Buses line up for blocks on both sides of Southwest at the end of the day.
When John Covington messed with the Southwest Early College Campus, he messed with the wrong neighborhood association.
The Armour Fields Homes Association covers the area of Wornall Road to Ward Parkway and Gregory Boulevard to 65th Street. If City Hall were swallowed by an especially hungry sinkhole, Armour Fields residents would miss few of the city's services. They pay for private security and contract for their own snow removal. The decorative roundabouts that dot the intersections of some streets were once owned by the city and maintained by the parks department, but for years, the islands have belonged to the association so that their foliage and fountains could be tended privately.
Not surprisingly, Armour Fields residents are the kinds of people who attend public meetings.
So when Covington, the superintendent of the Kansas City, Missouri, School District, held a series of meetings starting in February 2010 to discuss his ambitious plan to close half of the district's 61 schools, Armour Fields was well-represented in the audience. The proposed closures were integral to the cost-cutting course that Covington had set for the district the previous fall. By shutting down the district's costliest buildings, consolidating their student populations at the schools that remained, and axing 1,000 jobs, Covington aimed to close a $50 million budget gap.
The residents in the Brookside-area neighborhoods that ring Southwest knew that "right-sizing" the district, as Covington called it, was necessary. But they were wary about what it might mean for them.
Southwest was special. The magnet school's program started with one class of sixth-graders in 2008; the plan was to gradually build to full secondary-school capacity. Southwest drew its student body from every corner of the city, but many kids came from the blighted, crime-ridden neighborhoods east of Troost and north of 30th Street.
The key to Southwest's success was that these kids weren't required to go there. They chose to attend. Students and parents signed contracts promising to meet the school's academic standards, work hard, participate in class and stay after school for tutoring, if necessary. The contract was nonbinding and largely symbolic. Kicking underperforming kids out of school wasn't part of Southwest's philosophy.
The school's neighbors, understanding this philosophy, opted in, too.
Brookside resident Marsha Ramsey, who doesn't have children, joined a group of volunteers called "We Are Southwest" because she so believed in the mission of the early college program. She went to three of the district's right-sizing meetings, where she heard administrators say Southwest would have to absorb 800 to 900 of the students displaced by Covington's plan. The new students would be held to the same standards as those already enrolled, the district promised, and the character of the school would be kept intact.
"In all those meetings, we were lied to," Ramsey says. "We asked repeatedly, 'Would Southwest remain an early college campus?' Each time we were told, 'Yes.' And we supported it because we believed it would remain what it was."
To lay out its right-sizing goals, the district published a manual — the "Transition Booklet." Anyone consulting the booklet for guidance about how the leaner district would be run instead found 247 pages of rhetoric about encouraging partnerships, engaging parents and neighborhood volunteers, rewarding effective teachers and keeping the whole process transparent. For students, parents, neighbors and volunteers, right-sizing Southwest turned out to be anything but.
A year ago, students stepped off the buses, lined up outside Southwest High School and headed straight inside. Now, some of the kids get off the bus and walk in the opposite direction.
The 83-year-old building, at Wornall Road and 65th Street, is a hulking mass of brick and mortar, with front doors framed by tusklike columns. Among its graduates are some of Kansas City's darlings: H&R Block founders Henry and Richard Bloch, former UMB Bank president R. Crosby Kemper, movie director Robert Altman.
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I agree.The K.C.Star and all there powers to be buddies built this untested supt.as the greatest thing since sliced bread,and he was going to shape up the school board and schools like never before.They didn't figure on the supt.being "Funk" like in his communications,and dealing with people who could help make him successful.I feel he was only brought here to reduce the cost of operating the district,damn with truly educating the kids.Whenever I here or read his statements he speaks so,"I'm above you,and if your schools were any good why did you need me",His,"damn the icebergs full steam ahead"approach is just dead wrong.If this supt. is to be of any help to this community,he needs to hear and listen to other voices within the community who could help him.Covington prides himself on being an outsider,well this is one problem that needs inside assistance for righting.This supt. cannot have the prison guard mentality that he so prominently displays whenever asked hard questions about doing right by the people that make a school function successfully.
