This is a complicated business, closing schools.

The Kansas City Public Schools has created an online exercise that invites everyone to take a turn sorting out difficult choices that lie ahead in its Blueprint 2030 plan to shape the district’s future.

Welcome to the “scenario engagement” phase of the two-year community process.

Over the first year of the Blueprint work, the district worked with staff, parents, partners and community members to develop priorities in building the enhanced, equitable education experience the district wants for its students.

Now those priorities have been assigned estimated costs. Likewise, the district’s consultants have estimated the draining costs of continuing to have too many schools and facilities to efficiently serve the district’s 14,000 enrollment.

This is where the public gets to step back into the process.

The district’s consultants have created a sort of high-stakes online game it is calling the “balancing act.”

The process examines three scenarios.

In the first scenario, the district would be able to fund all of the priorities that the Blueprint 2030 process identified. The wish list includes things like added project-based learning opportunities, expanded math and reading supports, more world language offerings, more music education, increased social/emotional supports, increased staff for parent engagement, expanded science offerings, more pre-K, middle school clubs and sports, higher teacher salaries . . .

But the district would have to close 12 of its 37 schools.

How to take a turn at KCPS’ ‘Balancing Act’

1. Go to the district’s Blueprint 2030 page

2. Watch the video under “scenario engagement”

3. Click on “scenario two balancing act” and “scenario three balancing act.”

   (Versions available in English and Spanish)

Here’s where the game begins. Online “balancing act” scenarios ask participants to prioritize the wish list and choose things to eliminate in order to allow not as many school closures.

Scenario two allows that only 10 schools would close.

Scenario three — only closes seven.

The scenarios do not offer any names of schools to be closed. The district hasn’t gotten to that point yet, said Superintendent Mark Bedell.

“That day is coming,” he told a group of community members at a Blueprint 2030 meeting this week. “That reality is coming.”

The more stakeholders that try the balancing act exercise, the better for the district, said KCPS senior planner Jesse Lange. It gives everyone a chance to understand the difficult process ahead, and it again helps identify the community's priorities.

The district has for decades had to adjust to years of declining enrollment and the consequences of under-utilized buildings. The district has to balance the number of facilities to the number of students in order to be able to make the ambitious changes to provide the “education of the future” for its students.

The district provided data showing that, at 27.7%, the percentage of its budget KCPS spends on operational costs is nearly double the percentage spent by most of its peer districts in the area.

Meanwhile, the district spends 23.38% on K-12 instruction, less than most of its peers, such as Blue Springs (27.08%), North Kansas City (27.49%) and Grandview (34.82%).

“We want to flip it,” Bedell said. "The only way to do that is to look at efficiencies and inefficiencies.”

The district plans to bring recommendations before the public this fall. Some of the academic and program changes would begin at that time, but any school changes would be phased in beginning in the fall of 2023.

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer