Familiar face to lead KC school district again after controversial tenure nearby
.jpg "Dr. Dennis Carpenter, previously superintendent of both the Hickman Mills and Lee’s Summit school districts, returned to Hickman Mills as interim superintendent July 8 after the sudden dismissal of superintendent Yaw Obeng.")
Teachers, staff and students in the Hickman Mills School District in south Kansas City woke up under new leadership Wednesday morning.
The district announced Tuesday night that superintendent Yaw Obeng had been fired effective immediately.
He has been temporarily replaced with a familiar face — former Hickman Mills and Lee’s Summit superintendent Dennis Carpenter — who will fill in as interim superintendent.
In a statement Tuesday night, Carpenter said he was “honored” to return to the role.
“This district holds a special place in my heart, and I look forward to reconnecting with the community, supporting our schools, and ensuring stability as the Board conducts its search for a permanent leader,” Carpenter said.
A formal search process for a new full-time superintendent for Hickman Mills will follow, according to the district.
Carpenter returns
Carpenter holds a master’s degree in education from Augusta State University and a doctorate of education from Georgia Southern University. He previously served as superintendent of the Hickman Mills school district from 2013 to 2017, then became the first Black superintendent for the Lee’s Summit School District from 2017 to 2019.
“We are grateful to Dr. Carpenter for stepping into this role with such dedication,” said Bonnaye Mims, President of the HMC-1 Board of Education. “His leadership, institutional knowledge, and passion for our schools make him the ideal person to guide us forward during this transition.”
Carpenter resigned from the Lee’s Summit district in July 2019, taking a $750,000 buyout, after a tenure marked by controversy over his efforts to implement equity and inclusion training for faculty.
The training had been proposed in order to narrow the achievement gap between Black and white students within the district, which was exposed in a district-commissioned study.
The former superintendent had threatened to leave the district weeks before the buyout as an explosive debate over racial equity policy in Lee’s Summit unfolded.
Throughout the 2018-2019 school year, parents and community members mounted a sustained and heated opposition to Carpenter’s equity and inclusion plan, which began with a proposed $7,000 commitment to a group of educational consultants advocating against racial disparity in schools.
At the time, Black students accounted for about 12% of the Lee’s Summit School District student body, but about 36% of student suspensions.
Carpenter faced severe and escalating harassment on both a professional and personal level during the controversy, seeking out a security detail from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office to protect his family. At one point, Carpenter told board members to “settle out his contract” and “find somebody this board can trust” after multiple drafts of an equity plan were met with heated opposition, culminating in a second vote to decline spending $97,000 on a St. Louis-based equity consulting firm.
From 2019 to 2025, Carpenter stepped into the consulting world, launching Aspirational Insights Consulting with his wife LaQuanda Carpenter. He also worked as an educational consultant across multiple organizations, including education technology platforms ThoughtExchange and Evolv Technology.
In 2020, Carpenter sued the Lee’s Summit Economic Development Council in his capacity as a business consultant. The suit claimed that councilmembers denied him a previously awarded contract to speak on diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace at a Unity Village seminar.
“While this is an interim role, my commitment is unwavering,” Carpenter wrote on social media Wednesday. “I’m here to ensure a smooth transition while keeping the district’s student-centered momentum strong.”
Growth at Hickman Mills
Meanwhile, the Hickman Mills School District has faced its own problems. The district is not fully accredited and has struggled to raise test scores for years. After Carpenter’s exit, Yolanda Cargile stepped into the role of Hickman Mills superintendent, closing two elementary schools during her tenure and leaving with little warning February 2020 to become superintendent of the Center School District.
Obeng, who became Hickman Mills superintendent in 2020, was previously superintendent of the Halton School District near Toronto, Canada, and the Burlington, Vermont school district. He also previously taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Vermont, according to LinkedIn.
Hickman Mills lost state accreditation in 2012. It’s one of several school districts in the Kansas City area to be considered partially accredited or in danger of losing state accreditation as of December 2024, The Star previously reported, including the Center 58 School District, the Grandview C-4 School District and the Missouri City 56 School District.
Hickman Mills met the requirements for accreditation in 2024, but the Missouri State Board of Education typically looks at several years of scores before reinstating districts. The Board said in 2024 that Hickman Mills would not be eligible for re-accreditation until 2026 regardless of its scores in and after 2024.
District officials said in 2024 that Hickman Mills has seen significant improvement in multiple academic categories while approaching the threshold for accreditation. In 2023, students performed at or above average for growth in every subject area except for math, The Star reported.
Accreditation doesn’t impact day-to-day operations at districts like Hickman Mills, but can disincentivize families from moving to south Kansas City and enrolling their students – or motivate families to leave.
“We had, two years ago, the highest mobility rate in the state,” Obeng told The Star last year. “Higher than Kansas City. Higher than St. Louis. And when you have that transience, it’s hard to have achievement.”
The Hickman Mills School District declined to speak further on why Obeng was dismissed, describing the dismissal as a private personnel matter.