I also feel that our entire community needs to take a look at the people the K.C.Star endorse for positions of leadership.Just because they say it doesn't make it so.Just look at our one term mayor.Only when it became completely obvious that his train was off the track did the K.C.Star lift the veil and see "Funk" for what he was,even though he was properly credentialed for the job.
It's a shame that a local alternative paper has to break the news about Southwest to the citizens of KC while its flagship newspaper, the KC Star, ignores it. Guess the Star cant swallow the fact they built up Covington so highly when he started. Good job Pitch!
I went to southwest in the early 90's. Same bull then. I wouldn't want that school in my neighborhood! Maggot Schools!
I have a problem with a two tiered school system. Yes my children attended both parochial and public schools in their lives. I placed them in private schools because of the problems in the district. Whenever a program works, the district dismantles it. Teachers are not allowed to teach, nor were we allowed to remove a truly unruly student (we could get written up), nor could we create lesson plans according to the students' needs. We were written up if the lessons didn't proceed in a timely manner. I believe in public schools, but the teachers are not the problem, Nor is Ross Perot and his industrial buddies the answer for city schools. Teach For America is filled with kids who do not know how to teach- 5 weeks of training in the summer. The veteran teacher is mandated to take care of them and make sure they succeed. We would help anyway, but to constantly "fix" their problems because the administration says they have to succeed is patronizing at best when we are told that we are the problem, and TFA is fixing it.
Unfortunately anytime a program has, succeeded it was destroyed. Each time a school has been successful, it was abolished. I have seen this recur for 30 years. Who is gaining, and for what purpose?
Five weeks of summer training for the TFAs, then they will be placed in classrooms in some of the most dysfunctional schools in KCMSD, such as Southwest, King/Weeks, Banneker, Wheatley, etc. Would you take your car to a mechanic who only had 5 weeks of training? Would you go to a doctor who only had 5 weeks of training? NO SANE PERSON WOULD!!!
But hundreds of children and their parents will not be given a choice. And when things fall apart and sh--t hits the fan, then the veteran teachers will be called on to clean up the messes. This is life in KCMSD, and it is only going to get worse. Some parents will remove their children from the district and others will move their children from school to school all year long. Some may even get the chance to talk to the superintendent, but they will soon find out that he does not have a solution for the problem he helped create.
What about the children who have special needs-autism, ADHD, emotionally disturbed, etc. Many parents of those children would love the opportunity to place their children in charter or private schools, but that is unlikely to occur. Those schools are not required to educate "all children" so most of them will not be admitted or will be kicked out as soon as they exhibit "problem behaviors". Then it's back to the KCMSD.
The majority of teachers in the KCMSD work hard for their students. They want their students to succeed, and spend countless hours and hundreds or thousands of their own dollars to provide the necessary materials needed for a classroom. Just like in every profession, there are some teachers who need to be replaced, but the fact that they have not been is because of lax bookkeeping at the school district offices and the failure to follow through by principals. Teachers cannot fire or even recommend firing of other teachers or principals. If that ever happens, I have a list that I will be happy to share.
John Covington...Alvin Brooks...Alonzo Washington...Jim Corwin...Mark Funkhouser...Fucc them all...they claim that they so worried bout the "community"...but they just saying whatever's necessary to get they little paycheck...lets be real here..They shut all them schools down last year. Now they doing the SAME exact thing again this year. Everybody's getting murdered on the daily. This shit will NEVER stop.
It is clear that Missouri and Kansas City are wraught with small scale governance issues from corruption to incompetence. How it is possible that the budgets are this short? Wake up people, there is plenty of money in the system to educate your children, get into the 21st century and forget about buildings, and sports, and transportation. Forget about teachers and benefits, text books and class size, there is only one issue; are the schools preparing the kids for college and or the work force and the answer is no.
Now go fix it, first dissolve all the school boards, fire the district employee's and the superintendents.Cancel the contracts with the vendors and start over. No more books, no more teachers in front of the blackboards, this is not 1835 or 1935. There is no reason to behave like it is. Why is it that the United States education public system needs 12 grades plus kindergarten, to turn out a student who is just as unprepared for a job as when he or she went to kindergarten? Surely if creating a batch of idiots is the idea we can do that faster and cheaper, oh wait that's not the plan!!!!!!!!!!! Then why are you doing it?
Now I started kindergarten in 1971, so I needed to learn to write with a pen and a pencil because there was no such thing as a personal computer. Now, I have not used a pen or pencil to write a note in print or cursive for at least 25 years. During that time I served and retired from the U.S. Army, graduated college with a BA and then MA in History,all without writing with a pencil or pen once! Yet the kids today are still taught the same cursive we were, as was Laura Ingels in the Little House show we watched as kids, why? Get a keyboard and teach a first grader to type its the future err present. If you need a clearer analogy, would you pay for a teacher to teach horse shoeing or wheelwrighting? Well why not? Its obsolete you say of course it is but its tradition! Just like fancy writing is, Are you going to repsond to this posting by getting out your fancy pen and precisely wording your version of a declaration of my idiocy for all to see on parchment, no, you are going to type it. Game, set and match!
The real issue is why do we waste years of peak learning time teaching our kids crap they will never use, writing in cursive, really? Of course the advantage is they can write a nice note in cursive to their Chinese overlord bosses thanking him for not firing your son or daughter for speaking english on the job in 2025! What !!!! Yes I said Chinese overlords but I am sure they will prefer the term master as is customary in China. But using the term master in this time and place would be inflamatory and not politically correct! Bullshit! Face the facts, we are not the nation that put a man on the moon, saved Europe or crossed the west in covered wagons anymore we are the nation of mediocracy. But we don't have to be, we can be exceptional if we try to be.
At the rate we are going we as a nation will all be working for the Chinese as if we aren't already( our national debt ownership says we already work for Saudi Arabia and China sorry to burst your bubbles).
Look, unless man uninvents the printing press, computer, and all other forms of non-cursive based written information exchange the caligraphy crap is worthless. School can be 10 years and not thriteen, the system needs to be accelerated not decelerated, the kids, parents and teachers of today have access to more information then the James Bond did when I was a kid, but instead of letting our young horses run as fast as they can we tie them to the plows and force them to walk pulling the heavy burden of traditional education. All this does is insure that they will become bored, sidetracked, and fail and then we blame the kids....... Hillarious.
Each fall the kids come back from working on the farms helping mom and dad get the crops into market and spend 3 months relearning last years information... Oh, wait kids don't spend the summer on the farm helping mom and dad anymore that ended a hundred years ago. Then why do we still structure the school year the same way as in 1880 when the kids were needed as part of the labor pool during the summer months? China doesn't they stay in school, and when your kids are playing hoops this summer or off at Worlds of Fun 350,000,000 that's 350 million Chinese kids are in school learing about particle physics and learning to speak English so they can own the future, the future that you have denied your children and America by failing to adapt to a changing world.
Bill Gardner
I am a security officer at Southwest High School and first off those 75 cameras is a lie and flawed system. They freeze and are put in the most unadvantageous locations, only one officer was given the" Training "on how to use them and if that officer is not there we are shit out of luck because us other officers aren't allowed to touch it and Principal Ben Boothe and Vice Principal Derek Jordan have they're own moniters- which they are not suppose to have- to watch students for their personal pleasures. The reason why Scraggs and Bolden quit was because of micro-management from 1211 McGee, whenever those two tried to do the right thing for the school, Covington would send his lackies to check them. Reversing expulsions of the students who set those fire. Giving the fighters and skippers a slap on the wrist because downtown didn't want the publicity. Also I can count my and my co-workers hands and toes how many drugs we've caught on students and they'll get a free pass. Or how basketball players who are 6"3 is able to kick a female student who is 5"2 down a flight of stairs and come back the next day because he is both a pet and feared by the administration because he is their star basketball player.
Security wise, Covington has been lying since day one. On a good day we only have eight to ten officers present and when times get really tough the Director of Security Marcus Harris and Assistant Site-Based Security Manager Valarie Smith would pull officers out the buildings to schools who don't need the extra assistance. Their methods are almost as if they wish to keep the school in disaray solely to keep their jobs because as of 10/2010 all security management was given the pink slip because of questionable practices including promoting a officer who took naked pictures of himself and sent it to female co-workers using a district phone on district property, wrongful termination, kidnapping and assaulting students on district property and negligent retention etc. All the while, the officers who are actually trying to help get the school back into the hands of the teachers and staff are treated as the cause of probelm and our powers to help are slowly diminishing because of rules. Also we are giving distraction that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Like standing at bathrooms-which has locks and doors on them-and students are required to locate the security officer on their floor to unlock the doors for them and lock it after them, with no patroling until those students are done, all in a effort to stop fires from happening. Security and the V.P's are the only ones with keys but the administration-at the behest of the superintendent-decided to give those keys to staff in which the doors nine times out of ten are left unsecured by those staff members, which lead to the February 11th fire.
Once again Covington said to the media that he was going to beef of security-which was a lie- he was going to layout all these plans for teachers and students-which failed-and turn SWECC into a school again which is another lie. Also said he was going put monitors in the building to help out security whom were really sent to watch us because some of the parents of the troubled kids who we caught either setting fires, sell or doing drugs and fighting; have said we abusing our authority or not doing our job, and anyone of those monitors or the teaching staff can tell you different. We've had the school under control but our managers take our people and the students realize it and stuff starts happening again. We've sent both email, talked to Covington in private about everything that we need to get the job done and everything that will happen and has happened if they didn't listen to us. Because next to teachers we have the most time with these students, they'll run to us before they'll run to a administrator and teachers are the same. But Covington and his crew waits until things go wrong to do what we asked then spins it to make it look like his idea then his plans has been fail.
The teachers who recently was given their pink slips decided they didn't want to try anymore and under all this nonsense who would blame them. Some of which have already walked out this past week. These are hard times for alot of people and given such little time to find other employment did they really expect these teachers to keep their tact? unrealistic when you just took someones livelihood after they spent the school year in a hellzone trying to turn it back into a learning environment.
But security and teachers alike are blamed for Covington's and our managers including Ret. Brigadier General Michael Rounds' failure to properly plan and execute a effect strategy for SWECC. While also not owning up to their mistakes as adults and being proactive about what's going on. Instead; becoming lying, backstabbing, micro managing extremist with ulterior motives.
Will these changes they're happen in this school year? No, will they happen next? No, the only way they'll happen is if either they change, they quit or get fired, if the school board stops being so oblivious about what really going on and stop arguing over which resort are they going to have their meetings-I've witnessed this-or if the teachers, volunteers and parents fight them all until they break. ment here.
I am a security officer at Southwest High School and first off those 75 cameras is a lie and flawed system. They freeze, only one officer was given the" Training "on how to use them and if that officer is not there we are shit out of luck because us other officers aren't allowed to touch it and Principal Ben Boothe and Vice Principal Derek Jordan have they're own moniters- which they are not suppose to have- to watch students for their personal pleasures. The reason why Scraggs and Bolden quit was because of micro-management from 1211 McGee, whenever those two tried to do the right thing for the school, Covington would send his lackies to check them. Reversing expulsions of the students who set those fire. Giving the fighters and skippers a slap on the wrist because downtown didn't want the publicity. Also I can count my and my co-workers hands and toes how many drugs we've caught on students and they'll get a free pass. Or how basketball players who are 6"3 is able to kick a female student who is 5"2 down a flight of stairs and come back the next day because he is both a pet and feared by the administration because he is their star basketball player.
Security wise, Covington has been lying since day one. On a good day we only have eight to ten officers present and when times get really tough the Director of Security Marcus Harris and Assistant Site-Based Security Manager Valarie Smith would pull officers out the buildings to schools who don't need the extra assistance. Their methods are almost as if they wish to keep the school in disaray solely to keep they're jobs because as of 10/2010 all security management was given the pink slip because of questionable practices including promoting a officer who took naked pictures of himself and sent it to female co-workers using a district phone on district property, wrongful termination, kidnapping and assaulting students on district property and negligent retention etc. All the while, the officers who are actually trying to help get the school back into the hands of the teachers and staff are treated as the cause of probelm and our powers to help are slowly diminishing because we are giving distraction that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Like standing at bathrooms-which has locks and doors on them-and students are required to locate the security officer on their floor to unlock the doors for them and lock it after them, with no movement until those students are done all in a effort to stop fires from happening. Security and the V.P's are the only ones with keys but the administration-at the behest of the superintendent-decided to give those keys to staff in which the doors nine times out of ten are left unsecured by those staff members, which lead to the February 11th fire.
