Serving Kansas City (Wyandotte County) Kansas for over 50 years!
A Schlagle High School student, Levi Alonso Rangel, has scored a 31 on his ACT, a standardized test often used for college admission.
Rangel, who will be a senior, was recognized in the recent Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools newsletter.
The ACT test has a scoring scale of 1-36 and is an average based on scores in English, math, reading and science. The average ACT score in Kansas is 21.2, and the average in the nation is 20.0
The Kansas City, Kansas, school board on Tuesday night, Sept. 8, asked why there wasn’t more participation in the district’s free meals program.
School started on Tuesday, with the free “grab-and-go” meals program starting today at district public schools. Pre-registration is required.
At the Tuesday, Sept. 8, KCK school board meeting, district officials said they had planned three meal distributions a week, but with an announcement last week of USDA funding, they will offer two meals each weekday, beginning next week.
Under the USDA rules, meals will be free to children ages 1 to 18 years old, and will include any child, not just those in the school district, said Josh Mathiasmeier, director of nutritional services for the school district. The program will continue to Dec. 31 or whenever the funding runs out, he said.
The district is expanding the number of sites available to 31 this fall, he said at the school board meeting.
Meals this week will be picked up from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday at more than 30 school locations. Students need to pre-register for the meals at 913-627-3900. Next week they will be available each weekday.
Board member Wanda Brownlee Paige said she had received phone calls about the program. She said some parents were not able to get to the nutrition sites. If the sites were seven to 10 blocks away, and parents have little children, walking can be a safety issue, she said.
“What are we doing to assist them to get their food?” she asked.
Mathiasmeier said by expanding from six to 31 sites, it will cut down on the distance that people have to travel. A district committee also is discussing using buses for food distribution, he said.
Paige responded that the families need help now.
Dr. Alicia Miguel, interim superintendent, said they are meeting on Wednesday to discuss providing transportation for the program.
Dr. Miguel said they know it is not just isolated cases and it is an issue district-wide. They want to decide how to identify families that need some type of delivery, she said.
Dr. Valdenia Winn asked how many children were using the free meals program.
According to Mathiasmeier, there were about 1,600 breakfasts and lunches that were pre-ordered as of Tuesday afternoon. He said about 1,700 families have participated in the program since COVID-19 began.
Dr. Wnn said it was not a large number, out of the district’s 22,000 students.
Dr. Miguel said they would engage the principals more, in the conversations.
Paige said it took people who went door to door to find out that families weren’t participating in the program because they didn’t have transportation.
Participating schools include Harmon, Schlagle and Washington high schools; Carl Bruce, Central, Eisenhower, Gloria Willis and Rosedale middle schools; KCKECC and Morse early childhood centers; Bridges alternative school; Banneker, Caruthers, Claude Huyck, Douglass, Emerson, Frances Willard, Frank Rushton, Hazel Grove, John Fiske, Lowell Brune, M.E. Pearson, Mark Twain, McKinley, New Chelsea, Quindaro, Silver City, Stony Point South, Stony Point North, T.A. Edison and Welborn elementary schools.
On Thursday, Sept. 10, according to district information, fresh produce will be distributed in boxes from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Harmon and Schlagle high schools, Arrowhead, Carl Bruce and ROsedale middle schools and Banneker Elementary School. For more information, visit www.kckps.org.
The Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Education voted 4-3 Tuesday night to allow sports workouts to begin on Monday, Sept. 14.
In a marathon board meeting lasting almost six hours on Tuesday, which also was the first day of school in the district, the board approved one of three recommendations from the school district’s athletic director, Tammie Romstad.
The motion by board member Stacey Yeager was to allow student athletes to start working out on Sept. 14 if they attended class and turned in their assignments.
Voting for the recommendation were Yolanda Clark, Randy Lopez, Maxine Drew and Dr. Yeager. Voting against the recommendation were Janey Humphries, Wanda Brownlee Paige and Dr. Valdenia Winn.
The school board previously suspended all fall KSHSAA sports and activities in the Kansas City, Kansas, school district because of COVID-19. That suspension, along with earlier Unified Government Health Department guidelines on sports, was the subject of student protests in August in Wyandotte County. The early sports recommendations from the Health Department came out Aug. 13, with newer guidelines on sports out on Sept. 4. School started on Tuesday in the Kansas City, Kansas, school district, but all classes were remote.
During her presentation, Romstad told the board that allowing practices to resume could be a way to motivate students to attend class and turn in their assignments.
The board members asked for more clarification on the plan to be presented at a special board meeting at 3 p.m. Friday, about what the attendance requirement means for each student, and also about how student athletes would get transportation to and from practices.
During the presentation, district officials mentioned that the district had been holding workouts during the summer when Wyandotte County had a 20 percent COVID-19 positivity rate. One day during that time, the county had a 29 percent rate, according to Romstad.
Dr. Winn was aghast at the positivity rates during the summer. “I’ll take the high road and say we dodged the bullet over the summer,” she said. “We were still allowing students to participate and the numbers were as high as 20 percent?”
“Did the board know what was going on?” Dr. Winn asked. “I’ll say no, I didn’t,” she added. She did not think they should have had workouts with such a high county positivity rate.
Board member Wanda Brownlee Paige wanted to wait for more information, as she said they were getting different numbers about the positivity rates.
The positivity rate reported by the Unified Government COVID-19 webpage was 17.6 percent on Sept. 8. However, district officials said they were told on Tuesday the number was lower.
Board member Maxine Drew said that she believes the numbers they heard in the report have been very low. She agreed with interim Superintendent Alicia Miguel that it was necessary to find some way to address the issue of students being present in classes.
Two other sports recommendations were not adopted at Tuesday night’s meeting, and will be taken up on Friday, according to the board.
The second recommendation, not adopted at this time, was to create transparency with students and parents through the Kansas State Department of Education gating criteria. The criteria were recommended to be used to determine when it is safe for each sport to start or suspend, using data from the local community.
The third recommendation, also not adopted at this time, was to accept the KSHSAA proposal to participate in fall sports in the spring, if health conditions allow.