Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell has always wanted students to have “shoot-for-the-stars dreams.”

He has his own: Someday to be named U.S. Secretary of Education Mark Bedell.

That, along with the satisfaction of seeing the school district finally enjoying long-sought respect and stability, were some of the reasons he said “it feels like it’s time,” to move on from Kansas City.

He is headed back to Maryland where he previously served as an administrator in Baltimore, closer to his family in Rochester, N.Y., and where he will get an opportunity to widen the education experience he hopes will spur him on toward his loftiest goals.

He will leave behind a district that finally achieved full accreditation after more than two decades of a highly-dramatized, up-and-down public struggle through many superintendents and administrations.

When Bedell’s resignation takes effect, Aug. 5, he will have served more than six years in the role, the longest tenure of any of the 27 superintendents and interim superintendents who passed through the top office over the past five decades.

“I don’t want anyone to feel sad or feel down,” Bedell said. “Things are different.”

His confidence in the state of the district starts with his successor, Deputy Superintendent Jennifer Collier, who the school unanimously chose to be the interim superintendent.

Collier has been part of the Kansas City Public Schools for more than 22 years, enduring through what Bedell called “the good, the bad and the ugly.”

Collier has served at almost every level from teacher to deputy superintendent. She has been at the front of the district’s most significant work with Bedell — the member of his cabinet “who has been with me since Day One,” Bedell said.

“She has the right heart, the right focus,” Bedell said, “to continue the work of the school district on behalf of our kids.”

“As Dr. Collier takes over,” Bedell continued, “there are opportunities for stability that were not here before. This district is in good hands.”

Collier joined Bedell at the June 10 press conference and reaffirmed her commitment to the work — stressing a dedication to strengthening literacy and continuing the work of the Blueprint 2030 long-range planning process that aims to give Kansas City children expansive and life-changing educational experiences.

“The great work must continue,” Collier said.

Under Bedell, community partnerships have strengthened and support from business has prospered, and those relationships must continue to grow, Collier said.

“We still need the commitment of this community,” she said.

LINC has been one of the school district’s most reliable and durable partners through all the many changes since the mid-1990s. Bedell and Collier have praised the value of LINC’s Caring Communities programs that are anchored in all of the district’s elementary schools.

In July 2016, less than two weeks after he had started his work as superintendent, Bedell spoke at LINC’s Commission meeting, promising to address “the culture, climate — and most importantly — curriculum, instruction and assessment to do what we have to do as a school system to obtain full accreditation.”

He had inherited a district under provisional accreditation that was only two years removed from being unaccredited — and hadn’t been fully accredited since 1999.

A year later, in September 2017, he told the LINC Commission about the district’s strategic plan and the pillars that he was determined to see built to get KCPS to the level of expectations that he said were shared by the superintendents from other LINC partner districts sitting around the board room table.

“We want to do some innovative things to provide more opportunities for our kids to get across the line,” he said that day. “Because I have expectations just like these other superintendents.”

In January 2022, the state board of education unanimously voted to restore the district to full accreditation, effective immediately. Performance was key, but so was the stability and continuity of leadership that had been so long missing, board members said.

Bedell always valued and emphasized an intimate role with his community. He played basketball with students on the weekends. His wife mentored district students and served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) helping children who were victims of abuse or neglect. Two of their children graduated from KCPS.

When Covid-19 was threatening the health and safety of the district’s community, Bedell was one of the community leaders who came to LINC’s vaccination clinic at Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church’s Youth and Family Life Center to be seen and recorded getting his shot to help inspire others to do the same.

In October of 2021, when discussing the Blueprint 2030 work and the weighty process of reshaping the district for the future, he posed the question: “How do we come out on the right side of history?”

Getting accreditation was a critical step. In a celebratory event at Rogers Elementary School Jan. 12, Bedell and Collier talked about the journey they had shared with so many other members of the staff, the community partners, parents and students.

“This school district isn’t easy,” Bedell said then. “But brighter days are ahead.”

Now Bedell makes ready to take on the superintendent role at Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland. And Collier, Bedell said, is already taking over the reins in Kansas City, even though he will remain on the job until August.

“It’s her show now,” he said.

And Collier takes charge of a district she knows and understand deeply over 22 years, believing that “the best days are yet to come.”

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer