helps students who leave the district, like the former student who was sexually assaulted, earn their GED certificate.

When they’re out of the school environment, Sanoja said, they thrive.

Sanoja said most of the families she works with are immigrants, and the parents do not speak English.

“We face the daunting task of ending the stigma, shame and judgement that come with our culture,” Sanoja said.

Missión Despegue seeks to fix the root causes of the problems seen in school — like substance abuse, violence, bullying, and mental health issues. Sanoja said she sees these problems reflected in things like the graduation rate of the district. For the , which is 11.4 percentage points .

Through donations, Sanoja covers the cost of mental health appointments, DMV license and GED class registrations, and laptop purchases for students pursuing their GED certificate without one. In February, she began converting first-time offenders’ court fees, in hopes of reducing recidivism.

With the help of more than 100 volunteers, Sanoja has hosted events where she provides Narcan and educates parents about the dangers of substance abuse. She also guides volunteers to further training, like drug prevention and compassion fatigue workshops.

Sanoja said she doesn’t get paid for her work with Missión Despegue. She said she needs an assistant, because she has “a long list of people that need help.”

“I see something in them. I know they’re going to be successful,” Sanoja said. “I want that opportunity for every kid I have.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

She became a park guide at the Fort Scott National Historic Site, a military outpost that was instrumental in the nation’s westward expansion and played a pivotal role in the Civil War. Peitsmeyer had just retired from the Cherry Creek School District southeast of Denver where she worked for 30 years as a science teacher and saw the National Park Service role as the next chapter in her long career teaching children. 

Peitsmeyer, 59, was in the middle of developing new programming around when she got fired — just four months after her first day. 

“With retirement, I turned toward the national parks thinking that an interpretive ranger position would be a nice next step to expand my skill set — and to apply my skill set as well,” she told The 74. Now, she’s out of a job and is considering selling the home she just bought.

 “Trauma has been inflicted on the federal employees,” she said.

Peitsmeyer was one of some employees who were as part of a broader federal shakeup by the Trump administration and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Some 700 other national park workers have and, with a reported , the parks could soon be gutted further.

Bill Wade, the executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers, said the rangers most affected by the layoffs “were the people who do the educational and interpretive programs in parks, do school groups, manage the visitor centers and so forth.”

“So to the extent that those kinds of people were fired, the likelihood is that ranger-led programs are going to be reduced,” Wade told The 74. 

While the passionate protests that has sprung up in the wake of the park service cuts — including from the , an independent group of roughly 800 off-duty rangers — have focused more on the threats to public land and the impact on the parks’ of yearly adult visitors and families, the park service has a longstanding partnership with schools, teachers and students. 

Part of the mission of the National Park Foundation, the service’s nonprofit arm chartered by Congress in 1967, is its , which has reached more than 2 million children since 2011. Last year, it into its Open OutDoors for Kids venture that partners with schools and other groups “to provide opportunities for as many students as possible to inspire the next generation of park stewards.”

Other educational opportunities include , which gives fourth graders and their families free access to national parks nationwide, and the , which is designed to help young people learn about history and conservation through self-guided interactive activities. 

‘The highlight of your child’s school day’

During her short stint at the Fort Scott National Historic Site, Peitsmeyer dressed up as a Civil War nurse in January and taught second graders at Winfield Scott Elementary School about 19th-century medicine. 

The fort, which was built in 1842 to keep the peace between white settlers and neighboring indigenous tribes, in the 1850s when abolitionists fought for control of the abandoned complex and named it the Free State Hotel. 

After violent conflicts with pro-slavory forces, the abolitionists prevailed and Kansas entered the union as a free state just three months before the beginning of the Civil War. Fort Scott was transformed into a major Union military outpost and became a key supply depot for soldiers in the West. Among those sworn in at Fort Scott was the First Kansas (Colored) Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the first African-American unit to fight Confederate troops. 

Much of the complex was used as a hospital, Peitsmeyer said, primarily to treat Union soldiers. Most of the fatalities during the war, she taught the students, were from illness, not injury. Peitsmeyer saw the role as an opportunity to improve learning in both the parks and local schools. 

“My role — or the hope — was that I could bring more science into the park and link it to educational programming,” she said. The lessons she was planning on monarch butterflies involved threats to the vibrantly colored, long-distance travelers. She also hoped to build a butterfly house in the visitor center. In April, she said, the fort was planning what would have been an ambitious event about how Civil War encampments shaped America. 

“Prior to my termination, there were really serious questions as to whether or not we could actually host that type of programming because it was too large of an event,” said Peitsmeyer, who noted the fort now employs just one interpretive ranger. “I was just looking on the website to see if there was any advertisement about Civil War encampment, and I don’t see any so my guess is it’s probably been canceled.” 

In a viral Valentine’s Day social media post, wrote about “los[ing] my dream job of an Education Park Ranger” at Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa. He talked about how the cuts could limit learning opportunities for children at his own site and the 432 others nationwide. 

“I am the highlight of your child’s school day,” Gibbs, who couldn’t be reached for comment, . “I am the lesson that showed your children that we live in a world of gifts- not commodities, that gratitude and reciprocity are the doorway to true abundance, not power, money, or fear.”  

Court orders rangers reinstated but …

 The Trump administration hasn’t released a list of Park Service employees whose jobs were eliminated, Wade, of the park rangers association, said, but efforts by advocates and fired workers suggest employees who worked as interpretive guides, managed school field trips and ran visitor centers were most likely to have received termination letters. Because the government announced plans to hire some for the busy summer months, the full force of the staffing cuts could accelerate in the fall. 

Layoffs specifically targeted “probationary employees” who, like Peitsmeyer, had been in their position for less than a year before losing their jobs based on claims of poor performance. 

At parks across the country, the firings mean fewer workers to conserve natural resources and teach visitors — including students — about the nation’s natural and cultural history protected and preserved in the parks’ roughly 85 million acres. 

Staffing woes have already had an impact on educational opportunities at multiple parks, and reduced hours at visitor centers. At Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, the staff was of the caves and implement a shorter schedule for self-guided exploration — a change that affects visitors of all ages, although the park for educational field trips.

Although two federal courts have found Trump’s cuts unlawful and have ordered federal agencies to reinstate purged workers, Peitsmeyer said she can’t wait for a long court battle before seeking work elsewhere. 

“It’s been a month and how long can people wait without health benefits?” she said. “I moved here specifically for the position, and at this point I’m considering — actually, I was ready to put my house on the market this weekend.” 

‘An easy target’

Families should “still go to the parks” to learn and relax this summer, Wade said, but not before visiting a specific national park’s website. He advises against showing up in person “and assuming that everything is going to be normal.” 

Wade noted that recent polls have shown wide bipartisan support for the National Park Service. Last Year, a Pew Research Center poll found that — and 75% of Republicans — had a favorable opinion of the National Park Service, topping the list above the Postal Service, NASA and every other federal agency. 

“Park employees are on pins and needles waiting to see if their job is going to be next,” Wade said. “Unless the public gets angry enough and upset enough that they contact their elected officials and insist that this get turned around.” 

The retired superintendent of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, Wade acknowledged the Trump layoffs aren’t the first the Park Service has endured, including by President Bill Clinton in an effort to balance the federal budget. But this time, he said, is different, with Trump’s cuts being carried out “totally indiscriminately.” 

“They [the rangers] were all sent the same exact memo which implied that it was based on ineffective performance, but you know, many of the people who were terminated shared their performance evaluations, which were fully successful or above,” he said. “It was just a broadsword approach.”

Peitsmeyer got the letter which, she said, was a lie. Her termination, she said, wasn’t truly based on her performance. In fact, she hadn’t yet undergone a formal evaluation. 

“Probationary employees were just an easy target,” she said. “All of the feedback that I had received while in this position with this national park site indicated that I was the polar opposite of what this termination letter was stating.”

Staffing reductions mean Fort Scott could be forced to limit the number of students who can make school visits, but Peitsmeyer fears a more existential threat to America’s smaller national treasures. Located in a town of just 7,500, her fort receives some . 

“My concern is, for a site that is as small as this,” she asked, “will it have the potential to be shut down?” 

At the same time, schools are struggling to bring down high absenteeism rates that undermine academic achievement and school climate. While there’s been some progress since the pandemic, far more students are missing a month or more of school than in 2019. The rates are particularly high among homeless students: of them were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year, compared with about 28% of all students and 36% of those who are economically disadvantaged.

These results are hardly surprising: The constant moves that come with homelessness often leave children far from their schools and without an easy way to get there. Hunger, lack of clean clothes and mental or physical illnesses complicate the picture. 

Our organizations, SchoolHouse Connection and Attendance Works, spent the past six months interviewing school leaders across the country to learn how districts are bringing students without stable housing back to school. reflect common-sense approaches driven by data and cloaked in compassion.

