This story is part two of a series
Part three coming January 22
A’iyanna Newman was anxious about taking the Advanced Placement biology exam.
Takeaways
- State data shows KIPP Kansas City enrollment declined nearly 20% in one year.
- Current and former employees report problems such as not being paid correctly, issues with buildings and technology, and supplies not being delivered when needed.
- They also say those issues can have a negative impact on students’ education.
Now a KIPP Legacy High School senior, class president and likely valedictorian, A’iyanna didn’t feel prepared by her junior year biology class, which she said would often start late or go off topic.
She started with the online part of the test but soon hit a snag. The physical materials she needed to complete the test were missing, and time was running out to find them.
Teachers and administrators at the Kansas City charter school scrambled to locate the test booklets or negotiate an opportunity to retake the exam with the College Board.
Ultimately, A’iyanna was the only student to move forward with taking the test that day. She remembers being sent back to class, then pulled back out when the booklet was discovered in a puddle of water on a loading dock at KIPP Endeavor Academy, the campus for pre-K-to-8 students.
In the confusion about whether she should pause or continue, she didn’t complete all of the multiple-choice questions and got a 1, the lowest possible score.
“I was like, ‘How could this happen?’” A’iyanna said. “I hold myself to very high standards. So for me to not even feel like I was in a comfortable spot to take the test… I just felt like I was in a hole, like I didn’t really know what to do.”
Staff members assisting with the test, including then-English teacher Micah Rose Emerson and an administrator who asked to remain anonymous to protect their job, were struck by how upset A’iyanna was.
She “looks at me and says, ‘I feel like KIPP wants me to fail,’” the administrator said. “I certainly do not want her to fail. No one on our high school team wants her to fail, and we are deeply invested in her success and in the success of all of our kids. And we are stuck in a system that I feel like wants me to fail.”
Emerson and the administrator said the situation happened because, with a revolving door of leaders and other staff, KIPP employees were trying to figure out AP testing on the fly among their other duties and without enough support from the regional team.
In an emailed response to questions, KIPP Kansas City said the error in delivering the materials “falls under school-level oversight by the designated testing coordinator, the High School Assistant Principal. KIPP KC takes all testing administration matters seriously and addresses them promptly and effectively.”
The comments were emailed by spokesperson Saki Indakwa, who said they reflect input from multiple people. Through Indakwa, Executive Director Dayna Sanders declined to be interviewed in light of “pending litigation.”
The test booklets incident — which happened in spring 2025 — was just one of a series of mishaps and failures staff members described at KIPP KC, an independent local branch of the national KIPP charter schools network.
Beacon reporting found that only about 40% of staff members KIPP KC reported to the state in fall 2024 were still reported as employees in fall 2025. The high turnover happened after Sanders was hired in mid-2024 with a mandate to turn around KIPP KC’s charter schools’ performance.
Employees say the high turnover rate and general disorganization at KIPP have contributed to widespread operational issues that have left staff and vendors without timely and correct pay, disrupted students’ academic success and helped cause a 20% reduction in enrollment since last year.
Operations issues
Alysia Sanders, no relation to Dayna Sanders, first worked as a front office coordinator for KIPP KC, then in attendance and registration. Speaking shortly after she resigned in October, she told The Beacon that she was pregnant when bathrooms at KIPP KC flooded.
“The bathrooms still aren’t fixed,” she said, referring to her baby, “and he’s going on five months.”
Other examples shared through interviews, public comments or letters include:
- Delayed mold abatement and other repairs after a flood at the high school in May.
- A slow response to a fire set on campus overnight because the alarm company’s contact at KIPP no longer worked there.
- An administrator sending an outdated bus roster to the transportation company, leaving newer students without transportation but including students who had already graduated.
- Slow processing of purchase orders for basic items such as books, pencils and hygiene supplies, or KIPP misplacing items that had arrived.
- Staff members seeking other employment because of delayed contracts.
- Beginning a school year without functioning internet or printers for weeks.
In a letter to the board — which an anonymous employee shared with The Beacon as part of a set of eight letters that expanded on public comments at the October board meeting — high school Principal Josh Swartzlander said internet and printing issues had a severe impact.
“I cannot explain the extent of the harm this caused. Why did it happen?” Swartzlander wrote. “Because of our revolving door of regional leaders. We did not have a functioning IT Department for months, from April through August.”
Swartzlander also wrote that there are “countless” examples of people not receiving correct, timely pay including a recent instance of the entire staff not getting paid at its normal cadence. As a result, he had to send a staff member gas money and talk others into coming to work at all.
Other examples of pay issues shared with The Beacon include:
- Staff members being shorted on their paychecks.
- Returning teachers advocating to avoid a gap in pay over the summer due to a change in the timeframe of contracts. Documents shared with The Beacon show they had to promise to return their summer pay if they resigned before Sept. 30.
- As of mid-January, a counselor who was still seeking to be paid for two extra days that she was authorized to work over the summer.
- Contracts arriving late or with incorrect information.
In December 2024, a group of teachers signed contracts they believed would raise their salaries by thousands of dollars. They understood — and the contracts shown to The Beacon seem to indicate — that raises would go into effect in January. In return, they were required to pursue full certification within a year.
In January, the raises didn’t materialize. Weeks later, the teachers were told they weren’t eligible.
Erica Kenney, a high school assistant principal, said during the December 2025 board meeting that vendors aren’t getting paid consistently either.
“Calls, emails and letters regarding unpaid invoices arrive nearly daily. Just last week, I personally received eight such calls. One vendor showed up at our building during school hours to demand payment,” she said. “These situations are unprofessional, unsafe and wholly inappropriate in a school setting, and they expose serious gaps in our operational oversight.”
KIPP KC didn’t address specific instances in its emailed responses, but said it is “aware of concerns related to payment timing for staff and vendors” but has recently implemented better processes “to ensure expenses are properly vetted and payments are processed accurately and on time moving forward.”
“Any issues related to payment timing occurred during a period of transition, including the implementation of a new payment and financial management system and the unwinding of siloed processes that existed previously,” KIPP KC said. “In some cases, contracts were executed at the school or department level without full alignment to budget availability, which contributed to delays.”
Enrollment
Jonna Skinner, a former high school counselor at KIPP, said changes to the school’s enrollment policies also caused problems as new administrators emphasized rapid growth throughout the school year.
She said KIPP’s online system asked families to upload a transcript, but they could bypass that step by adding a different document, even a photo of their cat. When the normal system of auditing paperwork went awry, some students enrolled without transcripts and counselors had to rely on their word about what classes they had taken. That could leave them in the wrong class for weeks.
Some students enrolled without KIPP being aware of their behavioral issues or plans, Skinner said, and would fight or disrupt class.
“We had students coming in that were suspended at their other schools, and we had no idea,” Skinner said. “We were admitting at just such an alarming rate that we didn’t have time to do it correctly.”
Since Missouri schools are funded based on average daily attendance, maintaining enrollment helps with financial stability. KIPP KC’s enrollment is slipping.
KIPP KC has added grade levels since it opened in 2007. With the addition of 12th grade for the 2024-25 school year, it reached its all-time high of more than 1,000 pre-K-to-12 students.
Just one year later, preliminary state data show KIPP has lost more than 200 students, about a 19.5% drop. An update KIPP shared at its December board meeting showed enrollment at 818, below the state numbers and almost 25% below KIPP’s enrollment target of 1,083.
Board member Charles King said KIPP KC’s enrollment numbers are a “big concern,” but are a widespread problem for charter schools as there are fewer students in the area and more attend Kansas City Public Schools.
In its emailed responses, KIPP KC also attributed the enrollment decline to citywide and nationwide trends, such as “increased competition among school options (increased school choice, home-schooling growth), family mobility, and post-pandemic shifts in enrollment patterns.”
But preliminary state data show KIPP KC’s enrollment decline stands out. Kansas City Public Schools’ pre-K-12 enrollment held almost completely steady this year and charter schools overall lost less than 2% of enrollment overall compared to KIPP’s nearly 20%.
In its emailed responses, KIPP KC said reduced enrollment requires careful planning but is also “an opportunity to refocus on quality, stability, and family engagement.
“KIPP KC anticipates increasing enrollment through strengthened community partnerships, expanded outreach and recruitment efforts, improved family communication, and a renewed focus on delivering a strong, joyful academic experience that attracts and retains families.”
King and fellow board member Christopher Perkins said they weren’t aware of any specific themes for why students were leaving.
“We need to build more momentum towards ‘Why KIPP?’” Perkins said. “Frankly, we’re not there yet.”
The impact on students
When Emerson joined KIPP as a new English teacher in 2023, she was told her Advanced Placement students would be prepared for their exam.
Instead, she concluded, most weren’t reading at grade level. An iReady assessment scored some high school juniors as low as second grade and only a few on track for their age, she said.
A member of Teach for America who held a provisional teaching license, Emerson had to figure out how to teach students who were so far behind. Once she planned to spend two days on Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” She spent two weeks instead, making lists of words students didn’t understand like “mutuality,” “deemed” and “idly.”
Literacy was one of the challenges that predated Dayna Sanders becoming executive director, Emerson said, alongside problems with the newly built facilities and technology outages.
When Sanders joined KIPP, Emerson pushed to hire a reading interventionist to help struggling students catch up.
Instead, she said, Sanders brought on additional consultants and administrators whose roles weren’t clear to staff. Communication worsened and KIPP reneged on promises to students, canceling out-of-state trips for high schoolers with just a few days’ notice and little explanation.
A’iyanna had been looking forward to capping her junior year with a trip to New Orleans. The trips were educational, she said, and an incentive for good grades, behavior and attendance.
“It was more than a trip,” A’iyanna said. “It was like a promise, a thank you to us for all the hard work that we have put in for the school year.”
In emailed responses, KIPP KC said it understood families’ frustration and that “in at least one instance, communication from the school level did not occur as promptly or clearly as it should have.”
The email said KIPP KC had implemented a new trip approval protocol that limited the cost of trips to $9,000 unless fundraising could make up the difference. “In this case, the required documentation and approvals — including fundraising confirmation — were not submitted, which led to the cancellation.”
KIPP KC has reinforced expectations for communicating with families when trips are at risk of being canceled, the email said.
A’iyanna said her family sent her to KIPP because it had a reputation as a college prep school.
She appreciates the small-community feel, the opportunity to take Advanced Placement classes and exams for free and how eager staff members are to help with her college applications.
About KIPP Kansas City
Founded: 2007
Schools: KIPP Endeavor Academy (grades pre-K-to-8) and KIPP Legacy High School (grades 9-12)
Affiliation: Part of a national network of KIPP charter schools, which operate independently of one another.
Governance: KIPP KC board, which votes in its own new members.
Oversight/Charter school sponsor: Missouri Charter Public School Commission
2024-25 school year enrollment: 1,049
2025-26 school year enrollment (preliminary data): 845
Executive director: Dayna Sanders (since mid-2024)
Executive director salary: $200,000
2025-26 budget: More than $20 million
Number of staff anticipated in budget: 161
Number of staff included in fall 2025 reporting to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education: 113
But A’iyanna said she’s seen course work becoming less rigorous, staff turnover that harms students and KIPP not holding students accountable for bad behavior.
Students got short notice that they would be required to wear uniforms this year, she said, which was a burden for low-income families who had already done back-to-school shopping.
KIPP KC said in emailed responses that the uniform policy had been discussed with staff and school leaders during the previous year, and the expectations were shared with students and families during fall orientation. Students received a free KIPP T-shirt that they were allowed to wear on Fridays and weren’t penalized for not having a proper uniform at the start of the year.
“We believe in a school uniform policy because it supports equity, minimizes distractions, and helps create a focused, respectful learning environment,” the email said. “We are continually refining our communication practices to ensure families receive important information as early as possible and have adequate time to plan.”
A’iyanna said she thought the policy could have been rolled out more thoughtfully.
“I just feel like she (Sanders) cares more about how the school looks on the outside,” A’iyanna said, “because she’s also just not there at the school. … I think she’s not realizing the decisions that she’s making (are) affecting us in the physical school.”
Emerson also said she felt Sanders focused on appearances over substance.
She and other teachers told The Beacon they felt encouraged to inflate grades by dropping or replacing low scores and offering extra credit or opportunities to redo work. During professional development days, Emerson said, those actions were framed as “academic health.”
“It is not academic health at all,” she said. “It is, ‘how do we make the school look good?’”
In an emailed response, KIPP KC said that “teachers may use approved instructional strategies — such as reassessment opportunities or targeted academic supports — to help students demonstrate learning, but those practices are not intended to artificially raise grades. KIPP KC is committed to academic integrity, transparency, and ensuring grades are an accurate reflection of what students know and are able to do.”
Early career teachers said they need more support with academics and student behavior.
Several current and former teachers told The Beacon they held a college degree unrelated to their subject matter, little teaching experience and only a substitute teaching certificate. That’s common enough at KIPP, they said, that sharing that information wouldn’t reveal their identities.
One anonymous teacher said it was also safe to mention she’d recently been punched while breaking up a student fight. “That won’t narrow it (down),” she said.
Emerson said Sanders had a routine when teachers gathered for meetings or professional development, inspired by something she learned in Africa.
“When she asks us, ‘How are the children?’ We are to say, ‘The children are well,’” she said Sanders instructed.
“However, the children could not read. The children did not have the supplies they needed. The children did not have math books,” Emerson said. “While I think the sentiment was great, it was not true. … And I think that’s kind of the story of Dayna’s tenure, is that it’s all about looking and sounding (great) but the actual greatness is not there.”