Once again Covington said to the media that he was going to beef of security-which was a lie- he was going to layout all these plans for teachers and students-which failed-and turn SWECC into a school again which is another lie. Also said he was going put monitors in the building to help out security which was really put into place to watch us because some of the parents of the troubled kids who we caught either setting fires, sell or doing drugs and fighting; have said we weren't doing are abusing our authority or not doing our job, and anyone of those monitors or the teaching staff can tell you different we have the school but they our managers take our people and the student realize it and stuff starts happening again. We've sent both email, talked to Covington in private about everything that we need to get the job done and everything that will happen and has happened if they didn't listen to us. Because next to teachers we have the most time with these students, they'll run to us before they'll run to a administrator and teachers are the same. But Covington and his crew waits until it happens to do what we asked then spins it to make it look like his idea and his plan has been failing.
The teachers who recently was given their pink slips decided they didn't want to try anymore and under all this nonsense who would blame them. Some of which have already walked out this past week. These are hard times for alot of people and given such little time to find other employment did they really expect these teachers to keep their tact? unrealistic when you just took someones livelihood after they spent the school year in a hellzone trying to turn it back into a learning environment.
But security and teachers alike are blamed for Covington's and our managers including Ret. Brigadier General Michael Rounds' failure to properly plan and excute a effect strategy for SWECC. While also owning up to their mistakes as adults and being proactive about what's going on. Instead of being lying, backstabbing, micro managing extremist with ulterior motives.
Will these things happen in this school year? No, will they happen next? No, the only way they'll happen is if either they change, then quit or get fired, if the school board stops being so oblivious about what really going on and stop arguing over which resort are they going to have their meetings-I've witnessed this-or if the teachers, volunteers and parents fight them all until they break.
I used to do contracted work for the school district at all schools in the district and I saw Southwest when it was in schambles and after they made it the early college program and I think what this administration has done is a total sign of not doing their homework b4 putting water into HOT GREASE. The students in the program deserved to have the structured learning environment they chose to sacrifice for to be successful in their lives and Dr. John Covington deserves to be let go for the destruction of these students, teachers, that neighborhood that banded together to make something positive out of a district that has had no brightspots in a long while. Maybe someone should be checking his motives for doing some of the things he is doing (ala instituting designed programs). There maybe some wheel greasing going on for all these abrupt changes if you know what i mean. Let those who want to succeed have the oppourtunity to do so and those who try to stop them shouldn't be allowed to in the confines of a school. Right Sizing My Ass
Darron, it is young people like you that will make a difference. Don't let Dr. Covington steal your drive and motivation and don't believe for a minute that he has your best interest in mind. But his actions do teach a valuable lesson, and that lesson is once you compromise your integrity you can never get it back. Keep speaking up, keep learning, you can accomplish great things. As MLK said, "Our lives end the day we become silent about things that matter." If you want to help or just need someone to talk to get a hold of me.
Teachers for America = government places employees, who follow government agendas to turn out kids that have been indoctrinated, not educated. Sort of a la Chairman Mao, mindless young hoodlums that can later be used to terrorize the population at large. I am an educator and if I had kids in school today, I wouldn't - they'd be in private schools or home schooled. Of course over the past two decades the school boards around the nation have made sure that every year's crop of students walked away knowing a little less, now we finally have a situation where there are almost no parents that are qualified to home-school, we barely have enough teachers, ergo Teachers for America. Think people this is just another symptom of what is being pulled over our eyes. It started Judge Russell Clark, got worse with Vaterland Security, oops, I meant Homeland Security of course, and has finally come to TFA. Don't worry it'll get worse!
Someone from the district office came in and read to my students for 30 minutes as part of a special event my school was having. Before this district office employee started reading she removed 5 of my students. It was already a low attendance day. She praised my 10 students for doing an excellent job. If only she had the other 14. I love my students but those 14 would qualify for alternative education in another district.
Another district office employee came in to help one of our long term subs with her class of unruly students. She came a couple days and tried to do a lesson. She became highly frustrated and never returned.