The first step is to identify the students who need help. The federal provides school districts with money for transportation, staffing and other assistance to students residing in shelters, cars and motels, as well as those staying temporarily with other people. But many families and youth don’t realize they qualify for extra help from the school district, and others are afraid or embarrassed to say they are homeless.

School districts are adjusting their to reflect different sorts of temporary living arrangements. And they’re training all school staff, from attendance clerks to counselors to administrators, to recognize the signs of homelessness. Even tardiness or poor attendance can be a tipoff that families have lost their homes.

Some districts are going further. In Henrico County, Virginia, the McKinney-Vento team hosts summer events at Richmond-area motels where homeless families live and signs students up for services. In Albuquerque, team members visit homeless shelters and RV parks.

Once students are identified, districts need to track what’s happening with their attendance and update the data regularly. Many districts are using that focus on addressing the factors that keep students from showing up, such as transportation, hunger and depression. 

In California’s Coalinga-Huron Unified School District, for instance, officials at each school once a week with a list of homeless students and review academics, attendance and other indicators. They emerge with action items for helping students, whether it’s rearranging a school bus route, bringing in a counselor or connecting the family to food and other services. Coalinga-Huron’s efforts are supported by real-time data analysis from the Fresno County Office of Education. 

In the small rural district and elsewhere, transportation remains one of the biggest barriers to school attendance for homeless students. Recognizing this, the McKinney-Vento Act requires districts to provide eligible students with a way to get to their “school of origin” if it is in their best interest. This often creates logistical challenges. 

For students living beyond school bus lines, some districts use vans or car services with drivers vetted for safety. But the costs can be high, and drivers are sometimes in short supply. Others offer gas cards to parents or student drivers. The Oxford Hills School District in Maine paid for one student’s driver’s education course.

The challenges go beyond expenses. Henrico County created school bus stops for homeless children living at motels but found the kids were embarrassed for their classmates to see where they lived. The district then changed the routes so the motels were the first stop of the day and the final stop in the afternoon. 

Depression and anxiety can also contribute to absenteeism. Near Denver, Adams 12 Five Star School District matches youth experiencing homelessness with mentors for a 15-hour independent study focused on academic goals, social-emotional development and postsecondary options. Kansas City, Kansas, uses a “2 x 10” approach, with a staff member spending two minutes talking to each at-risk student for 10 consecutive days.

It’s also key to reach families, many of whom report feeling unwelcome at school or embarrassed by their living situations. Fresno Unified School District in California hosts parent advisories to discuss challenges that are keeping homeless students from attending school. Adams 12 hired a diverse team of specialists whose backgrounds include some of the experiences that their students are living through, including poverty, immigration and homelessness. Henrico County spent some of its federal COVID relief funding for two years of Spanish lessons that help the McKinney-Vento team members communicate with families more easily.

This work takes coordination across departments, so that district staffers who concentrate on homeless students work closely with those monitoring school attendance. It also requires strong relationships with community-based organizations.

Several districts use a approach that coordinates nonprofits and government agencies in supporting students and families. In Coalinga-Huron, where families often have trouble accessing social services located more than an hour away in the county seat of Fresno, the district offers nonprofit organizations space to provide immigration services and language instruction, as well as a food pantry, clothing closet and health clinic.

Several states have also launched grant programs or provide funding specifically for students experiencing homelessness. In Washington state, a funds North Thurston Public School’s student navigator program that connects each homeless student with a staff member. Adams 12 relies in part on Colorado’s to pay the salaries for some of the specialists on its team. 

These districts are using data-driven approaches to improve attendance for homeless students. And they’re doing it with compassion and heart. They recognize that these absences mean weaker academic performance and higher dropout rates. In some places, the absences affect school funding, leaving less money available.

As the homelessness rate continues to rise, districts should adopt these common-sense approaches to identifying students, tracking data and addressing barriers with community, state and federal support.

SchoolHouse Connection and Attendance Works are hosting to explore the findings at 1 p.m. Eastern March 13 and 18. A SchoolHouse Connection-University of Michigan database provides for homeless students at the district, county and state levels.

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation and Overdeck Family Foundation provide financial support to Attendance Works and The 74.

Their parents are desperate for options when it comes to accommodating children capable of doing above grade-level work. In a city of close to 1 million students, where, in some neighborhoods, half are scoring in the top 10th percentile on IQ tests, that equals thousands of underserved kids.

Several states, including Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia, offer an . A few more, like Arizona, Florida and Kentucky, have a variation, like an Individual Service Plan or a Gifted Student Service Plan.

I asked subscribers to my whether they would support a situation like the one currently available in , where giftedness is bundled under special education and all students who qualify receive an IEP.

Provisions of this law include:

• “Special education” means the following: Specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of an exceptional child

• Each gifted child shall be permitted to test out of, or work at an individual rate, and receive credit for required or prerequisite courses, or both, at all grade levels, if so specified in that child’s individualized education program. Any gifted child may receive credit for college study at the college or high school level, or both. If a gifted child chooses to receive college credit, however, the student shall be responsible for the college tuition costs.

This arrangement would have been particularly useful for my family and might have kept my middle child from dropping out of high school when he wasn’t allowed to take the higher-level classes he wanted. I tried to enroll him in college but hit a bureaucratic wall when they wouldn’t accept him without a high school diploma, even though he scored higher on standardized tests than the average student the college accepted.

The majority of my fellow NYC parents were in favor of a similar statute for New York state.

“Absolutely! This is so necessary,” cheered mother of three Laura B. “Gifted children definitely have special needs and they should be educated at the level they deserve. I fully support a bill like this for NYC.” 

“It would be amazing if public school could provide material at [gifted kids’] level,” sighed A.K. a mother of two, “instead of the cookie-cutter curriculum they shove down the throats of all students.”

Elaine Daly, parent, social worker and school counselor, did express concerns about how these children would be identified. “Would [the IEP assessment] be designed with the understanding that traditional tests are not the only standard of gifted?”

A lack of qualified teachers is what worries mom Iona Baldini. “I’m concerned that schools don’t have teachers who can work with gifted kids. There are very few teachers that can meet gifted kids at their level. I think we need infrastructure and a different mindset to teach gifted students.”

Gayle Doyle, a one-time gifted child herself, isn’t concerned. “Part of being gifted means that you are challenging and learning yourself. In fourth grade, our class implemented a “test out” for math. You took the test before the unit, and if you scored above a certain level, you didn’t have to go through that lesson and were given more advanced work to do independently. I tested out of all the units. I was able to go into the hallway during math lessons where I worked on more challenging math problems. It was completely self-led, the teachers only had to provide problems for me to work on, but there was no instruction. I found it better this way, and this was done a while ago without IEPs.”

Finally, a parent who asked to be identified as KC sees another bright side to offering IEPs for gifted kids. “There is a lot of prejudice against kids with an IEP by other parents. The number of times I’ve heard them complain about having their “gen ed” kid being in a class with an IEP kid (like mine) is too disappointing to list. That’s because there’s an assumption that IEP always means my kids have a negative trait that will ‘hold their [kid] back.’ A law like this *might* help these parents realize that there are equally deserving IEP students who should have their skills nurtured.”

Assessing students and implementing individualized education plans is an expense few school districts, especially NYC, which is losing enrollment — and thus funding — can afford. An obvious, cost-effective solution would be to offer a higher-level curriculum for all. This across the board upgrade should be enough for most of those currently considered “advanced.” But pleas to that effect have fallen on deaf ears for decades. The curriculum is, instead, dumbed down, most recently with the as a graduation requirement. 

If the only way parents can get an appropriate education for their academically gifted child is by demanding the same “” currently only available to those classified as “” by the U.S. Department of Education, then that’s what they may need to resort to. I realize it would put extra strain on an already overtaxed system, and it would cost more. I would rather not go that route. It’s the worst possible option for everyone, families and schools, in terms of expense and effort. But it feels like NYC parents have been left with no alternatives.

However, educators and lawmakers should consider options for advancing school choice far more broadly. One potential opportunity: strengthen and expand , which allows students to attend public schools outside their residential zones as long as space is available. 

The latest from EdChoice showed that 79% of Democrats, 75% of Republicans and 73% of independents with school-aged children support open enrollment. 

There are two types of public-school open enrollment: within-district, which lets students transfer to schools inside their assigned district, and cross-district, which lets students enroll outside district boundaries. The of a strong open enrollment law is that all districts must participate so long as schools have open seats available.

Like other school choice policies, open enrollment has gained momentum since the pandemic. Reason Foundation research finds that “ have either a robust cross- or within-district open enrollment policy, while do not, leaving with limited school options.” 

