Bill Eddy Drops out of the School Board Race

Bill Eddy has announced that he is dropping out of the school board race.  Eddy was in the only contested race for school board.  His leaving the race leaves Airick West as the lone ballot candidate for the vacant school board race.

Eddy's leaving the race is a good thing if we allow it to be.

Dan is right in his post today that one hurtful thing about Eddy's leaving the race is that it takes away from the school board campaigns and increasing awareness of the issues in the school district. And if we continue to ignore the issues within the school district and pretend that it's "their problem" the problems will not get solved.

However, West making it onto the school board (which seems all but a done deal at this point), has to be seen as a net gain for the KCMO School District.

A while back, I got the opportunity to talk with Airick about his vision for the school district.  We talked about the need for stability at the Superintendent level -- that even if the Superintendet wasn't perfect, rotating the leader of the school in and out every 18 months would make success for the school district virtually impossible (2 weeks later, Superintendent Amato left his position as the head of the KCMO schools).

We talked about big things like the Superintendent issue, but also small things like how many students Airick talked to didn't like the mandated school uniforms -- primarily because their families could only afford a couple of outfits for them to wear each year and the school uniform basically guaranteed what they'd wear all year -- not just to school, but to the movies and the mall on weekends and sometimes to church on Sundays.

Airick also talked about how the schools were Kansas City's problem.  Not a school board problem. Not an inner city problem.  But a city-wide problem.

He layed out a vision -- maybe a dream -- of getting more community and business involvement in the school district:  more mentorship programs, more after school programs, more community support for fixing the schools.

During his brief campaign, Airick West gained a long list of supporters.  The list includes local and state politicians, neighborhood activists, political hopefuls, ministers, bloggers, bloggers' moms, and people who's names I don't recognize.  We supported him because we believed in the vision - -and believed that there was hope for a better KCMO school district.

As it looks more and more like Airick will get the position on the school board he sought, the people on that list's jobs are not finished. The school district is not Airick West's to fix...it's for all of us to fix. If we make it now Airick's problem, and walk away, we will basically assure that he school district will flounder with him on board just as it did with Bill Eddy and the others.

While Airick's election to the school board will be a great first step, the support for him should not be over.  In fact it should just be beginning.

Comments

[airick leonard west]

you are very astute: if we are to see success in district reform efforts, i must remain joined by the coalition of kansas citians that have supported me thus far. to truly transform the district, we must continue to expand that coalition.

there are more steps in the journey ahead of us than behind.