KC schools bond passes with 85% approval. Proponents explain why and what’s next | Opinion
In a conversation with The Star Editorial Board before the election, the members of the Yes for KC Kids coalition recognized the high hurdle in passing the $474 million bond for Kansas City Public Schools. On Tuesday with an overwhelming vote yes — nearly 85% of voters, 18,870 out of 22,226 total according to unofficial results from the Kansas City Board of Elections — the work improving schools can begin.
I spoke to KCPS Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Collier, school board chair Rita Cortes and Yes for KC Kids chair and KCPS board member Monica Curls the night of the vote to get their take on the incredible win — the first proposed bond measure in the district since 1967.
The bond will fund more than 40 schools, as well as allocate $50 million to nine Kansas City-area charter schools .
Yvette Walker: Congratulations. I guess the first question is, were you surprised?
Superintendent Jennifer Collier: Yes and no. There’s been a lot of work engagement with our community, a lot of education that’s taken place, and over that time, I feel like we’ve watched people shift in their thinking about the district. I felt like people took the time to learn about who we are today, what we’re accomplishing, but also what our needs are. And I felt like people are genuinely concerned about what’s happening here in Kansas City for our children. And so it’s surprising because it’s something that hasn’t been done in so long in 58 years. But the experience that we’ve had on this journey with our community and seeing how they have come along with us at the same time is not surprising, because I think what we see evidence of tonight is what we’ve seen over the course of this journey as well. Thank you.
Monica Curls: As we were knocking on doors, as part of the KC Kids campaign, we were getting very high favorable numbers, around 75%, and so I think that once people understood what was at stake, they were positive, they were supportive.
Rita Cortes: What I heard so much in the last 30 days of this campaign was about a partnership between the community and Kansas City Public Schools. And I don’t think we’ve used that kind of language in this community for a really long time. And we heard that from audiences in people’s homes. We heard that from our elected officials. We heard that just in every setting — people wanted to know, how can we make this a real partnership moving forward? And I think the vote reflects that.
YW: Does the vote also reflect trust? And has trust come back to the district, do you think?
MC: That was the tough question, like, why should we trust you with this money? And I think that the district has been able to demonstrate that they are trustworthy. We have clean audits for the last, I think eight, 10 years. We’ve done the work. So we’ve been able to ensure student achievement, despite the other challenges.
School improvement timeline
YW: There was a lot of transparency on the KCPS bond website, saying exactly what the money will be used for. Do you think that was also helpful for people to be able to see where the money was going?
MC: I think that some of the races that I’ve had challenges with, as far as using tax dollars, are the ones that didn’t have any specificity. And the fact that we could sit there and say, “OK, what school are you going to check out? Here are the details. These are the priorities. We weren’t saying “OK, give us $474 million and trust we will do the right thing.” We actually said, “This is what we’re going to do.”
YW: So now you get going. What’s the timeline on a lot of the capital improvements?
JC: We’re going to get started as quickly as we can on that, and our operations team has laid out for us which buildings will go first and how we will manage that process. So as soon as funds are available to us to start, we’re going to begin.
MC: And we’re already beginning. We had a certificate of participation bond that the school board approved a couple of meetings ago, and a big portion of that is for King Elementary and the King Empowerment Center. And so we’ll be breaking ground on that in the next couple weeks. That was outside of the bond funding, but we’re starting this process.
What about parental input?
YW: I do think parents are going to want to know, “Where does my school fall in the line of the repairs?” So, if they have those questions, where can they go to?
JC: Everybody’s going to wake up tomorrow morning and want all the answers all at one time. We’ll be communicating with our community in the near term about what that timeline looks like, because we won’t have all the answers until we’ve started to look at implementation components. But I think that’s in the near term — but it’s not tomorrow.
YW: Is it too late for comments from parents? Is it too late for suggestions?
JC: It’s not too late. In fact, we plan to continue to engage with our communities and schools. We have plans that will happen around keeping schools safe, warm and dry. But then there are other specific projects in schools, and we want to make sure that we’re listening to the staff, students and families of those schools to really narrow down what some of those specific projects will be. So there’s still opportunity for engagement and we intend to do that.
YW: Tell me: What does a building have to do with learning?
JC: So, there is lots of data. There are a series of studies done nationally that show that buildings that are appropriately lit, with clean, safe spaces, promote student learning. It is really about students performing 16% better overall when they are in improved spaces. We’re not talking about brand-new spaces everywhere. We are talking about the basic improvements that you’d want to be able to read better and hear better, and do all the things that allow our students to thrive. So that’s why the bond plan looked at investments in every single building so that we maximize the return for our kids.
Public safety tax also passed
YW: As you probably already know, the public safety tax extension passed, and so there will be a city jail. Does the data reflect a correlation between improved educational opportunities and less jail time?
JC: Anytime we decide to invest in children and to put them first, it almost ensures better and greater outcomes.
MC: People talk about the prison pipeline and how if students aren’t on reading level by third grade, then there’s some correlation as far as how they instead enter the criminal justice system more easily than they enter college. Buildings contribute to that ability to achieve, and hopefully we’re able to turn things around. We needed the public safety tax and we needed the investment in KCPS. But I think that investment in KCPS means we won’t have to build another jail later on because we do have things that ensure student achievement within the schools.
This story was originally published April 9, 2025 at 5:08 AM.
