The Kansas City Star endorses in the Hickman Mills school board race | Opinion

Three incumbents are among five candidates running for three open seats on the Hickman Mills School Board. On April 7, voters will choose from Byron Townsend, April Cushing, Irene Kendrick, Evelyn Hildebrand and Matthew E. Williams.

While Townsend, Cushing and Kendrick are all seeking reelection, Hildebrand is a former board member and Williams is running for school board for the first time.

It would not be a stretch to say that the Hickman Mills School District is at a crossroads and needs steady leadership at the school board and administrative levels. Because of financial missteps, state auditors are reviewing the south Kansas City school district’s operations with a fine-tooth comb.

And a $14 million budget deficit led to job cuts and the elimination of several academic improvement programs vital to student success.

Also, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education continues to keep a watchful eye on student academic achievement in Hickman Mills. Last year, the district’s annual performance report score was 80.5, the highest in quite some time.

Despite the impressive score — a three-year average of 70 or above is the benchmark DESE uses to determine accreditation status for Missouri school districts — Hickman Mills remains only provisionally accredited.

At this critical juncture, the school board needs consistency to help clean up the financial crisis it’s in and to regain full accreditation. In this race, we recommend voters keep in place the incumbents, Townsend, Cushing and Kendrick, to right the ship.

Three years from now, if the district hasn’t made significant progress on any of these fronts, Hickman Mills stakeholders should call these leaders to task. For now, we feel the returning board members are best suited for the positions.

And that is not a slight against the other candidates.

New voices could rise

Williams is an attorney at Stacee Cohn Law that would offer a new perspective and voice to the board, a quality we look for with candidates in any race. Even as a political newcomer, Williams’ education, background as a real estate attorney and desire to help the community by running for public office made him a viable candidate for school board.

Hildebrand is no stranger to Hickman Mills voters. In 2015, she was elected but was removed because of a delinquent tax bill. After the issue was resolved, she was appointed to the school board the next year.

The candidates we recommended here are far from perfect but bring to the table considerable experience as board members.

Why we’re returning the incumbents

Kendrick and Townsend aren’t perfect: they initially voted to approve a budget that was later amended after miscalculations led to the multimillion dollar shortfall we mentioned earlier.

And Cushing just rejoined the board last year after first serving from 2010 to 2014. She was sworn in last November after former member Brandon Wright resigned, so she hasn’t been in the current seat all that long.

However, Cushing and Townsend were among five board members who approved the budget cuts made earlier this year.

Kendrick doesn’t rubber stamp items and says she generally puts student’s best interests first. She voted against the recommendations made by Superintendent Dennis Carpenter. Kendrick also voted against a two-year contract extension that made Carpenter the highest paid superintendent in the metropolitan area, according to The Star.

First elected in 2016, Townsend resigned the following year but was re-elected in 2020, and then again in 2023. Townsend, the current school board vice president, has a long history of public service that include accusations of financial mismanagement.

As board president in 2022, he was dogged by allegations that he improperly spent more than $16,000 on an out-of-town retreat without board approval which did give us cause for concern during this process. But Townsend denied wrongdoing, claiming at the time that the spending fell within his discretionary authority as board president, The Star reported this week.

The following year, voters elected him for a third term on the school board. Our hope — and nothing has suggested otherwise — is that Townsend continues to earn the trust of voters that kept him on the board.

While we found some of the aforementioned actions questionable, none disqualified either of these candidates from office.

Because a well-functioning, fully accredited Hickman Mills School District is in the best interest of all Kansas Citians, we recommend Townsend, Cushing and Kendrick for school board.

This story was originally published April 4, 2026 at 5:08 AM.