1. Kansas City Speaks: Partnering with Educators, Students, and Community Members to Create an Open Educational Website Focused on Urban School Integration and Excellence
CANDACE SCHLEIN
Loyce Caruthers
Fu Zhuo
Jennifer friend
Charles Oakley

2. Session Objectives
To describe the action-oriented scholarship process used to design and launch a public website that documents experiences with school desegregation in Kansas City, Missouri.
To explore opportunities to co-construct media projects with community members, and to harness the potential of Internet and social media tools to make scholarship accessible to a wide audience.
To draw upon lessons from the past and present that can be used to promote greater understanding of historical events, economics, and geography to answer questions related to urban education and civil rights to inform policy development and educational practices.

3. Project Summary
Phase I of this study was supported with a School of Education Dean’s Small Grant in Fall 2016 until Spring The aim of that work was to create a website, collect documents, conduct archival work, identify participants, conduct interviews, and analyze data pertaining to experiences of school desegregation in the district from Phase II of this study is supported by a UMKC Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Award Grant. It began in Summer 2017 and is ongoing until Spring The aim of this current investigation is to document experiences from diverse voices of school desegregation representing the time period of 1995 to the present.

4. Historical Context
Kansas City, Missouri is a hyper-segregated metropolitan area based on housing patterns that have persisted for decades (Massey & Denton, 1993; Gotham, 2002).
The Kansas City, Missouri Public School District (KCPS) avoided federal oversight and preserved segregated schooling for nearly 30 years after Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Using a neighborhood concept for attendance boundaries in 1977, known in the community as Plan 6C (Gotham, 2002), the KCPS neglected the promise of an end to school segregation.

5. Missouri v. Jenkins ( )
Suburban districts were originally held liable for the inter-district transfer plan proposed through a 1977 lawsuit – they were later deemed not liable by the U.S. District Court.
Renovation and new construction and the creation of themed magnet schools were intended to entice White families back into the district beginning in 1985 with a U.S. District Court decision.
Costs of approximately $2 billion before U.S. Supreme Court overturned the case (5-4 decision) in 1995.

6. Project Objective #1 Objectives Research Questions Outcomes
Used digital video to record approximately 51 oral histories with administrators, teachers, and students who were present in Kansas City, Missouri public schools during the period of school integration (1971 to present).
Drawing on their experiences, what do educators and students:
(a) want to share about their school integration experiences?
(b) have to say about what is needed to change outcomes for students in today’s urban public schools?
The researchers made meaning of the video images to select the clips that best represented theory and concepts (St. Pierre, 2015). The video clips entered a post-production process (e.g. sequencing, adding title cards). Videos were added to the project website.
Project Objective #1

7. Project Objective #2 Objectives Research Questions Outcomes
Designed and launched a website that includes digitized historical artifacts, memorabilia, maps, and archival documents and images, made free and accessible to the public.
A ‘Community Yearbook’ feature created to allow individuals to upload photos and narratives for this project.
(1) In what ways can historical materials be made accessible to elucidate the period of school integration in Kansas City?
(2) What are some stories of school integration that community members want to share through images and narratives posted on an interactive, public website?
The researchers continue to work with the digitalization of materials accessed through local archives and private collections.
All user-generated content that meets the criteria for selection are continuously made available to the public on the Community Yearbook page.
Project Objective #2

8. Project Objective #3 Objectives Research Questions Outcomes
Currently developing curriculum resources for the project website that are available for download. Will design and offer online Continuing & Professional Education (CPE) courses to assist educators in utilizing the oral histories and website content as instructional resources.
How can online resources and educator workshops provide opportunities to focus on local regimes of truth with individuals constructing new knowledge forms related to equal educational opportunities?
The researchers will design teaching guides and CPE 1-credit online courses that prepare educators to utilize the project website content as instructional tools for students. Metrics include # of website content downloads and # of CPE workshop attendees; Survey responses from web users and CPE participant evaluations.
Project Objective #3

9. Findings from Analysis of 15 Interviews
Themes
Sub-themes
Desegregation Plan (177)
Integrate Schools (73)
Traditional Schools (55)
Provisions of Plan (49)
Community’s Reactions to Desegregation (72)
Impact on Community (32)
Mixed Feelings (19)
Parent Involvement (12)
Charter Schools (9)
Lessons from a Contested Field (71)
Focus on Academic Outcomes (28)
Reclaim Children (22)
Preparation and Recruitment (21)
Views about Integration (59)
Benefits (37)
Mixed Achievement (22)
Dangerous Memories of Institutional Racism (32)
Differential Treatment (17)
Racial Attitudes (15)

10. Project Website
For more details about our investigation and to interact with our website materials, please visit the website below: