True, but SWHS (and Bingham) went downhill years before the elementary schools. When I was at Bryant in the late 70's and early 80's it was a very good school with about a 50/50 bussed/neighborhood ratio. By the time I finished there in 1985, the Bingham/SWHS route was already crazy enough that my parents sent me to Lincoln. I think SWHS would have fared better for a little bit longer if there had been a middle school in Brookside and it wasn't tethered to Bingham. But it was conversion of Lincoln to college prep that really killed it. There were dozens of Brookside kids there with me whose parents had no problem with bussing if it meant their kid could go to a college prep school, no matter where in the city it was.

If JoCo wants to rebuild that area they need to put money into redeveloping retail, transit and such.

They can't ignore the old part of the county and just put edge sprawl and cut taxes. It's an exercise in ending up right where KC is today.

KC finally rebuilding the core of the city about 30 years after it needed to start and it's growing as a result. I expect the KCMO schools to slowly improve in fits and starts as a result.

The city has done something interesting. The trend for 100 years was for people with means to move outwards. Raytown then Lee's Summit, for example.

Now this same demographic is moving to downtown where values are up. I expect to see the ring effect move outwards over time.
the people who are displaced from central KC are moving outwards again to old parts of JoCo and such.

the result is a need for modern amenities in the older parts of town. KC gets a streetcar, NW JoCo gets busses.

I expect the old suburbs within range of transit to become working class that's far more racially diverse, downtown becomes a place for people with good paying urban jobs, and the edge suburbs become a place for local service workers, workers for a specific business or people who can afford to commute without transit.

the east side is the big question. I expect parts of it to gentrify, how far it goes is the question

I have been very active in my NE JoCo HOA for over a decade. In 2000, we had 25% original (or near original) owners in our 302 ranch home subdivision. Today, we are down to 5% or so. These homes were built from 1958-1962 and are almost all one-story ranging from 1700s.f. to 2300s.f. Not large homes, but not tiny either. We don’t see a lot of turnover, but I bet almost half of the houses have turned over in the past decade. Since they are all one-story homes, 75% of the buyers are recent retirees and only 25% are bought by families. The local grade school is excellent and we have a great catholic grade school very close, but the older buyers keep buying up these houses which keeps the families out. I do not see a shift to a younger population anytime soon in my neighborhood because the one-story homes keep attracting older buyers that are looking to get out of their split-level or two story houses. They buy in at 65 and sell when they die or are forced into assisted living. The cycle continues…..

One of my former original-owner neighbors told me there were 60 kids on our two blocks in the mid-1960s. Today, there are two…..and they are both mine.

This is what I had heard back in the 90's, IIRC, that there were (at the time probably just a few) elementary schools that did qualify for Title I but it was Shawnee Mission and Shawnee Mission is not poor. If that is the case, it is a very shortsighted policy. It leaves a ton of money on the table.

I think the last statistic I read is only about 25 percent of homes in the KC Metro have children living in them.

Interesting article on the challenges facing SMSD and their new super (who left from the Independence SD). The school district population is getting more free/reduced lunches, and less white, and the district has had to shutter a number of schools, but still continues to produce high academic achievements.

it still has a good reputation, Center SD has also had some success but it's poor reputation continues, Raytown SD seems to be slipping, Hickman Mills SD may soon join the KCMO SD without accretion. People also might think an old house in Prairie Village or Old Leawood will need a lot of work VS a new House near 159th and Metcalf. I'm guess the schools with the highest minority populations or free/reduced lunch qualifications are in the NE JoCo or in areas with a lot of apartment complexes that have high rate of transiency like the Center SD which also has a large of amount of old original homeowners without kids

Olathe SD is in a similar situation, as far as free/reduced lunches go.