Head of Ivanhoe Project Seeks Position on Kansas City School Board

By: Caitlin Doran

Posted: 1/14/08

A new face seeks to aid the struggling Kansas City School District. Airick Leonard West officially announced his plan to run for the Kansas City School Board of Directors Tuesday, Jan. 8 at the Durwin Rice Gallery.

"This campaign is called Kansas City United for Educational Achievement," West said. "It's not just a phrase. It's really the mantra of the campaign. It's the vision of a city that comes together around its own self interests and around the interests of its children."

West is hardly a stranger to community educational projects. He serves as a board member of the Gordon Parks Charter School and is head of the Ivanhoe project, a partnership with UMKC.

West's goals for the district include the redevelopment of neighborhood schools, unity with political leaders around Kansas City and regaining accreditation by nine of the 14 state benchmarks.

"We must clearly recognize that the economic development needs of the city and educational achievements of the youth are inextricably intertwined," said West. "One cannot succeed without the other, and when we fulfill one, the other will come along with it."

West hopes to integrate charter schools and neighborhood schools to create a unity he believes is missing among Kansas City public schools.

"There is an opportunity coming forward soon where we will be moving back to neighborhood schools," West said. "And while the road is wrought with obvious difficulty, when we stand united, it is a path we'll be able to venture upon successfully."

There is a strong focus of neighborhood and community unity in West's campaign, which harks back to his Ivanhoe project. Some students from UMKC live in the Ivanhoe neighborhood, located around 37th Street and Woodland Avenue, and tutor and mentor neighborhood children.

"There was a time when children rode their bikes together to school followed ever closely by the omnipresent gaze of their elders from the front porch," West said. "It heralds back to a time when parents would walk their children home, when neighborhood leaders would run for advisory committees."

West described a perceived alienation of political figures from youth and his aims to tie the community back to its representatives.

"For a long time, the fashion of the day has been for political action committees to participate in screening and endorsements for political offices and state offices, but not always for the school district," West said.

As a parent of a 14-year-old child, West has hands-on experience with the school district and hopes to improve the success of its students through higher test scores and safer environments.

If elected, West plans to utilize a four-year program to maximize the district's space and rid neighborhoods of vacant buildings.

"For too long, our neighborhoods have been littered with vacant and abandoned buildings, and we must bring into light the affect that these buildings have on not only the neighborhoods that they are in, but on the educational achievements of the kids that live in those neighborhoods," West said.

West is also a member of Lulac National Education Center, the Stephanie Waterman foundation and the Black Archives. The Kansas City School Board election will be held on April 8, 2008.

cdoran@unews.com