A college drop-out abandons a lucrative tech career for a life of inner-city poverty – and hopes to save an urban school district from oblivion

It's 7 a.m. on a frigid Tuesday, and the still-dark parking lot at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church is empty. Except for West.

At 7:30, he's chatting inside with Jim Eller, the All Souls minister and public education advocate. Slouched casually a the chair, West explains his vision for a district unified with community leaders, where every high school prepares students for college, and racial politics take a backseat to educational achievement. Eller is won over.

At 8:15, West shoots across town to pick up Turner, who is serving as his campaign manager. They head to a meeting at the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council. West sits on the advisory board that decides how to spend the tax-increment-finance money that Ivanhoe shares with two adjoining neighborhoods. He loves the role but says he's open to someone else stepping in. West argues for dispersing leadership as widely as possible, but the group urges him to stay in charge of the $500,000 pot.

Next stop is Fairview, where he goes every Tuesday. After police officers get the students seated facing the same direction in a drab, concrete cafeteria, West sits with them during lunch. He doesn't preach at them. He just asks questions: Have the choices you made gotten you what you want? If they haven't, he suggests, then maybe it's time to try something new.

It's a discussion, not a counseling session. It seems to resonate because it's pragmatic, echoing the way West lives his life.

"Not screwing people over works," he says. "Being a man of your word works. Taking care of people for no apparent reason works."

West also visits twice a month with a group of fifth-graders at Weeks Elementary School, a windowless building with bunkerlike rooms and no playground. West cringes at the expanse of patchy grass and mud. West helped get money for playgrounds at several other schools (then showed up and helped put them in the ground) back in 2005, when he served on the city's Public Improvement Advisory Committee, a citizen body that hands out money for neighborhood projects.

Sitting at a long table, mulling over the gray meat patties and the overripe bananas, the students at Weeks straighten up when West looks them in the eyes and shakes their hands like adults. Up in the classroom, they're eager to know if he'll be able to go on a skiing field trip to Weston with them. He tells them the most exciting thing in his life is that he's running for school board.

They walk through the organization of the education system — from teacher to principal to superintendent. With a mix of pride and embarrassment, one student says they've all heard that the superintendent called some women "the B word."

"Females don't like that," another says.

West indulges their laughter but takes them in a different direction.

"What are the biggest issues facing fifth-graders?" he asks, as if he's addressing a group of parents. At first, they don't understand the question. When they do, their litany of complaints — having to wear uniforms, being fed "nasty" food, not having recess on Tuesdays — keeps West at the front of the class, sitting on a kiddy chair that puts his knees nearly in line with his shoulders, for more than an hour.

The clock is ticking on filing his signatures to get on the ballot. But after lunch, he gets a call from a social-justice group called Communities Creating Opportunity. Its Internet connection is down. West does part-time tech support to make ends meet, and CCO is one of his clients. He breezes in, assuring the CCO employees and volunteers, "I'm here to hook you up."

The next destination is downtown. In a no-parking zone outside Kinko's, the two idle in Turner's Acura with a bank on speakerphone. She's transferring money to make a mortgage payment for Simply Equine Assisted Therapy, a program that uses horses to teach life skills to kids. West has been on the board for several years; he helped line up financing to buy a piece of land in Lee's Summit, where the group now stables its horses. Turner hangs up when the transaction is complete. They both sigh; one fire put out for the day.

At the Missouri State Office Building, Turner gets the signature sheets notarized in the Secretary of State's office. As Turner waits at the Board of Education to get the count from a district official, West darts across the street to a budget hearing in the Jackson County Courthouse. He's the chairman of the board for the University of Missouri Extension, and Jackson County legislators are about to reduce his group's appropriation. West is going to try to convince legislators not to cut those funds.

As he waits in the county chambers, Turner sends him a text message: "We got 869 signs!" West's name will appear on the school board ballot.