Since 2021, nine states have codified strong open enrollment laws, including , and . But before this recent surge, it wasn’t just red states: six were red or leaned red, three leaned blue and three were purple states. Blue-leaning and purple states, including Delaware and Colorado, have very successful open enrollment laws; others, like California and Washington, have elements of successful public school transfer programs.

In Delaware, whose program ranked seventh in , about used open enrollment during the 2020-21 school year to find an alternative that was the right fit for them. 

Kansas codified its strong open enrollment laws in 2022 with a Democratic governor. Preliminary reports show that more than used the state’s cross-district open enrollment program just launched in 2024. 

Colorado passed its open enrollment law back in 1990. During the 2023-24 school year, nearly 200,000 Colorado students, 28% of the traditional public school population, used open enrollment to find the best public school for them. This is especially notable because this past November, Colorado voters rejected a statewide to establish a right to private school choice. Colorado illustrates how strong open enrollment laws can enjoy success in states where other forms of school choice may struggle to gain traction.

With 2025 legislative sessions starting, lawmakers and school choice advocates should consider public school open enrollment proposals that expand options for families. With its widespread popularity among parents and its success across , purple and states, open enrollment is a winning political issue for the right and left that can benefit the tens of millions of students in public schools.

TOPEKA — It doesn’t take a lightning-quick internet connection to theorize income, education and geographic disparities underly Kansas’ digital divide.

But the nonprofit and nonpartisan Kansas Health Institute’s latest research demonstrated with online county-by-county maps that broadband deficits and computer ownership gaps plaguing Kansas were intertwined with social and demographic influences.

Thirty-one percent of low-income Kansas households making less than $20,000 annually didn’t have high-speed connections, KHI said. However, 4.5% of Kansas households earning more than $75,000 were in the same predicament in terms of broadband access.

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Kaci Cink, an analyst with KHI, said Kansas families able to tie into reliable broadband were able to more efficiently download, browse and stream contents of the internet. KHI said the rise of a global digital economy and the lack of high-speed communication options continued to undermine Kansans relative to employment, education and health care.

“Kansans use broadband to engage with health care providers and access health-related information, so not having connectivity can create barriers to health,” Cink said. “And we are seeing this among populations that may need health care services the most.”

KHI said one in 20 or 5.8% of Kansas households didn’t have a computer, smartphone or tablet. But Kansans with a bachelor’s degree in college where eight times more likely to have a computer than Kansans who didn’t earn a high school diploma.

Of Kansans age 65 or older, one in 10 or 11.8% didn’t have a computer to access the web. KHI said one in 10 Kansas households, or 12%, lacked broadband service.

KHI developed an to provide an overview of computer ownership and broadband availability in each of the state’s 105 counties. The dashboard, based on 2022 information from the U.S. Census Bureau, provided breakdowns by age, race, ethnicity, employment, education and income.

For example, it revealed gaps among counties in terms of the percentage of households without a computer. A sample: Riley, 2.4%; Johnson, 2.8%; Sedgwick, 4.9%; Shawnee, 7.6%; as well as Jewell, 15.7%; Lincoln, 14.3%; Marshall and Neosho, 12%; Gove, 10.2%; and Wallace, 10%.

The dashboard chronicled county-by-county differences in broadband availability. The percentage without high-speed internet: Johnson, 5%; Riley, 9.5%; Sedgwick, 10.7%; Shawnee, 17.2%; as well as Lincoln, 26.2%; Gove, 24.2%; Jewell, 22.8%; Neosho, 19.6%; Marshall, 16.9%; and Wallace, 11.8%.

The challenge of responding to the state’s technological divide has been more difficult in rural communities due to insufficient infrastructure that elevated the cost of adding high-speed internet service.

Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said delivering broadband to rural communities was “critically important for those communities to thrive.”

To work toward closing the gap, the federal Affordable Connectivity Program operated from Dec. 31, 2021, to June 1. That program reduced the nation’s internet connectivity deficit by providing 23 million households with discounts on broadband services and computer purchases. An attempt to extend the federal initiative has been introduced in Congress, but not passed.

In 2023, Gov. Laura Kelly said Kansas received $452 million that would be dedicated to the program to expand broadband infrastructure in Kansas.

It followed the state’s 2020 commitment to provide $85 million over 10 years to the Broadband Acceleration Grant for benefit of Kansas communities, especially in economically distressed regions.

In July, Kelly said acceleration grants of $10 million were awarded to a dozen internet providers, and that investment would be paired with $12.7 million in matching funds, for benefit of 14 rural Kansas counties.

“Broadband drives innovation, unlocks potential and ensures everyone can participate in services essential for economic, educational and industrial growth,” Kelly said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

From 2021 to 2022, the number of Kansas children who didn’t know where their next meal would come from grew by 37,000.

The rise in food insecurity shows up at food banks across the state.

Aundrea Walker, the executive director of Just Food, said 30% of the people it serves are under 18 years old. Walker has worked at the Lawrence-based food bank for 10 years. She’s never seen demand so high.

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“The amount of individuals and households we’re serving is absolutely insane,” she said.

Walker said Just Food spends about $40,000 a month on food. That isn’t enough.

“We’re constantly running out,” she said.

Walker said the pantry had to create new, paid staff positions to collect more food. At other food banks, some families line up two hours before the pantry opens.

The jump in food insecurity is mostly attributed to two things: rising inflation and pandemic-era benefit programs running out. Combined, they leave less money for families and force tough choices between paying bills or eating.

The number of children who didn’t know where their next meal would come from jumped from 13.4% in 2021 to 19.1% in 2022, according to Kansas Action for Children’s 2024 Kids Count Databook.

“(I’m) alarmed by it,” said John Wilson, president and CEO of Kansas Action for Children. “When we see every single Kansas county experience an increase in food security among kids, that’s troubling.”

Certain pandemic-era programs ran out at the end of 2021 or start of 2022. Families getting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, could receive the maximum benefit. That ended. Congress temporarily expanded a child care tax credit giving families hundreds more per year. That didn’t make it past 2021. Cost-free student meals were an option. But that was gone by the summer of 2022.

To help kids in Kansas, “we have to help the people who care for them, too,” Wilson said.

Advocates for a stronger social safety want the Republican-controlled Statehouse to put more tax dollars toward things like food security.

Kansas Republicans not likely to address food insecurity

Republican leaders in the House and Senate didn’t say whether they’d debate bills to address the issue. Historically, the conservative state Legislature hasn’t seriously considered proposals in recent years that would expand SNAP or other social service programs.

Advocates for more public spending on social services say the Legislature has instead put up barriers.

The 2015 Hope Act bans state officials from using federal or state money to advertise SNAP programs on radio, billboards or television. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said only 70% of eligible people actually get SNAP benefits in Kansas. That’s below the national average of 82%.

Kansas is one of the last states in the country not using . It’s a federal program that allows more flexibility in admitting Kansans to food benefit programs. It doesn’t guarantee more people get SNAP, but it can mean owning a car or having more assets doesn’t disqualify someone.

Kansas also permanently bans people with multiple drug felonies from getting food stamps, and just last year, the House Welfare Reform Committee supported a bill that would prevent families from buying candy or soda with EBT cards.

Republicans argue those policies protect against the misuse of tax money.

Rep. Francis Awerkamp, a St. Marys Republican, introduced a bill to prevent the Kansas Department for Children and Families from participating in the summer electronic benefits transfer for children program. That program gives Kansas families who are on free or reduced-price lunches a one-time, $120 payment for meals over the summer.

Awerkamp, chair of the Welfare Reform committee, didn’t respond to requests from The Beacon.

Walker, with Just Food, said the Legislature has done some things to help. It eliminated the sales tax on groceries, which helps when you spend $460,000 a year on food like her group does. She said efforts to cap inflation would also help, but food insecurity is a multifaceted problem that can’t be fixed with just one bill.

Looking to the 2025 session

The pandemic-era benefits programs cost millions, which is one reason Republicans are apprehensive about expansion. Haley Kottler, an advocate for a strong social safety net at Kansas Appleseed, said cheaper alternatives could feed more Kansans.

The Legislature could end the food stamps ban for Kansans with multiple drug felonies. The state could also simplify the food assistance application program so it isn’t as complicated to apply. Kottler also wants to see universal meal programs expanded.

Harvesters helps food banks in 17 counties in northeast Kansas and 10 counties in northwest Missouri. Sarah Biles, a Harvesters spokesperson, said the demand for food assistance hasn’t been this strong since the 2008 recession. Demand at food pantries was dropping year after year until the pandemic hit, and the 2022 numbers ballooned back up to the 2008 level.

Biles said government intervention is important. For every meal provided by a food bank or charitable organization, SNAP can provide nine meals.

“We definitely all need to work together to solve this issue,” she said. “There’s plenty of food in the United States. It’s a matter of getting all that food to where it’s needed most.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

How could a system millions rely on simply not exist?

Wuori’s answer: That a “crisis of misunderstanding” has turned early childhood centers into an exceedingly expensive and “industrialized form of babysitting” based on the false idea that child care is somehow separate and distinct from education. Instead, Wuori says babies learn from birth — and some research suggests even before that — and their time outside the home should be treated as schooling, not as a place for them to be watched over while their parents work. 

In not embracing learning as an essential purpose, the current child care system, Wuori says, is harmful both educationally and economically for children, their parents, child care workers and society at large.

“All environments for young children are learning environments,” he said. “The question ultimately comes down to, “Is your child in a good one?”

Wuori, who espouses a “transformative” investment of public funding in early child care, began his own career in the field over three decades ago in the classroom. Teaching in an afterschool program “lit the fire” in his interest in child development and inspired him to return to graduate school.

After teaching kindergarten in South Carolina public schools for five years, he moved into school district leadership before spending 14 years as the deputy director of South Carolina’s Early Childhood Education Agency, . 

He eventually founded a public policy consultancy practice, , focused on the needs of America’s young children and their families. Through his work, he partners with state elected leaders and advises them on early childhood policy topics. 

But Wuori is perhaps best known for his social media presence on where he posts delightful videos of babies, using them to explain key child development concepts. His feed, which has amassed a prominent following, was recently described in a New York Times as “educational, but also, simply put — ‘awwwww.’”

Your baby learns to speak – not just from listening – but from watching.

I’ve written many times about the keen observational powers of babies. Infants are expert observers of their parents’ faces, which (among other lessons) provide important clues as to how mom and dad…

— Dan Wuori (@DanWuori)

Days before the official release of his book, The Daycare Myth: What We Get Wrong about Early Care and Education (and What We Should Do about It), Wuori spoke with The 74’s Amanda Geduld.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

The 74: Your book makes the argument that day care doesn’t exist. I think readers will hear that and say, “Well, my kid is in day care. So what do you mean that it doesn’t exist?” Can you explain what you mean?

Dan Wuori: What I mean by that is that for the better part of 100 years, we have had a policy in place — one that has really created services that are designed to support parental employment more than they are designed to support the optimal development of young children. The central thesis of the book is that we have fooled ourselves into thinking that there is this thing called day care, or child care, that is separate and distinct from education… 

What we know from decades of science at this point is that that’s simply not the case. We know that young children are learning, not only from day one, but increasingly, we have this understanding that some very powerful early forms of learning actually may begin in utero. And so that’s a very different proposition, right? 

… This artificial distinction between care and education is really what I’m talking about … We have conceptualized child care as almost like a holding facility, right? We’re thinking about very custodial forms of care, and that translates, in many cases, into policy. We have states that are proposing, for example, as a solution to the financial crisis that the child care industry finds itself in, deregulating in ways that sort of strip away any requirement other than those that just entail the very basic health and safety of those kids. And that is a very low bar, and, frankly, a dangerous bar, and one that frankly, we end up paying for in the long term.

You also note that the vocabulary we use matters. If we’re getting rid of the term day care, what should we be using instead?

The truth is the term day care has fallen very much out of fashion even in the field in recent years and been replaced with child care. What I would love to see is an acknowledgement that this is all either early childhood education or early care and learning. Because some acknowledgement that ultimately these are not simply holding facilities for children, [but[ that these are powerful learning laboratories, and developmental spaces, and that’s true regardless of what the sign out front says. 

All environments for young children are learning environments. The question ultimately comes down to “Is your child in a good one?”

You talk also about how our current model, “Simply doesn’t work, and it doesn’t because it can’t work.” Can you explain a little bit of what you mean by that? 

What I’m talking about in that section is our current economic model for child care. What we know about child care is that it is sort of like a broken, three-legged stool. We know, for example, that parents are paying more for child care in most every state at this point than they pay for in-state college tuition or for their housing costs. And so that it is unaffordable to parents in really significant ways. 

We know concurrently that for the business owners themselves, this is not a profit-making venture … Providers are scarcely keeping their doors open, and the whole sad thing is sort of cobbled together on the backs of a low-income workforce that is almost exclusively female, and in many states, majority women of color, who are literally subsidizing the cost of care to families in the form of their low wages. 

They are highly dependent on public assistance programs themselves, making at or near minimum wage in most states. And in fact, according to some recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, making roughly 60 cents an hour less than we pay dog walkers in this country.

The whole thing gets down to: we talk about all of those different forms of crisis that the field is in. There’s a compensation crisis, and there’s an access crisis, and there’s an affordability crisis. But the book makes the case that all of those crises are really a side effect of the fundamental crisis in the field, which is a crisis of understanding. 

That we are failing to acknowledge these settings for what they truly are, and that as a result not only are we sub-optimizing this incredibly powerful window of human development, but we are saddling taxpayers … for decades to come for the result of our inaction and our failure to get things right in the early years in ways that are ultimately far more costly than doing things right in the first place.

Throughout the book, you make arguments for why we need to shift this system — for economic reasons, for educational reasons and just because it’s the right thing to do. What would a shift in this system look like, both practically on the ground and in terms of outcomes?

Yeah, I think about that question in two categories, really. The big picture message of the book is that we need transformative public investment in young children and families. I have also worked in the public policy space and with policymakers long enough to know that transformative system change very rarely happens in one fell swoop. So while making the case, for example, that early childhood development needs to be seen as a public good instead of a private market service, the book … also suggests then both some low-hanging fruit in terms of things that we could do proactively right now in ways to help improve compensation, for example, but also there’s an entire chapter that is dedicated to what I have labeled sort of forms of public policy malpractice — examples of federal and state policy where maybe with all the right intentions, the execution of our policy is actually exacerbating some of the financial crisis in the field. 

… I see policymakers increasingly saying to me, “You know what I get the brain development pieces of this. I know this is important. I know we need to do better. What I don’t know is, how do we pay for it?” 

And one of the major messages in the book is we are already paying for it. We’re just doing it in the dumbest possible ways. We are very much taking out, at scale, a payday loan that we are meeting our very basic immediate financial needs at the highest possible long-term cost to taxpayers … We’re paying more in terms of remediation and retention and special education throughout our K–12 system. We are paying for worse health outcomes … that could be mitigated against by doing right in the early years …

There’s an anecdote later on in the book that was recounted to you about how much some of these early child care and education teachers are struggling financially. Can you share that?

I had the good fortune two summers ago to partner with the state of Kansas on a listening tour as they were assessing the strength of their early childhood system. I traveled across the state, talking with business leaders and early childhood providers and parents, and got into a conversation with a child care provider. 

We’re there, and I was asking her, “What do you need most? How could state policymakers help support you?” And she said, “Oh, well, you know, the thing that I really need the most is a floating substitute who could sort of go from classroom to classroom.”

And I said, “Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Like, somebody to help give teachers a break or use the restroom or have lunch to themselves?” And she said, “Oh no, we mostly have that covered. I’m worried that I need to give them time to get to the bank.”

… And so I said, “Oh, you know, to deposit their checks?” And she said, “Oh, no. Not that kind of bank. I can’t pay them enough to feed their families, and so I try to make time for them each week to be able to visit the local food bank.”

And boy, that just — I mean, to this day, that’s one of the most upsetting stories that has been conveyed to me in this field in my career. These women, who are literally being entrusted to help co-construct the brains of young children, are making so little that we would have to be sending them to a food bank despite their full-time employment in what I could argue is the world’s most critical profession.

One framing motif that you use throughout the book is the food pyramid (released in 1992 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture based on what turned out to be of healthy eating). Can you explain why you chose that motif and how it reflects what’s happening in this day care myth?

I use that food pyramid example as sort of a framing around an area of public policy that we got boldly and catastrophically wrong and raise the question for readers: Where might we be doing that currently? What’s happening in our public policy that 20 years from now, we might look back at and say, “Wow. We can hardly believe we ever got something so wrong.” 

And the book really makes the case that right now in our approach to young children and families we have created … this bizarro world for children that — in so many ways unexamined — is precisely the opposite of what we know from the science of early development …

One good example of that is that we know that the earliest weeks and months of life in particular play an absolutely critical role in attachment … And so then we juxtapose that against knowing that this is a country where 1-in-4 American mothers have to return to the workforce within two weeks of giving birth. And you know that in our early childhood settings we are seeing data that suggests that the teachers in those programs turn over to the tune of about 40% a year … And so during precisely the weeks and months of life that young children most need continuous, stable, nurturing relationships, we are seeing those relationships interrupted — both by a lack of paid family leave provisions and through our terrible misunderstanding of the importance of out-of-home, early childhood settings, in ways that are bound to fail us later on. 

… My hope is that the book is an opportunity for us to press pause and to really rethink some of the underlying assumptions around how we have structured provisions for young children and families in this country and to come together on a bipartisan basis. One thing that I feel very strongly about — and I’m very proud of in the book — is this idea that … if ever there was an issue that really should bring us together across the partisan continuum, this ought to be it, because it makes sense for children, it makes sense for the strength of nuclear families, it makes sense in terms of our economy, it it makes sense for taxpayers … There really is something for everyone — hopefully in this conversation and hopefully in the book.

TOPEKA — A Kansas elementary school principal who invited an evangelical Christian missionary to pass out Bibles to students during their recess in May violated the First Amendment, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas warned Monday in a letter to the district.

Katie Struebing, the principal of East Elementary School in the roughly 2,000-person city of Belleville, invited a member of the evangelical Christian organization Gideons International, Ben Dreesen, to hand out Bibles to students during recess on May 7, wrote Monica Bennett, legal director for the ACLU of Kansas, in the Monday letter. Gideons International is often credited with the introduction of Bibles to American hotel rooms.

Ahead of Dreesen’s visit, Struebing told staff that she would visit classrooms at the roughly 250-student school to inform students of “the nice man” handing out Bibles, according to . A student’s parents informed the ACLU about Dreesen’s visit.

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Bennett wrote that Struebing allowed Dreesen on school grounds during school hours, accompanied him while he passed out Bibles to students and involved fellow school district staff in the matter. The principal lent her “credibility and authority” to Dreesen, “in effect placing a stamp of approval on his message and subjecting students to a religiously coercive atmosphere,” Bennett wrote.

Plus, the principal violated the Republic County school district’s own policy, which states that district employees aren’t allowed to use classrooms to “promote or convey” religious viewpoints, Bennett wrote.

The goal of the letter was “to educate and remind the principal and the school district what’s required with respect to separation of church and state,” Bennett told Kansas Reflector.

The First Amendment and U.S. court decisions require neutrality from government institutions when it comes to establishing or favoring a religion or nonreligion.

Struebing declined to comment, directing the Reflector’s inquiry to the school district superintendent, Tami Knedler, who did not respond.

This is at least the second incident in Kansas this year involving Bible distribution to students in public schools. In April, Butler County school district employees informed parents they intended to invite Gideon missionaries to hand out Bibles to Bluestem Elementary School students, according to the letter. District officials gave parents the option of excusing their children from the visit if they provided signed permission slips.

“After receiving criticism, including from Christian parents, invoking the First Amendment separation of church and state clause, the district walked back the decision,” Bennett wrote.

The public is aware of the law when it comes to religion in public schools, so school officials ought to be aware of the law as well, Bennett told the Reflector. In the letter, she referenced a and a that indicated the majority of Americans do not believe public schools should be influencing religious beliefs.

“It’s important to point out that our laws recognize the rights of individuals to worship, or not worship, according to their own conscience, and they have the right to pass on whatever their beliefs are onto their children,” Bennett said.

School districts should respect that, she said.

“The ACLU of Kansas strongly discourages you from welcoming missionaries on school grounds to distribute Bibles in the future,” the letter said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .

TOPEKA — The Kansas State Board of Education plans to finalize in August parameters of a 30-member task force that would be formed to develop policy recommendations on non-academic use of cellular telephones by prekindergarten through 12th-grade students while at school.

In public and private districts across the United States, officials are limiting or banning smartphones in classrooms to minimize distractions from academic obligations and to lower stress and anxiety among students. Some schools forbid students from accessing phones throughout the day, while others deprive students of devices during class time.

“It’s going to take a concerted effort to address the amount of time our children spend on their own devices during instructional time,” said state Board of Education chair Melanie Haas of Overland Park. “We as parents and elected officials need to help our children use technology and social media in safer, more beneficial ways.”

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Randy Watson, the state commissioner of education, was given the task of forming a task force that included least two state school board members, students, classroom teachers, administrators and other education representatives. He suggested the co-chairs could be a student and a principal.

He anticipated the state Board of Education would ask the task force to provide a framework for state policy or guidance for school districts to address the issue. State board members plan to determine at their August meeting boundaries for the task force. The report would be due in late 2024.

“Then I would like the task force to present their recommendations to the board by November, no later than December,” Watson said. “In addition to addressing how our children are using their digital devices for non-academic purposes while they’re in the classroom, we also need to take a hard look at the impact social media is having on children’s mental health.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .

Cindy Lane takes it personally that Kansas needed a Kansas Blueprint for Literacy initiative to improve preparation of educators to teach reading and funnel more literate students into colleges and the workplace.

Lane, retired special education teacher and former superintendent of Kansas City, Kansas, schools, will soon step down from the Kansas Board of Regents to become administrative director of Blueprint for Literacy. The Kansas Legislature adopted and Gov. Laura Kelly signed into law a bill mandating the state’s education system engrain in current and future teachers evidence-based reading science strategies.

A bipartisan coalition of state legislators earmarked $10 million to implement the blueprint and work to change the lives of 40% of Kansas public school students not proficient at reading.

“Frankly, this is personal,” Lane said. “I was a kid who my favorite subject was recess. It really was. The way that reading was approached at that time didn’t connect with how I think and grow and I really didn’t learn to read until I was in junior high. And, I can’t imagine being a person who never had a teacher that figured out what’s the code for that kid to be able to learn to read. I can’t imagine what their life must be like today.”

Lane, who plans to resign from the state Board of Regents on June 24, will collaborate with universities and school districts to reform instruction of college students studying to become teachers and to provide existing teachers with new literacy tools. The law also required creation of an oversight commission, the establishment of university centers of excellence and regular accountability reports to the Legislature.

“There is an imperative here to make sure that all of our students are highly literate,” Lane said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. “They have to be able to read and write well to be successful today. So, for me, this is dream making. You have a dream. I want to help you get there.”

‘Get off the sidelines’

Blake Flanders, president of the Kansas Board of Regents, said the law could be viewed as the largest workforce development project in state history in terms of targeted training and retraining within the education field.

The Board of Regents, which has jurisdiction over the six state universities, will have a prominent role due to the number of school of education students in the pipeline who must enroll in a pair of three-credit-hour courses offering hands-on experience in teaching reading to children.

Under Senate Bill 438, the state universities must begin offering the two new literacy courses this fall or be sanctioned. Kansas State University and the two other larger universities would lose $1 million if they procrastinated, while Fort Hays State University and the two other regional universities would lose $500,000 if they balked.

“We don’t have enough students reading at grade level,” said Flanders, who argued 40% proficiency among students should be viewed as a crisis. “We’ve got to get off the sidelines. We’re the ones charged with educating the educators. Right? So we’re stepping into the arena to not say we have all the answers, but to open open the tent to everybody.”

The Kansas State Board of Education will be part of the mix given the plan to retrain thousands of licensed Kansas educators in reading instruction, Flanders said. Both boards will be expected to collaborate with the new Literacy Advisory Committee.

Sen. Molly Baumgardner, a Louisburg Republican and chair of the Senate Education Committee, worked on creating the framework for an inclusive approach to elevating reading instruction with higher education institution, education advocates, school districts and parents. It will add to the state’s deliberate work to improve early literacy success of young children.

“For many years,” she said, “the Kansas Legislature has recognized the solid science behind early literacy success in children. It requires early screening of children, solid teacher training and classroom materials that support evidence-base practices.”

Advisory panel key

The advisory committee established by the law must be in place by Jan. 1 with representatives from universities, community colleges, technical colleges, the state Board of Education, the state Board of Regents and the Legislature.

“This group is essential,” Lane said. “We need all the minds at the table. It’s a big tent kind of mentality. My role is almost like the general manager of a baseball team. And, this advisory committee is on the field in the positions and they will be called on based on their individual knowledge at times, but they also may be called on to go somewhere else on the field and perform.”

Likewise, the advisory panel would develop a plan by Jan. 1 to establish the centers of excellence in reading that would provide assessment and diagnosis of reading difficulties, train educators in simulation labs and support other professional learning opportunities. The intent of the law would be for all elementary school teachers in Kansas to earn a reading instruction credential by 2030.

The law set goals for student achievement. Half of students in third to eighth grades would be expected to achieve Level 3 in standardized testing in reading by 2033, which would mean they understood skills and knowledge needed to be college or career ready. Also, the 2033 target would be for 90% of these 3rd to 8th grade students would read at Level 2, which is viewed as equal to their grade level in school.

Flanders said one estimate indicated the state’s economy would create 56,000 new jobs by 2030. Eighty percent of those would require a baccalaureate degree and the current rate of achievement in reading in Kansas public schools wouldn’t fill that workforce gap, he said.

The state university system would be “committing malpractice” to acknowledge students and teachers were struggling with reading instruction but choose not to be part of the solution, Lane said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .

TOPEKA — Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park interpreter Jeff Tully says Kansas entered the union as an anti-slavery state in 1861, but in less than two decades the Kansas Legislature passed a law allowing cities of more than 15,000 residents to segregate elementary schools.

The law applicable to Topeka’s youngest, most impressionable children stayed on the books from 1879 until the 1950s.

“This was the state that wrote in our Constitution, ‘We forbid slavery,’ ” Tully said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. “Yet, 20 years later, we’ll start segregating African American kids in primary schools.”

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Lawson Nwakudo, another National Park Service interpreter at the national historical site in the Monroe Elementary School, said that peculiar state law and the excellent Black-only schools in Topeka drew the interest of the NAACP, which was forming a legal strategy that sought to demonstrate to justices of the U.S. Supreme Court the harm inherent in a system of “separate but equal” schools and the necessity of disassembling segregated classrooms across the nation.

“Not only were these educators incredible, but they’re actually more educated than their white counterparts,” Nwakudo said of Topeka’s Black elementary school teachers. “The reason why the NAACP wanted to focus on Kansas, on Topeka, was because there was that level of equality. If they could prove there’s something inherently wrong with a place like Kansas … that would mean that there’s something inherently wrong with everywhere else.”

The consolidated court case, known as Brown v. Board of Education, resulted in the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision May 17, 1954, that declared state-sanctioned segregation of public schools to be a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of one of the century’s most significant court decisions, Washburn University in Topeka will present the play “Now Let Me Fly” at 7 p.m. May 17 in White Concert Hall. It examines the journey of heroes and heroines in the legal fight for equality in education. Admission is free with online ticket registration at or by calling 785-506-7768.

“There are many characters, many people who were involved with the Brown decision,” Nwakudo said. “This play gives you basically a feeling as to what that was like, and what their lives are like moving through and a little bit after the Brown case.”

The parents in Kansas, Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina and Washington, D.C., who signed on as plaintiffs in what evolved into the Brown v. Board case placed themselves and their children in harm’s way, he said. The lead plaintiff was Oliver Brown, who had a daughter eager to enroll in the Topeka school closest to her home. She was denied access and was required to attend a segregated Black school further from home.

Nwakudo said the stakes were higher for other plaintiffs than they were in Topeka.

“There are some people who are being threatened and other people had their houses burned down. Whereas in Kansas, there still was possibly of an economic threat where your jobs can be threatened. That’s partially why 12 of the 13 complainants were housewives,” Nwakudo said.

Tully said the Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Site organized a homecoming celebration for former students, staff and teachers at Topeka’s historically Black elementary schools from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 18 at the park’s headquarters in the former Monroe Elementary School. The invitees include those with ties to Monroe, but also to Buchanan, McKinley and Washington elementary schools in Topeka.

“At 12:52 p.m. on May 17, 1954, nine Supreme Court judges unanimously said ‘separate but equal’ was inherently unequal,” he said. “We thought Monroe would be the natural place to have this homecoming of sorts.”

The day’s program will include a roundtable discussion among former students from all four schools, followed by a sit-down lunch (registration for the meal is closed), musical entertainment and the taking of class pictures on the front porch of Monroe Elementary. There will be family and group activities on the north lawn. At any point during the day, visitors can contribute their stories and memories to an oral history project and the Kansas State Historical Society will be available to take digital images of documents and memorabilia related to the Topeka schools.

Nwakudo said the transition to integrated schools produced violence and all sorts of maneuvering to delay implementation of the Supreme Court’s orders.

“That is a major uplift for a lot of places, especially in the South, where these children could step away from these one-room shacks that were their schools. No electricity and no indoor plumbing,” he said. “There was a quite a bit of resistance. Places like Tennessee put forth a 12-year plan to desegregate their schools. Virginia tried to resist in any way they could, and actually ended up closing down a lot of their schools across the state.”

He said his message to visitors to the National Historical Park, especially school children, was that they had “power to make a positive change in our lives, just like their predecessors did. We can draw knowledge and strength from those past experiences, to galvanize ourselves to do more to do better.”

Tully said the National Park Service site south of the Kansas Capitol was among 428 National Park units in the United States. The site in Topeka measured barely 1 acre — a far cry from the 2.2 million acres of the Yellowstone National Park and the 1.2 million acres of the Grand Canyon National Park.

“But what happened in a building in Topeka, Kansas, along with four other court cases around the United States, was probably, in many scholars’ opinion, the single most important 20th century Supreme Court decision,” he said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .

TOPEKA — The Kansas State Board of Education on Tuesday voted to expand indigenous education outreach from the K-12 to college level, following debate that touched on mascots and political agendas.

Members approved 9-1 a memorandum of understanding to establish the Kansas Advisory Council for Indigenous Education, joining the Kansas Board of Regents with the agreement. The vote formalizes the partnership between the state board, regents and advisory council on consultation about Kansas indigenous education. The regents signed the agreement March 21.

“We have the opportunity to have some meaningful educational opportunities, just to have conversations, just to understand each other better. I think that is critical,” board member Jim Porter said.

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The Kansas Advisory Council for Indigenous Education was created as a temporary committee, meant to strengthen relationships with the state’s four Native nations and bolster educational outcomes for indigenous children and youths. Board member Dennis Hershberger cautioned against political animus in historical discussion before voting in favor of the measure.

“I’m just wanting to encourage factual history to be taught and if that’s the goal, then I appreciate that effort.” Hershberger said. “… From a biblical standpoint, everyone’s created equal and we want to look at every one with virtue and value. It’s so important that we look at history that way.”

The move comes two years after comments from Randy Watson, the Kansas commissioner of education, during a virtual education conference in 2022.

“I had some cousins from California. They were petrified of tornadoes,” Watson said at the time. “They’d come visit us, you know, in the summer. They were like, ‘Are we going to get killed by a tornado?’ And I’d say, ‘Don’t worry about that, but you got to worry about the Indians raiding the town at any time.’ And they really thought that.”

Watson apologized for these comments and was suspended.

During Tuesday’s Board of Education discussion, several members asked about the political impact of the council. Board member Danny Zeck, the one “no” vote, questioned council member Alex Red Corn, a citizen of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma and an assistant professor at Kansas State University, on mascot recommendations.

“Is this the same group that wants to get rid of all the mascots?” Zeck said

In 2022, the council  prioritize persuading local school officials to abandon culturally offensive branding.

More than 20 Kansas schools still have American Indian themed mascots, and many tribes have expressed opposition to these mascots due to concerns they damage the perception of indigenous people and encourage stereotypes that represent American Indians as “exotic, warlike people who are stuck in the past,” according to a council memorandum.

Red Corn said the group is currently focusing on analyzing student data and working on teacher certification.

“Mascots tend to get more attention,” Red Corn said. “But they’re actually not much of the bandwidth that we’re working on right now.  … We’re actually moving toward the idea that we need to create collaborative systems of education so they learn about this place, it is Kansas, and its history and what it is today because of that history.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .

TOPEKA — Teachers in the state could move to a retirement plan with better long-term benefits if new legislation is advanced. The change may help stem the state’s increasingly severe teacher shortage.

Timothy Graham, director of government relations and legislative affairs for the Kansas National Education Association, pointed to state vacancies during a Tuesday hearing on the potential change. In fall 2023, the state had an estimated 1,810 teacher vacancies according to the Kansas State Department of Education. In fall 2022, there were 1,650 reported vacancies.

“Educators have accepted lower compensation to follow their passion,” Graham said. “They’ve consistently endured stagnating wages on top of that. They’re facing growing demands from the public and growing disciplinary situations in the classroom. … And now, like many other college graduates, teachers are starting their careers with tremendous student loan debt. Ensuring that they have a dignified and comfortable retirement after years of public service is simply the right thing to do.”

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Kansas implemented current tiers for the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System in 2015, following financial strain. KPERS includes all of the state’s public sector workers, such as teachers, lawmakers and firefighters.

These workers fall into three retirement levels: KPERS Tier 1 for people enrolled before July of 2009, KPERS 2 for those entering between July of 2009 to December of 2014, and KPERS Tier 3 for everyone enrolled after January of 2015.

Rather than relying on a formula based on years of service and final average salary, as in the traditional pension plan of Tiers 1 and 2, KPERS Tier 3 ties a member’s lifetime benefit to contributions and interest earned throughout the member’s career in a 401K-like account.

, heard Tuesday in the Senate Committee on Education, would convert Tier 3 members to Tier 2 by January 2025 and allow teachers who become KPERS members in July of 2024 to enter Tier 2. Shorter-term teachers who would receive more benefits under Tier 3 could choose to stay in Tier 3.

KPERS estimated 40,000 teachers are employed in Kansas school districts, about 15,500 of whom are KPERS Tier 3 members.

To showcase the difference in tiers, KPERS executive director Alan Conroy calculated the difference in benefits for a teacher who has been in the profession 30 years and retires at age 60 under the KPERS 2 and KPERS 3 tiers. A KPERS 2 teacher would receive $45,015, while a KPERS 3 teacher could receive between $26,978 to $36,866.

Leah Fliter, assistant executive director of advocacy with the Kansas Association of School Boards, spoke in favor of the change during a March 5 hearing.

Fliter said school board members within their organization felt the change could help attract and keep teachers in Kansas.

“They felt an improved retirement benefit would not only attract young people to the profession but also encourage experienced teachers to remain in the classroom,” Fliter said. “Our members also stated that moving teachers to the improved benefit structure in Tier 2 would demonstrate respect for the profession.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .

When Cindy Apple began as a special education teacher at Broadmoor 3-5 Elementary School, in Louisburg, Kansas, more than 20 years ago, students needing help in math were assigned to “pull-out groups,” often at the end of math class. Busy teachers handed students off to aides, who slowed the lesson down, reworking the same problems again. 

The help was scattershot and often not delivered by trained teachers, and students struggled to improve. “They were taking students through the motions of the assignment again,” Apple said. “But we weren’t really working on the missing skills.” 

Then in 2018, the same year that Apple became principal at Broadmoor, she took the for supporting students in reading and math and made it a top priority. Grounded in evidence, the system used student testing data to target missing skills and inform what kind and how much help students needed, ranging in intensity from whole-class instruction to personalized, targeted tutoring.

Apple used the new framework to take a hard look at their entire system and rework how math was being taught: the standards, the curriculum and how the school was handling help for struggling students. “We homed in and got very specific in a very organized way,” Apple said. 

Since the support system has been in place, student test scores across the grades have improved. In 2019 for example, 60% of third-grade students passed the state test; this spring, it was 80%. Fourth and fifth grades have had similar improvement. 

Broadmore’s organized, systematic approach to helping students in math is far from the norm. While the majority of schools across the nation have organized approaches in place to address student problems in reading, far fewer offer the same help for math.

Lack of math help often starts with the states. A majority don’t require schools to provide support for students who struggle in math—rshowed that while 32 states require schools to provide teacher training, evidence-based curricula and support plans for reading, only seven states have similar laws on the books for math. 

Districts that have adopted multi-level frameworks for helping struggling students — such as Multi-Tiered Systems of Support or Response to Intervention — are more likely to have implemented it for reading than for math. show that 70% of districts had multi-level frameworks in reading for elementary schools, while only 47% had math frameworks. A recent review conducted by associate professor Sarah Powell at the University of Texas, Austin, found that not much has changed. In her not-yet-published survey, she found that districts had more ways to identify students, more support personnel and more interventions dedicated to reading.

“It is typical that most schools screen students in reading and have pretty good intervention systems set up in reading, but that isn’t the case in math,” Powell said. 

Math often gets less of everything in schools

Recent and l tests have revealed unprecedented declines in student math scores brought on, in part, by the pandemic. and Education Secretary have called for more attention to be paid to math instruction. But some teachers say the current science of reading movement, whose phonics-focused method of instruction swept through classrooms, has dominated discussions of student improvement. 

An instructional coach at an Iowa elementary school said her school has devoted serious resources over the last several years to revamping how they helped struggling readers — a large portion of their low-income, English-learner population — get on track. But there wasn’t the same push for math. 

At least half of students in each grade have been flagged as needing intensive help in math — but they aren’t getting it. “We don’t have enough resources to do that same thing in math,” said the teacher, who asked not to be named because she feared repercussions at work. “This year, we have no one assigned to math intervention in most grades. We are creatively using some English language teachers [as math specialists], but we lack that front-line instruction.” Her experiences were echoed by multiple other teachers interviewed for this article who did not want to be quoted. 

Most of the nation’s students are struggling in math. Math disabilities, which are present in about 7% of the student population, get than reading disabilities, and often go undiagnosed. Meanwhile, students may not have a disability but are still working below grade level. 

Sixty-five percent of fourth graders scored either “below basic” or “basic” in math on the , and nearly three-quarters of eighth graders scored the same, meaning a majority of students possess only a of math’s fundamental knowledge and skills needed to achieve proficiency and college readiness.

Reading is often schools’ top priority. But math proficiency is crucial, too, experts say. It predicts and , shapes and perhaps even — not to mention a pathway to lucrative STEM careers. 

“In the early grades, the dominant focus for intervention is on reading. There’s a general belief that reading is more important than math,” said Lynn Fuchs, professor emerita of special education, psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University. “But in today’s workplace and everyday life, to be successful in terms of your occupation, your earnings are going to be greater if you not only read well, but are also proficient in math.” 

But experts say when it comes to supporting math students in schools, there’s often less to work with: a smaller body of scientific evidence on exactly how to help students who struggle than in reading; less teacher training; fewer evidence-based skills assessments and interventions for students; and even less confidence and knowledge among teachers, especially elementary teachers, who feel prepared to teach it. 

New teachers often arrive at school less prepared to teach math compared to reading. A from the National Council on Teacher Quality highlights how teacher prep programs have beefed up their math instruction over the last decade, but most still have a long way to go. Only 15% of undergraduate programs earned an ‘A’ for “adequately covering all of the math topics and pedagogy that elementary teachers need,” according to the policy group. 

Teachers’ own math understanding may be a major contributor to their in teaching it. “Many elementary teachers do not themselves feel adequately confident of their own basic math skills,” report researchers wrote. “They may dedicate less time to teaching math than students need, unsure of how to help their students avoid common misconceptions and errors.” 

Time during the school day also plays a significant role. Fuchs, from Vanderbilt, said students who struggle with reading are more likely to also need help in math, but figuring out which skills students are missing, and getting them the proper interventions, takes time and resources, and often means pulling kids out of other core instruction. 

“If you are having difficulty in one area, reading or math, your chances that you will have difficulty in the other area is two to three times more,” Fuchs said. “It’s often a logistical nightmare to remediate kids in both areas.” 

Data, evidence and organized tracking pays off 

But perhaps most importantly, even when students have been properly identified as needing help in math, schools often lack an organized structure and trained point people to guide remediation and monitor student progress. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 48% of schools for this work, while only 23% have math specialists. 

“Most every district I’ve worked with, teachers can tell you which kids need help,” said Brian Poncy, associate professor in the College of Education and Human Sciences at Oklahoma State University. “It’s all about the infrastructure in place. Schools need to be able to meet the needs of a diverse set of learners. What’s imperative is that they have the infrastructure in place to meet those needs.”

But at schools like Broadmoor, when organized structures are put in place, and there are trained educators to lead evidence-based interventions, students’ math skills can improve.

After Broadmoor adopted a tiered framework for helping struggling math students, Cindy Apple pointed to a few key changes that made a difference. 

They trained teachers on how to interpret data from screeners and benchmark testing, how to use that data to decide what kind and how much help students need, and made time in the daily schedule for 30-minute targeted interventions with teachers, not aides. 

Apple also instituted a teacher “common hour” every afternoon—extra planning time. Fourth-grade math teacher Rebecca Finley said the collaboration time has been instrumental in making sure no student falls through the cracks. “I can go talk to a teacher [during common hour], we have that time to put our heads together and problem solve,” she said. 

Finally, Broadmoor overhauled the core math instruction that every student gets every day — something experts say keeps more students out of intervention in the first place. They trained teachers in the , too, so they were better equipped to provide instruction that aligns with evidence on how the brain learns—lack of evidence-based instruction is one of the biggest reasons reading interventions often produce mixed results or fail altogether. 

Research-based practices meant to help struggling math students like explicit, systematic instruction, using mathematical language and number lines, and timed activities to increase fluency, also have more effective for everybody, said Elizabeth Albro, commissioner of education research at the Institute of Education Sciences.

Implementing an organized way to assess and track student progress has not only improved test scores, but has kept more students out of serious math intervention. By fifth grade, only 4% of Broadmoor’s students are receiving intensive math help. 

Educators like fourth-grade teacher Kristin Brown find the new organization system — the highly detailed, technical work of figuring out what each student needs in math and how to get there — enjoyable, like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. 

“To dive into the data is a kind of creativity,” she said. “What is causing those scores to be what they are, and what can we do about it?”

Correction: Kansas launched its statewide infrastructure for supporting students in reading and math in 2008. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the year the program began.

TOPEKA — Rep. Kristey Williams and Sen. Renee Erickson agreed there was little value in convening a task force to study the state’s shortfall in funding public school special education programs because the financial issues were too complex and the only remedy suggested by education advocacy groups was too simplistic.

The lawmakers said it would be folly to hold hearings of the Special Education and Related Services Task Force with legislators, teachers, parents and other stakeholders to gather testimony and shape recommendations on a fix for the 2024 Legislature.

The goal of the task force, required by a bill approved by the 2023 Legislature, was to figure out how best to comply with an older statute mandating that state funding cover 92% of the extra cost of providing services to K-12 special education students statewide. Currently, state aid was sufficient to address 69% of school districts’ excess special education costs. The balance must be made up by local school districts.

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“There is no way a funding task force could begin to crack that code,” said Williams, an Augusta Republican.

Erickson, a Wichita Republican, said the Kansas State Board of Education and an assortment of public education organizations had offered one remedy to the 92% dilemma — appropriation of nearly $200 million annually to close the gap.

“We do not need a special education task force meeting to consider their position,” she said. “We have their input, which is just more money. We don’t need a task force to convene to discuss that part.”

On Friday afternoon, however, Williams and Erickson were expected to sit down with others on the task force for their first and, perhaps, only meeting. The gathering might not have occurred had a six-person majority of task force members not invoked parliamentary procedure in November to force Williams’ hand. She relented and set the meeting for three days prior to start of the 2024 session.

Task force rebellion

Interim legislative meetings typically take place in summer and fall to give committee members time to write reports pulling together expert testimony and outlining reform proposals for review by lawmakers during the next legislative session.

Williams, who was placed in charge of the task force pending the members’ election of a chair, said a mere two hours would be dedicated to oral testimony of subject-matter experts and for task force deliberations. She said written testimony would be accepted by the task force comprised of five members of the House or Senate — four Republicans, one Democrat — and six people not in the Legislature.

The list of 13 given a chance to speak for five minutes each to the task force included people with the Kansas Association of School Boards, Kansas National Education Association, Kansas PTA, Game On for Kansas Schools as well as the Kansas State Department of Education and the Kansas Policy Institute. School administrators and a teacher will be given a turn at the microphone, but its not clear the task force could comprehensively take input, consider options and prepare recommendations for legislators in 120 minutes.

The first order of business must be to select a chairperson of the task force. Legislators, lobbyists and educators said that step became a flash point several months ago when it appeared Williams lacked votes among task force peers to retain the position of task force chair. In response, special education advocates said, Williams stonewalled and publicly expressed skepticism the task force was worthwhile.

In an interview in October, Louisburg GOP Sen. Molly Baumgardner, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, dismissed that theory. She said the delay wasn’t inspired by Williams’ unwillingness to give up narrative control of the task force.

“Anytime you’re trying to schedule when we’re not in session, it is a real juggling match to get folks together,” said Baumgardner, who is on the special education task force. “You’re trying to satisfy a variety of different schedules so that the largest number of folks can be there and participate and we’ve had some problems with interim meetings, just scheduling times.”

A majority of the task force made multiple requests of Williams to move ahead with the task force’s work before deploying a procedural maneuver to compel the meeting. Williams set the meeting for 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Friday in Room 112-North of the Capitol.

‘Not … going away’

Kansas spends more than $500 million annually in federal, state and local funding on special education services in public schools, but hasn’t complied with the 92% requirement since 2011. However, the statute didn’t include enforcement mechanisms to compel the Legislature to meet the obligation.

The idea of convening a task force was viewed as an alternative to the 2023 Legislature dealing with a situation in which districts had to pull money from the general education budget to fill the special education gap. Instead of allocating $182 million to meet the statewide shortfall in the 2023-2024 school year, the Legislature agreed to increase appropriations for special education by $7.6 million for the year.

Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, endorsed a plan to add $72 million in 2024 to initiate a five-year plan to surge special education aid to 92%. The state Board of Education preferred a four-year strategy that would infuse $82 million annually to reach that threshold.

Williams and other legislators rejected the phased concepts and endorsed appointment of a task force on special education. She also urged the Legislature to complete a rewrite of the state’s special education funding blueprint by 2027.

Rep. Adam Thomas, an Olathe Republican on the task force, said he was convinced the Legislature had to rework the state’s special education formula to correct inconsistencies in distribution of money to districts.

“The formula itself is confusing. There’s some flaws in statute,” he said. “Obviously, we know after all these conversations about special ed, it’s not something that’s going to go away.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .

TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly’s task force on early childhood development outlined Monday a plan for improving coordination of the education and care of pre-kindergarten kids by consolidating services scattered among four state entities into a newly created agency or within an existing department.

The Early Childhood Transition Task Force authorized by the first executive order issued in Kelly’s second term as governor prompted a review of state services for children from birth to 5 and resulted in the recommendation to unify programs within the executive branch. The task force collaborated during the nine-month project with the Hunt Institute, a North Carolina nonprofit associated with Duke University.

Task force co-chairs Sam Huenergardt, CEO of AdventHealth System’s Mid-America Region, and Cornelia Stevens, executive director of TOP Early Learning Centers in Wichita, said state agency officials, private-sector advocates and state legislators on the task force studied Kansas’ early childhood landscape, listened to more than 500 stakeholders and consulted with other states to develop the plan for adopting a coordinated system.

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“As in most states,” the co-chairs said, “Kansas’ early childhood programs are spread across multiple government agencies, creating duplication and inefficiencies that force Kansas families to navigate a needlessly complex bureaucratic maze in order to access time sensitive services. It’s time we did better.”

The Bipartisan Policy Center, an independent organization in Washington, D.C., issued a report this year ranking Kansas 49th in the nation in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of early childhood systems.

About four dozen child care and early childhood development programs have been scattered among the Kansas Department for Children and Families, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the Kansas State Department of Education and the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund.

Kelly on board

Kelly, a Democrat who served more than 15 years in the GOP-led Legislature, said Kansas should reshape management of the state’s overly complex network of programs for children. The state would benefit from centralizing a system difficult for families and external stakeholders to navigate, Kelly said.

“Streamlining the administration of these programs and reducing the red tape around accessing them will save money and make it easier for families and providers to navigate the system,” Kelly said. “This is a nonpartisan issue that affects all Kansans, rural and urban alike, and addressing it pays dividends for everyone in the state.”

Kelly said the earliest years of childhood were crucial to the trajectory of academic achievement, healthy development and social mobility.

After formation of the task force, Republican members of the Kansas Legislature expressed skepticism that establishing a new state agency would do much to help children excel. In the past, the Legislature rejected Kelly’s recommendation to merge the state Department for Children and Families with the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services.

Task force members warned consolidation of governmental services was a complex and labor intensive process that required thoughtful transition planning.

Many states identified the start of formal schooling at kindergarten, but the task force report said achievement gaps could manifest long before children reached schoolhouse doors.

In addition, the task force went beyond scope of their directive to suggest Kansas ought to increase state aid for child care and make use of economic development funds to encourage businesses to expand child care services. Members said Kansas should explore piloting a child care cost-sharing program similar to Michigan’s Tri-Share Program or Kentucky’s Employee Child Care Assistance Partnership Program.

A blueprint

The report of the task force urged Kelly to consider the options of placing authority over Kansas early childhood programs within an existing state agency or a newly created state agency. In 2021, Missouri consolidated programs in the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Colorado advanced its centralization initiative by creating the Colorado Department of Early Childhood.

In terms of an implementation timeline, the task force suggested adoption of a consolidation law during the 2024 legislative session,  creation of an implementation team by September, establishment of the new entity or department by July 2024 and completion of the realignment by July 2026.

The unified entity needed to be led by a “highly qualified, permanent” administrator who reported directly to the governor, the task force said. The transition director chosen to advance the reform law adopted by the Legislature and governor shouldn’t be hired as permanent administrator, the report said.

The task force said all state programs relating to child care services at KDCF, KDHE and the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund should be realigned under one entity.

Preschool programs housed in the Kansas State Department of Education ought to remain there because many were administered by local school districts, the task force said. KDCF should retain authority of child protective services, foster care and adoption services. Likewise, the task force said, KDHE would maintain oversight of programs focused on general health outcomes of children.

Task force members recommended the new entity track more than 40 benchmark statistics to determine whether the unified approach had a positive influence on children, families, providers and communities.

Significant challenges

Since 2019, Kansas invested more than $450 million in state and federal funds to increase support for providers of early childhood programs and broaden access to reliable programs.

The task force’s needs assessment indicated Kansas families with young children experienced inequitable access to high-quality programs and services. Families in Kansas must adopt a connect-the-dots approach to navigating services across administrative agencies. Kansas was experiencing both a workforce and facility shortage across the state in terms of early childhood programs, the task force said.

“Early childhood providers and stakeholders share a desire for collaboration and cooperation, but these efforts are often disconnected and uncoordinated,” the report said.

The task force identified administrative shortcomings that included overlapping program requirements for similar services to the same populations, lack of clear lines of decision making, lack of alignment of workforce policy, funding streams not optimized toward common goals and public confusion over which agencies were responsible for specific services.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on and .