Better than ever: LINC and KCPS school leaders meet to kick-start new year

Kansas City Public Schools principals and LINC Caring Communities coordinators talk about the many ways they can work together to help families thrive as part of a work session Aug. 16 at Manual Career and Technical Center.

The set-up could hardly be better.

A LINC team boasting a full roster of site coordinators, fully staffed for their Caring Communities programs, no waiting lists for parents, met with their building principals in a Kansas City Public Schools system that is enjoying a burst of enrollment, going over 15,000 students for the first time in more than a decade.

As KCPS Assistant Superintendent for School Leadership Harrison Neal Sr. declared to everyone in the work session, “It’s a great time to be in Kansas City Public Schools!”

LINC and KCPS organized the meeting of their school leaders Aug. 16, ahead of the Aug. 19 start of the school year, to better understand the many things they can do together inside and outside of the classroom to help children and families thrive.

“We have a great opportunity in Kansas City, and that is to partner with LINC,” Christy Harrison, KCPS Assistant Superintendent for School Leadership, said to the many district principals in the room. “LINC is our before- and after-school provider, we know that, but LINC is so much more.”

LINC has the same partnership with the Hickman Mills, Grandview and Center school districts, and is making plans to have the same meeting-of-the-school-minds with those districts in the days ahead.

Kansas City Public Schools Assistant Superintendent for School Leadership Christy Harrison talks to LINC and KCPS program leaders.

”This is the work of making stronger families together,” said LINC President and CEO Janet Miles-Bartee. “It takes a village, and that means all of us in the community, our neighborhoods, school districts and our partners working together.”

To the teams in the workshop, Miles-Bartee said, “I want to challenge our principals to work with our LINC site coordinators and expect more. We can step up wherever you need us to step up, however you need us to step up.”

That can mean collaborating in the classroom, working with KCPS school teachers to come up with ideas for LINC to carry on lessons and themes after-school.

But it also means outside the classroom, emphasizing that LINC’s coordinators and the LINC team that supports them are specialists in getting to know families, learning of the barriers that threaten families’ health and stability, and finding solutions to beat those barriers, Miles-Bartee said.

She recounted an experience in the past school year when one elementary school’s LINC and school staff became aware that the children in one of their families were stealing and hiding food to take home, even though the family had the benefit of food stamps to provide meals.

KCPS principals and LINC Caring Communities coordinators work on plans for collaboration in the coming school year.

LINC called on the mother, spent some time learning about her situation, and found that her car was broken down, making it hard to shop for groceries. And even when she could get to the store, the family’s refrigerator was broken and she had no way to preserve any food that they got.

LINC was able to provide her a nice, working refrigerator, and get a mechanic to repair the family’s car.

“There are things we can do for your families,” Miles-Bartee said.

Strong partnerships can be powerful, said Christy Harrison, looking back when she was a principal at Trailwoods Elementary School and worked “lock-step” with her LINC partner, Melanie Scott.

“I’m excited to get you all together, so you can learn what’s happening and really plan and grow together in your school communities,” Harrison said. “I hope this kick-starts the work you’re going to do in your buildings together.”