New Stanley Elementary School in Kansas City, Kansas, will remain open for now after community members objected to a proposal to close it and send students to a brand new, larger elementary school. 

During its Dec. 9 meeting, the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools board approved a plan to adjust school boundaries and incorporate new buildings into the district. But the plan looked different from the draft presented to the board in November. 

Instead of closing New Stanley, a small neighborhood school of about 250 students that offers a Spanish-English dual language program, the district will leave the school open with its current attendance boundaries. 

Compared to the earlier draft, the latest version of the plan also changes how the feeder patterns for several schools will work. 

It still calls for changes to many schools’ attendance boundaries, meant to avoid overcrowding in certain schools, and includes construction of three new buildings funded by the bond voters approved last fall. 

The latest round of changes came in response to public feedback. Earlier this fall, parents told The Beacon they appreciated the tight-knit community at New Stanley and didn’t want to lose it. They also wanted more advance notice of the plan. 

School board member Rachel Russell said she appreciated the respectful advocacy from families, but didn’t want to imply that the board was committing to keep New Stanley open forever. She said the district still needs to think about efficiency and better facilities. 

“This is a pause,” Russell said. “It’s not to say that we won’t be here having this conversation again, and we’ll be much more intentional and much more inclusive.” 

During public comment, New Stanley student Aldo Diaz advocated for the decision to be permanent. He said he appreciated the small class sizes at New Stanley and was worried about being separated from his friends and teachers in a new, bigger school. 

“You told my mom that New Stanley was safe, but what does that mean?” he asked. “Does that mean New Stanley might get added back in next year? Does it mean you will close my school when the new school opens? Please do not ever close my school.”

New Stanley Elementary School

New Stanley serves about 70% neighborhood students assigned based on their addresses and 30% students who come from elsewhere in the district to participate in the dual-language program. 

The school is more than 100 years old and uses several detached classrooms for extra space. When The Beacon toured New Stanley in early 2024, school leaders also pointed out small classrooms, insufficient storage and a cafeteria that doubles as a gym. 

The tour happened when KCKPS was pitching a $420 million bond proposal that would have replaced eight schools, including New Stanley, with five new buildings. 

Voters rejected that bond, but later the same year they approved a smaller bond proposal that included only three new buildings and was not supposed to affect New Stanley. 

So when a district committee determined that New Stanley students could fit in a new elementary school alongside students from two other closing schools, some families were caught off guard and frustrated that they didn’t get more notice. 

They argued the relationships at New Stanley are an important support system for families that can’t easily be replaced. 

The proposal from the committee called for the new elementary school to serve more than 650 students, bigger than the average size of the district’s middle schools.

With New Stanley remaining open, the new elementary school will have about 440 students, which is similar to some of the larger existing KCKPS elementary schools. 

The boundary plan

The plan the board approved adjusts attendance boundaries and feeder patterns for the district’s 28 elementary schools, seven middle schools and four comprehensive high schools. 

For example, Wyandotte High School has considerably more students than the other comprehensive high schools and is over capacity. The plan will distribute high school students more evenly. 

It also aims to head off problems at Carl B. Bruce Middle School, Grant Elementary School, Claude Huyck Elementary School and John F. Kennedy Elementary School, which are overenrolled or forecast to be so during the next five years.

Under the plan, which proposes that changes would go into effect in 2027-28: 

• Students in the current Silver City and Noble Prentis areas will attend a newly built elementary school near the Harmon High School campus. 
• New Central and Argentine middle school buildings will open. 
• Quindaro Elementary School, which currently feeds into Carl B. Bruce Middle School and Wyandotte High School, will instead feed into Gloria Willis Middle School and Schlagle High School. 
• About half of Grant Elementary School students will attend Central Middle School and half will attend Carl B. Bruce Middle School. They’ll then progress to Wyandotte High School. Currently they attend Rosedale Middle and Harmon High.  
• Whittier Elementary School students will continue to progress to Central Middle School, but they will attend Harmon High School instead of Wyandotte High School. Currently all Central Middle students attend Wyandotte High.  
• Other schools would see more minor boundary changes.  

The resulting feeder system would include four elementary schools — Grant, Lowell Brune, Welborn and Hazel Grove — where not all of the students advance to the same middle school. Two middle schools — Eisenhower and Central — would also be split when students advance to high school. 

That’s more complex than the current feeder pattern, which only splits Douglass Elementary School. The original committee recommendation would have only split four schools.