If these veteran teachers, now district office employees, cannot handle the students for less than a hour, how can TFA be expected to do it?
this really makes me sad i went to southwest my freshman year then the beginning of my soft more year but had to transfer out because there was to many fires and fire alarms being pulled and all of the fights... i never thought i would have to leave southwest because i really enjoyed southwest last year i planned on graduating from southwest and i also planed on getting college credit hours. i never imagined southwest would turn out to be this.... to me southwest died i want the old southwest back.. R.I.P old southwest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is a shame that Dr. Covington and the KCMSD school board cannot reverse the damage they have done to the students who attend SWEC. Their short-sightedness has cost the district thousands of dollars and dozens of promising students. Why can't the school board hire a superintendent with ties to the KC community-one who would stay for more than a couple of years? The school board acts like KCMSD is still a large district, when in reality if is a mid-sized district that could use fewer top administrators hanging around downtown. Wake up people!!! The school board and Dr. Covington got us into this mess-not the Union, the teachers or the Brookside community. Fix it, Dr. Covington, or pack your bags!!!
I'd like to express gratitude to the neighbors in the Southwest community who did so much to try to help this school succeed. Please don't give up. It sounds like Covington is on his way out and your help should be welcomed by a competent school leader.
Reading this article makes me want to cry. I am a product of this school district and I had no clue that our district was in such trouble. The community has tried to help, and they were stopped at the door. The teachers tried to help, and they were stopped in their class rooms. The kid that want to learn were stopped at the bus. And what does this district do? Nothing! It hurts my heart to know that students are unable to learn to due to the knuckleheads that the district puts up with. I hope that this situation will some how find a happy ending ending.
There is unfortunately a large percentage of the Kansas City population that has culturalized intentionally maladaptive behavior. Everything from stopping traffic to jaywalk, to fucking in public, to robbery and homicide. Their neighborhoods are filled with boarded houses, not because of slum lords, but because the people of the neighborhood broke with windows and vandalized the buildings.. Forcing kids who, along with their parents, are fundamentally opposed to education (or any other attempt to assimilate into a well-behaved, productive society) accomplishes nothing. Stupid in, stupid out. End compulsory education, and allow only those who actually want to be there remain. If the parents don't want an education, don't force it. Wasting 15 years on a kid to end up with a person as illiterate at 16 as he was as 6 is a waste of time and money, and it only serves to sabotage the other children's education. The school system can't solve these social problems, and it shouldn't be given the task to try.
Having met with Dr. Covington I feel that he is dishonest and a bully. He is no leader and is a poor example for the students, teachers and staff of the KCMSD.
While the district leadership is incompetent and clueless about how to effectively do their jobs, their decisions never forced any student to set fires, vandalize the building, assault his classmates, start riots, or any of the other garbage that's been happening at Southwest this year (and the rest of the district for many years).
Let's be honest here: this kind of stuff isn't happening in the suburban districts, and it isn't because they have more competent leaders.
As I see it, there are two major problems in the KCMSD:
1. Incompetent leadership
I'm talking about Covington, West, and the rest of the school board and district administration. They seem to treat the students as one gigantic social experiment. Instead of looking across town at the districts that perform well year after year, and studying what they do right, the district leaders engage in a continuous cycle of new programs with backing and "support" from impressive-sounding organizations. The result each time is utter failure. They also offer zero support to teachers and force them to work in the most abysmal conditions. I've spoken to these people many, many times both in person, on the phone, and via email, and I've come to the conclusion that they haven't a clue what they're doing.
2. The chronically-disruptive portion of the student population
As any KCMSD teacher knows, there is an abnormally large portion of the student population that is chronically disruptive, has no interest in obtaining an education, and frankly does not belong in the regular classroom. They essentially steal the education of the other students who actually want to learn. When they see students who are doing well in school, who are smarter than them, they get upset and try to prevent them from going any further in life. It's what one teacher I worked with referred to as the "crabs in a bucket" mentality. If you were to gather crabs from the ocean and put them in a bucket (as I've done while on vacation before), you'll notice that when one tries to crawl out the others suddenly pull it back in. The chronically disruptive students do the same thing. While most districts would ship such students to alternative schools or just kick them out for good, the KCMSD leadership essentially forces them to remain in the regular classroom so the teachers can "save", "reach", or "inspire" them--as if the district is one great big Boys & Girls Club instead of an institution of education.
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