More than 7,200 children and adults joined in the KCPS SummerFest back-to-school event Aug. 3. Families enjoyed games, performances and crafts as they also completed enrollment and received backpacks and school supplies.

Justice in the Schools project director Cori Smith came with a host of numbers to present to the LINC commission meeting in May. But the one that startles her the most, she said, is the four-out-of-10 students who move in or out of their Kansas City Public Schools classrooms every year.

The Kansas City Public Schools’ unique partnership with determined researchers and lawyers to help rescue district families from evictions earned national recognition this week.

KCPS won the 2019 Research and Assessment Leadership Award awarded by the Council of the Great City Schools.

The school district partnered with LINC, the Kansas City Eviction Project and Legal Aid of Western Missouri in creating data tools to alert school officials where district families were vulnerable and in danger of eviction.

LINC’s partner school districts are gathering their families and communities to summer festivals to launch the start of the 2019-2020 school year with games, school supplies and enrollment opportunities.

Students from Wendell Phillips Elementary School toured the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s provocative “30 Americans” exhibition of works by African American artists, taking on its challenging questions of “Race, History, Identity and Beauty.”