The Kansas City Star’s endorsement for the Lee’s Summit school district board of education | Opinion

Of the four candidates vying for two open seats on the Lee’s Summit School District Board of Education, one — current board president Jennifer Foley — is an incumbent with the requisite experience sought for the position.

But does this relative background make Foley the right fit to continue setting the agenda for all school children in the district?

After a recent flip-flop regarding a contract extension for Superintendent David Buck, we have concerns about Foley’s leadership style in one of the metropolitan area’s highest achieving school districts.

On April 8, Lee’s Summit voters will decide who is best qualified to help the district fulfill its stated mission of preparing each student for success in life and keep its current momentum going. Also on the ballot are competitive rifleman Leon Weatherby, project manager Michelle Dawson and Nicky Nickens, an educational psychology professor at the University of Central Missouri.

Foley was elected to her first three-year term on the school board in April 2022. Current board member Heather Eslick, elected the same year, chose not to seek another term, creating two open seats.

During the endorsement interview process, we spoke with Weatherby, a senior tooling designer with Honeywell Federal Manufacturing Technology, Dawson and Nickens. We found each of them knowledgeable about district affairs and what is needed to run an efficient school district.

All of the candidates we spoke to were in support of a $225 million no-tax-increase bond issue that would address capital improvements in the district. Foley declined to meet with this board.

In this four-person race, we recommend Dawson and Nickens.

Michelle Dawson

Dawson, the parent of two students in the Lee’s Summit School District, is employed part-time as a project coordinator for St. Margaret of Scotland Church in Lee’s Summit. She told us she has a background in operations project management and engineering project management. “So, that’s where I’m coming from,” she said. “I’m running for school board because my kids attend school in the district. I’ve been watching and engaging in school board activities for the last several years.”

As a stakeholder with children in the district, Dawson has a unique perspective on what’s best for students. Having kids who attend Lee’s Summit doesn’t by itself make Dawson more qualified than any other candidate, but it doesn’t hurt to have a pulse on what’s occurring inside district buildings.

What we did find appealing about Dawson’s candidacy is her ability to recognize that school boards should focus on educating school children from all walks of life, and eschew the partisan divide that has taken root out that way.

“School boards are a civic organization that support the entire community and they’re funded by local tax dollars, state funding, federal funding for specific programs,” Dawson said. “They really need to be nonpartisan. So ideologies and politics really shouldn’t be involved in doing what needs to be done in the best interests of each student in the district. There shouldn’t be ideologies that come into it that create two or more different agendas for the school board.”

Nicky Nickens

Nickens, a UCM professor, has 26 years of experience in the educational field. She no longer has school children in the district but told us she had kids in Lee’s Summit schools in the past for at least 16 consecutive years. During our interview, we found Nickens to be an excellent choice for the school board.

Much like Dawson, Nickens is opposed to partisan issues dividing the board.

“I think Michelle and I are very like-minded on most things,” Nickens said. “I am against dragging politics and culture wars into education. I definitely have my political views. I believe that when we’re making decisions on the board, it should be based on what we have — we have tons of data in the district. We have information and evidence that we should be basing our decisions on that has nothing to do with rhetoric.”

Because of these perspectives and qualifications, we recommend Dawson and Nickens for the Lee’s Summit school board.

This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 9:41 AM.