The six years it took for Superintendent Mark Bedell to lead the Kansas City Public Schools to the promised land of full accreditation would have been wilderness enough.

But the joy that swept over the resilient school district Tuesday burst from 22 years of pain that longtime educators and a community of partners and supporters have carried since the state stripped accreditation in 2000.

In a unanimous vote, the state board in Jefferson City Tuesday approved Missouri Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven’s recommendation that Kansas City Public Schools be fully accredited — effective immediately, at 10:56 a.m.

It’s been a long road.

“This school district isn’t easy,” Bedell said at a press conference at J.A. Rogers Elementary School just hours after the Jefferson City vote, as he looked out across a crowded room that included so many people who’d been “fighting for kids” in Kansas City long before he came.

This moment was for all of them, he said, who persevered through the harsh light and all of “the good, the bad and the ugly.”

“Brighter days are ahead.”

In most years since 2000, KCPS made sufficient progress to eventually earn provisional accreditation, but that status still marked the district as less than whole.

The return of full accreditation honors the determined and compassionate work of teachers, principals and support staff — as well as LINC’s before- and after-school program teams and many other district partners — who kept their focus on children and families during the two-decade struggle.

“I am amazed at the work the Kansas City school district has done,” said LINC Executive Vice President Janet Miles-Bartee, who started as a teacher in the district’s Ladd Elementary School in the late 1990s. “We have to continue to be that strong, supportive partner.”

LINC has been one of the district’s most dependable and durable community partners, providing the Caring Communities initiative at the district’s elementary schools as well as other supportive services to children and families.

“What we do in the before- and after-school program and how we support our families and how we support the community has made a tremendous difference in this accreditation,” Miles-Bartee said.

The vote for accreditation joins a critical movement of support for the district, said State School Board President Charlie Shields before the vote in Jefferson City. Gone are the days of discussions on how to break up or dissolve the district.

“We are absolutely invested in the performance and success of the Kansas City school district,” said Shields, the president and CEO of University Health in Kansas City. “Alternatives (to a city public school district) are not the discussion anymore. The discussion is: ‘How can we help?’”

Bedell had hoped the district would win full accreditation in 2019 after earning enough points on its annual performance review to score in the fully accredited range.

But the state held off, wanting the district to repeat its improvements. Then Covid-19 threatened to derail much of the progress.

The state did not issue annual performance reports the past two years and did not measure districts on some metrics, like attendance, because of the pandemic’s impacts. But the state saw enough merit in KCPS’s other achievements.

Performance on state tests suffered all across Missouri school districts in the wake of the instruction time lost to the pandemic, but Kansas City compared well against the state trends.

The district held mostly steady on student performance on advanced placement and baccalaureate tests, as well as college and career-ready assessments.

The state was impressed with the district’s educator evaluations, its strategic planning, its financial condition — and its stability in leadership.

Carol Hallquist, a Kansas City–area member on the state school board who made the motion to accredit the district, said the district “is fortunate to have Dr. Bedell. His leadership and tenure has made a difference.”

“His boots-on-the-ground caring,” she said, "enabled him to engage the community.”

The confidence in the district’s stability is refreshing, because it had been absent or fleeting throughout a repeating cycle of changing boards and leadership. 

Eight superintendents — including interim leaders — had taken their turns at the task of restoring accreditation before Bedell arrived in 2016: Benjamin Demps, Bernard Taylor, Anthony Amato, John Martin, Clive Coleman, John Covington, Steve Green and Al Tunis.

And 18 superintendents before them — and their school boards — steered a spiraling course beginning in the 1970s as a district caught in massive demographic and societal changes became a nationally notorious drama.

The district went through heavy-handed restructuring plans under Amato and Covington, only to see both of them leave abruptly — Amato being forced out and Covington resigning.

It was after Covington’s departure that the district became completely unaccredited a second time in 2011.

“There was disarray,” said Shields, who was on the state board then. “People didn’t see a path forward. There was this revolving door of superintendents . . . and no faith in the elected board.”

Bedell had other options when Kansas City sought him out as a candidate for superintendent in 2016. But he listened to his wife’s encouragement that he go where he was needed, because, she told him, “You can turn around schools.”

That work has carried on with leadership and staff, community partners and a supportive board that have separated the current district from its stormier past.

