Nate Hogan was recently interviewed by KCUR for the Article![]()
Students In Kansas City Classrooms Are More Diverse, But School Boards Remain Mostly White
By ELLE MOXLEY • SEP 26, 2019 KCUR 89.3
Across the metro, Kansas City schools are serving more students of color, especially Latinos, but that diversity isn’t reflected on school boards.
Without representation, students of color can feel like no one’s looking out for their interests.
Those tensions played out recently in Lee’s Summit, where the all-white school board clashed with the district’s first black superintendent over diversity training. But that’s exactly the kind of training educators need to better serve children of color, said Nate Hogan, a Kansas City Public Schools board member who is black.
“That’s not to say that an all-white school board full of folks who come from higher incomes and stable environments can’t be effective,” Hogan said. “But I do think it would be a lot more difficult for them to have a perspective that aligns with the kids’ perspective without some serious coaching and training and professional development to help them really, truly understand where these kids are coming from.”
KCUR asked school board members for 18 metro-area school districts to self-identify their race and gender; 16 boards responded in full. Of those 112 board members – 58 women and 54 men – 87 identified as white, 22 identified as black or African American, two identified as biracial and one identified as Latino.
