Lee’s Summit students are the losers with Superintendent Dennis Carpenter resignation
On its website, the Lee’s Summit school district touts its mission: “We prepare each student for success in life.”
If so, its board of education has failed.
Dennis Carpenter, the first African American superintendent in district history, resigned this week after two years on the job. The staunch supporter of equity in education never had a fair chance to address the achievement gap in the predominantly white and affluent suburb. From the start of his tenure, the former Hickman Mills superintendent was met with resistance from influential groups in the community.
And what was Carpenter’s offense? He dared to introduce an equity plan that could have helped close the gap between black and other minority students and their white peers.
Carpenter and his staff wanted to challenge the implicit bias of teachers, staff and administrators that shapes their interactions with children of color.
Instead he was ushered out the door just two years after he was hired specifically — wait for it — to implement the district’s existing racial equity plan, part of its five-year “Destination 2021” road map adopted in 2016 before Carpenter arrived. It called for increasing gender and ethnic diversity among the staff by 10% each year, among other priorities.
One of the reasons Carpenter was selected to replace former Superintendent David McGehee was his track record in racial equity work. (His Twitter handle isn’t “EquitySupt1” for nothing.)
Carpenter faced intense scrutiny from a vocal and powerful minority. His plans for equity work were met with skepticism, unreasonable fear and vitriol from board members and others. He was on receiving ends of threats, prompting the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office to deploy a security detail to protect his family.
The outgoing superintendent leaves with a $750,000 settlement — substantially more than McGehee’s $450,000 severance. That means the district is on the hook for $1.2 million in buyouts since 2016.
“Sad state of affairs,” Lee’s Summit resident and former Kansas City Chief Danan Hughes posted on Twitter. “Shame on Lee’s Summit, they should be ASHAMED!! Should’ve been more embracing! Been here 26yrs, solid in community + 5 kids through the School System!! Closed mindedness has equated to an excessive amount of tax $ being flushed away!!! So Sad!”
It is sad — and in the end, the people who will suffer most are the people the school board says should benefit the most: the students.
Being a kid is tough enough. School is the last place we need an us-versus-them mentality, and that is exactly what this fight has fostered. The grown-ups have taken sides.
The district is one of the highest performing in the state. Last year, Lee’s Summit schools recorded a score of 99.3% in their annual review, the highest score in six years. But not all students were able to share in that success.
Children of color and other minority groups scored lower than their majority white counterparts in every category of the assessment test. In 2016, black students accounted for 12% of the district’s enrollment, but represented nearly 36% of the district’s suspensions. A lack of diversity on the teaching staff and disproportionate discipline of minority students all contribute to Lee’s Summit’s achievement gap.
After much wrangling and infighting, the Lee’s Summit School Board agreed by a 6-to-1 vote last month to hire St. Louis-based Educational Equity Consultants to provide equity training for teachers and district staff. Board member Judy Hedrick was the lone holdout.
Coincidentally, Hedrick’s bid for school board was supported by Foundations of our Future, a political action committee of prominent businesspeople in Lee’s Summit. That group lacks a single person of color.
Hedrick doesn’t believe a program discussing race and the role of white privilege, implicit bias and systemic racism is “inclusive enough in its content or its approach.”
“I don’t think it includes all of our students,” she said.
The next step is for the district to proceed with its equity plan without Carpenter.
“I see no reason why the board would not move forward on the plan that was presented,” said Gayden Carruth, executive director of the Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City Foundation, where Carpenter is board chair.
We’ve said before that racial equity training would not be a cure-all for Lee’s Summit schools. But to jettison an equity advocate such as Carpenter because he made the powerful uncomfortable is a terrible message to send to children of all races and backgrounds.
The fact of the matter is that the greatest achievement gap includes African American and other students of color on the wrong side of the equation. That, paired with documented examples of cultural microaggressions, bias and discrimination, prove equity work needs to done in the district.
Lee’s Summit, like much of the country, has a serious problem with race issues. If it isn’t addressed, the entire community will suffer, and students won’t be prepared to succeed in a real world that’s becoming more diverse every day.
And there are no winners in those situations. Especially children.
This story was originally published July 24, 2019 at 2:32 PM.