KC superintendent says school closings are painful

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press Writer Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press Writer – 4 mins ago

The Kansas City school board voted 5-4 Wednesday night to close 29 of the district‘s 61 schools in an effort to stave off bankruptcy. The schools will close at the end of the school year.

Despite the close vote, Covington says he‘s confident the board and district administration could work together to complete the massive restructuring, which includes laying off 700 employees, including about 285 teachers.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Facing potential bankruptcy, the board that governs the once flush-with-cash Kansas City school district is taking the unusual and contentious step of shuttering almost half its schools.

Although other districts nationwide are considering closures as the recession ravages their budgets, Kansas City‘s plan is striking. In rapidly shrinking Detroit, 29 schools closed before classes began this fall, but that still left the district with 172 schools. Most other districts are closing just one or two schools.

Kansas City Councilwoman Sharon Sanders Brooks said the closure plan had prompted some housing developers to consider backing out of projects.

"And now the public education system is aiding and abetting in the economic demise of our school district," she said. "It is shameful and sinful."

District officials face dozens of issues as they begin the massive job of downsizing the district — reworking school bus routes, figuring out what to do with vacant buildings and slashing its payroll.

Once the district had enough desegregation money to build such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. But the effort to use upscale facilities and programs to lure in students from the suburbs never worked quite as planned.

Many students have left for publicly funded charter schools, private and parochial schools and the suburbs. The school district also isn‘t the only one serving students in Kansas City; several smaller ones operate in the city‘s boundaries.

Covington has blamed previous administrations for failing to close schools as the enrollment — and the money that comes with it — shrank. Past school closure plans were either scaled back or scrapped entirely.

Administrators warned that without the cuts, the district would have been in the red by 2011.

"None of us liked voting for this," board member and former desegregation attorney Arthur Benson said, "but it was necessary."



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