Kansas City Public School Closures East of Troost Avenue

Over the past week, I have been researching vacant public schools across Kansas City, MO. Owned by the Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS) district, these schools are scattered across numerous neighborhoods. Many of the schools are still standing with varying levels of decay and vandalism; however, there are a few vacant lots across the city as well. 

 

KC Tenants is narrowing in on schools located in East Kansas City as they prepare for their launch of an Eastside Tenant Union along with an affordability campaign focused on East Kansas City. In doing so, KC Tenants’ North Star Campaign selected Meservey and Askew Elementary Schools on the East Side as focal points for social housing in the neighborhood. 

 

Both located in the East Side neighborhood of Kansas City, Meservey and Askew Elementary Schools were closed down by KCPS in 2009 and 2010 respectively. These closures came in the wake of poor attendance across Kansas City in which only 60% of all allocated seats in KCPS schools were being filled by students. This led to widespread closures in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s. In doing so, about 50% of all KCPS owned schools were closed. These closures were due to a multitude of factors such as the rise of the charter school system in Kansas City and lack of funding for KCPS. However, for schools such as Meservey and Askew on the East Side of Kansas City, these factors were layered onto decades of redlining, segregation of resources, and income inequality.

 

The established demarcation line of the East Side of Kansas City is Troost Avenue. However, over the past decade, the line has become slightly blurry as gentrification has pushed through Troost Avenue leading to white, higher income residents and market-rate developments trickling into East Kansas City. Nevertheless, communities East of Troost continue to struggle for housing security, educational opportunity, and higher wages. Furthermore, communities such as East Side were cut up even further through the implementation of highways such as Interstate-70 leading to communities being severely cut off from each other. 

 

With the closures of Meservey and Askew, residents in the neighborhoods are seeking for a community centered plan on these properties as the schools once represented such a gathering place. This is coupled with the need for affordable housing in a tenant majority neighborhood, and with the median income of renters in Kansas City being roughly $38,000, market-rate developments with rents ranging from $1000-$1500 is burdensome to the communities. KC Tenants hopes to address these issues through their affordability campaign along with the developing feasibility study for social housing on these two properties.