At Rogers, Bedell acknowledged the people in all the many layers of the district and its community that made Tuesday’s announcement possible. It was truly a day for celebration.

But it was also a day to redouble on commitment.

There is still so much work ahead, Bedell and KC board members said. Performance must improve. All of the community forces that improve the welfare of families have to carry on against barriers like crime and unaffordable housing.

But with the accreditation vote, the lack of a full state endorsement will no longer weigh down a district determined to win new families.

Bedell is the district’s 27th superintendent in the past 50 years. Now deep into his sixth year, Bedell has out-tenured all of them. And his fire is lit.

“I’m a competitive athlete,” he said. “I want to beat everybody. This (Kansas City school) board is huge on raising the needle. We’re going to do this.”

The state’s full blessing will inject fuel into the district’s work to re-imagine its schools, its programs and its community partnerships.

Deputy Superintendent Jennifer Collier, who with 22 years service in the district has witnessed the journey from and back to accreditation, outlined some of the innovations ahead.

Culturally responsive teaching. Critical pedagogy that gives children voice and agency. Project-based, real-world lessons. Foreign language instruction beginning in kindergarten. Flexible scheduling that breaks the constraints of time so children learn at their best pace and best time. Integral roles for empowered parents and caregivers. More community partnerships. The list goes on.

The district is deep into a year-long project to build a community plan for the future of the district — Blueprint 2030.

Bedell and his team have relied on advisory groups, held community listening sessions and conducted surveys and more — all to gather the wisdom, fears and dreams of staff, parents, students and patrons.

The work is both exciting and challenging with all things on the table in planning the best classroom experiences for children — from class sizes to extra curricular investments to school closings.

The district is “hyperfocused,” Kansas City School Board President Nate Hogan said in Jefferson City and again at Rogers.

“Our board is committed, in collaboration with Dr. Bedell and his team,” he said, “to create a district that is nimble, effective, equitable, challenging . . . and fun.”

Throughout the celebratory press conference, a row of Rogers students who had served as hosts and escorts looked on from behind an array of news cameras and reporters.

It is children like them who stayed on the minds of everyone who, over the hard years, “woke up every day fighting for children,” said Derald Davis, an administrator and former principal who has worked 26 years in the district.

It is children like them that Bedell was thinking of when he talked about why he took the challenge in Kansas City, and why he has stayed.

As a child Bedell was a ward of the state, he said, growing up without parents, his mother having died of an overdose. He knew the “plight and struggle of many students here.”

Yes, full accreditation is something to celebrate and it will be celebrated, he said. But then it will be time to get back to work.

Because . . .

“I have a life story,” he said.

And these children and all those to come have theirs.

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer

Video by Bryan Shepard

Timeline: Kansas City’s fall and the winding road back

1985-1999 — The federal desegregation court case directs Missouri to fund Kansas City’s district-wide magnet school plan.

1999 — Missouri legislature allows public charter schools in the Kansas City school district.

— State school board strips Kansas City’s accreditation, effective in 2000.

2001 — Superintendent Benjamin Demps resigns in turmoil. Bernard Taylor becomes superintendent.

2002 — Kansas City regains provisional accreditation.

2006 — Bernard Taylor steps down as his unrenewed contract expires.

— Tony Amato is hired as superintendent, with plans including remaking the district with K-8 schools and smaller high schools.

2007 — Voters in Independence and Kansas City vote for new boundary lines, moving seven schools in western Independence into the Independence School District.

2008 — Tony Amato resigns under pressure. John Martin and then Clive Coleman serve as interim superintendents.

2009 — John Covington is hired as superintendent with plans including remaking the district with standards-based grade-level designations for students.

2010 — The KC board approves Covington’s plan to close 26 schools.

2011 — Covington abruptly resigns in August. Steve Green is hired as superintendent.

— The state school board strips Kansas City’s provisional status in September, making the district unaccredited effective in 2012.

2014 — Kansas City regains provisional accreditation.

2015 — Steve Green resigns as superintendent. Al Tunis serves as interim superintendent.

2016 — Mark Bedell hired as Kansas City’s 27th superintendent in 45 years.

2022 — Jan. 11, the state school board votes to give Kansas City full accreditation effective immediately.