SchoolSmartKC Newsletter – 2026 Quarter 3

Living Our Pillars

Friends,

Our city gained ground last school year in every grade band we serve, PreK through high school. No single organization, school, grant, or leader did that alone. Our district and charter schools, educators, families, funders, business community, a university research partner, and the community organizations that support our students chose to work as one system. Leaders in other cities keep calling to ask how Kansas City accomplished this level of collaboration.

Our PreK Cooperative measured its incoming class at 23% kindergarten ready in fall 2025. By spring 2026, that same class was at 83%. Sixty points in one year, and that class walked into kindergarten this August ready for what was waiting.

A student in our partner schools who needed care once waited up to 10 months. In year three of our school-based mental health pilot, that wait is now 10 days or less, thanks to our schools and clinical partners. Hear it from them in this clip.

Across Cohorts 1 and 2, our Literacy for All Students initiative supported 12 schools throughout the year, grades K through 3. The Urban Education Research Center at UMKC, which collects and analyzes each cohort’s data, reports the share of students in the bottom quartile fell from 46.6% in spring 2025 to 36.8% this spring. Each point is a child reading closer to grade level than a year ago. Growth moves first, and proficiency follows. LFAS now reaches 15 schools across 8 LEAs, district and charter, nearly 40% of the elementary schools in our public education system.

Bellwether studied why this works in Kansas City, and why the role of SchoolSmartKC is critical. Plenty of cities run multiple programs, fewer connect them. Bellwether found that a trusted backbone organization operating across LEAs, layered supports adapted to each school’s context, and funders coordinated to commit for four years create the momentum that strengthens student success. Underneath it sits the part that took the most time, relationships handled with care until they became trust. Watch that reflection here.

We set a Market Value Asset goal of 500 for last school year. Our students exceeded that goal earning 769: college credits, certifications, and real work experiences all verified through students  credentials.

Legislation belongs in a system-wide structure too. It only holds when the people putting it into practice choose a collective goal. SchoolSmartKC’s system-wide approach and proximity to implementation are informing policy language being prepared for the upcoming legislative session.

Every number listed here and in the links below belong to our system’s educators, instructional coaches, school leaders, families, funders and partners who stayed with it all year. Standing alongside them is the privilege of this work. SchoolSmartKC did not produce these results – our connected community did. When our schools have what they need, our students’ success accelerates.

Come build 2026-27 and beyond with us – our Students, our City, our Future.

Email me at anedved@schoolsmartkc.org. We’ll sit down and find where you fit.

Angelique Nedved
President & CEO

SSKC and the Children’s Services Fund launched the School-Based Collaborative for Mental Health as a pilot after schools shared an ongoing need – student referrals stalling. The collaborative now connects five charter schools and six community agencies through a central hub, so students receive support without sitting on a waitlist. The video walks through our progress on referrals and time to care.

Real World Learning Exceeds Annual Goal

by Stanley Taylor

Through our Real World Learning initiative, SchoolSmartKC is helping bridge the gap between classroom learning and career readiness by connecting schools, employers, higher education, and community partners. Students have opportunities to earn Market Value Assets (MVAs), experiences and credentials that employers and colleges recognize as indicators of career readiness. These include industry-recognized credentials, college credit, internships, entrepreneurial experiences, and youth apprenticeships. During the 2025–26 school year, students from 7 high schools collectively earned 769 MVAs, surpassing our SY 2025-26 goal of 500 and building momentum toward SchoolSmartKC’s goal of 1,500 MVAs in the 2026–27 school year.

We’re excited to announce the new partnership with Kansas City Public School District (KCPS) that will help bring even more Real World Learning opportunities to students across Kansas City. This partnership represents an important step forward in our shared commitment to ensuring that every student has a meaningful opportunity to graduate with a credential in their pocket – Career-Readiness Together, SSKC and KCPS will expand access to a Principal of Business MVA so that 9th and 10th grade students can connect what they learn in the classroom to careers, industries and communities they will be a part of tomorrow.

As we work towards 1,500 MVAs for this current school year, partnership with all Kansas City School Leaders will help us reach more students, deepen connections with Kansas City employers and community partners, and create more pathways for students to explore careers, build skills, earn credentials, and see a future for themselves in Kansas City.

This work is about more than earning a credential. Real World Learning gives students opportunities to develop technical skills, professional experience, critical thinking, communication, teamwork, and leadership while exploring high-demand career pathways such as healthcare, technology, construction, manufacturing, and teaching. By bringing educators, employers, families, and community partners together, SchoolSmartKC is helping strengthen Kansas City’s talent pipeline and prepare more young people to make informed decisions about their futures.

This is an expansion and an investment in our students, building the long-term economic strength and future of Kansas City.

Kindergarten Readiness Increases to 83%

by Kris Collins

This year, the Pre-K Cooperative added 75 more students! SchoolSmartKC is investing in new early childcare providers across our city and expanding our current partners to serve more of our youngest learners. Let’s welcome our newest members to the Cooperative family – Learning and Fun Preschool, Kids in Christ Preschool, and Community LINC who has a new licensed childcare center, Community Kids Early Learning and Wellness. Additionally, Genesis Charter School added a new transitional Kindergarten classroom at Emmanuel Family and Child Development Center, and Gordon Parks Elementary is now partnering with Kids in Christ Academy. We look forward to this school year with our new partners!

August marks the start of the new school year for the Pre-K Cooperative, with a focus on strengthening instructional quality and student support across all Cooperative sites. The month began with the annual Summer Institute (August 5–6), providing professional learning for all pre-K educators in evidence-based instructional practices, including Tier I and Tier II interventions, data-informed instruction, and Greg Tang Math, while preparing teaching teams for the new school year. Let’s hear directly from our PreK professionals here.

On August 14, a national Conscious Discipline trainer provided advanced professional development to reinforce implementation of social-emotional practices and address challenges identified during the previous school year.

The first quarter of professional development will end in September when our PreK and Kindergarten educators gather for combined learning and alignment. The training will focus on the importance of play in the 21st century and partnerships and policy. By providing high-quality professional development for our teachers, we can ensure more of our pre-K students start their elementary school journey Kindergarten ready. Last year, at the beginning of the school year, only 24% of our pre-K students were Kindergarten ready. By the end of the school year, that percentage increased to 83%, as measured by the PreKindergaten Observation Form (PKOF), collected and analyzed by MARC. We know high-quality, rigorous professional development works, and it is the foundation of everything we do in the Cooperative.

Literacy for All Students – Cohort 3 launches with first Corporate funder

by Robin Henderson, PhD

The new school year marks another important milestone for Literacy for All Students (LFAS) with the launch of Cohort 3. Three additional schools are joining this city-wide effort to ensure every Kansas City child becomes a strong, confident reader, bringing the total number of participating schools to 15 since LFAS launched in the 2024–2025 school year.

Faxon Elementary and Wheatley Elementary, both part of Kansas City Public Schools, join Brookside Charter School in this year’s cohort. Like the schools in the first two cohorts, each will receive a four-year investment focused on accelerating third-grade reading achievement, with a goal of increasing reading proficiency by 10 percentage points over four years.

The launch of Cohort 3 also marks an exciting first for LFAS: Kiewit has become the initiative’s first corporate funder. Through its employee-driven Power of Hope Foundation, Kiewit is investing $1 million in Literacy for All Students to support the work at Brookside Charter School.

This significant commitment broadens the coalition of philanthropic and community partners investing in Kansas City’s young readers and demonstrates the important role the business community can play in creating lasting change for students.

Dan Lumma, President and CEO of Kiewit, shares why this investment aligns with Kiewit’s commitment to the communities where its employees live and work.

With 15 schools now participating, the momentum continues. Fundraising is already underway to bring additional schools into Literacy for All Students for the 2027–2028 school year.

Each new cohort moves us closer to our larger vision: a Kansas City where every child has the literacy foundation needed to succeed in school and beyond.