K-12 Education

By Jodi Fortino Students across the Kansas City area were welcomed back to class this week by sweltering temperatures and heat index values in the triple digits. Local schools are no stranger to back-to-school heat waves. In recent years, school districts...

Community members held their breath while they waited for Olathe Public Schools to announce the list of schools recommended for closure last night. Tears of grief soon followed. The district recommended at the Olathe Board of Education meeting Thursday to...

Editor's note: This story was updated at 4 p.m. Thursday to include comments from the Shawnee Mission School District. The proposed closure of East Antioch Elementary School is making waves in the school’s attendance area. A group of parents, students...

After months of consideration, the Gardner Edgerton Board of Education decided earlier this month to leave its open seat vacant until the 2027 election. The board conducted three candidate interviews in May but couldn’t reach a consensus on who should...

Federal officials announced Tuesday they are pursuing “enforcement measures” against the Shawnee Mission and Olathe school districts for the districts’ policies regarding transgender students. It’s the latest step in the federal probe, which launched a year ago, against the two...

People packed the Shawnee Mission Board of Education meeting room Monday night, many of them wearing green and yellow shirts and carrying signs that said, “Save East Antioch." Some held their breath while the board talked and a few...

To Christopher Kaberline's two young girls, Dolly Parton isn't an iconic global music legend. She's "Grandma Dolly." That's because they've grown up reading books provided for free by Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, titles like "I Am A Rainbow," "Ice Cream...

The Shawnee Mission School District is set to recommend that East Antioch Elementary, a small neighborhood school in Overland Park, be permanently closed in 2031. Families at East Antioch, 7342 Lowell St., found out about the district's proposal in an...

It’s back-to-school time, Johnson County. Students across most of Johnson County are already back in classrooms, including in Olathe Public Schools. Olathe School District students in kindergarten through sixth grades as well as ninth went back on Aug. 13 and seventh...

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas has formally decreed that Phil Baniewicz, the former president of Bishop Miege High School in Roeland Park, is unfit for employment and other activities involving minors and vulnerable persons within the archdiocese. The...

For Joe Pacey, the start of the 2026-27 school year also marked a new beginning for his family: His 7th grade daughter taking the bus to school for the first time. But on the first day of school, Pacey’s daughter,...

School was back in session this week for students in the Spring Hill district. Pre-kindergarten through eighth grade started Monday, followed by the high school on Tuesday. “We enjoy the first day of school. There’s a lot of hard work...