The Kansas City Beacon

Independence School District Superintendent Dale Herl feels targeted by the state for moving to a four-day school week. On Wednesday, Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick announced a plan to audit the district. Independence schools aren’t accused of wrongdoing, and no one asked for an audit. Rather, it’s Fitzpatrick’s first foray into conducting more routine audits of some of the state’s 518 school districts, something he .

Takeaways: Kansas City has the highest rate of unsheltered people experiencing long-term homelessness in the country, with 96% living on the streets. Last year, the City Council awarded Hope Faith Homeless Assistance Campus $7.1 million in federal funds for a low-barrier shelter. It rescinded the grant later in response to neighborhood objections. A low-barrier shelter is seen as key to meeting the Zero KC goal of essentially ending homelessness by 2030.

Takeaways: The aftermath of the pandemic, the proliferation of smartphones and social media have contributed to a growing demand for youth mental health services. Shortages of psychiatric hospital beds and providers make it harder to get them help. A program in some area school districts tries to reach kids early and teach emotional skills that can carry them into adulthood. Melvin White sits with his generation at a demographic Ground Zero for mental stress.

Takeaways: Missouri Republicans’ plan to raise the threshold for passing initiative petitions failed amid intraparty discord and a Democratic filibuster. The bill aimed to make passing initiative petitions harder ahead of a potential November vote on allowing access to abortion. Republicans couldn’t agree on an approach to passing the bill, effectively killing it in the final hours of the legislative session.

A sparkly new development coming to Kansas City’s riverfront? Like we haven’t heard that line before. Seemingly every decade like clockwork, somebody pushes an idea that would finally put Kansas City’s 55-acre blemish along the Missouri River to good use. And, inevitably, the proposal ends up elsewhere — and the riverfront remains empty. It’s not for lack of trying.

The line of children filing down the hallway of George Melcher Elementary School in Kansas City seemed endless. “This is one first grade class,” Principal LaKeisha Paul said. “How many kids do you have?” she called to the teacher. The answer was 32. It’s hard to keep track. New students have continued to pour into Melcher throughout the school year. The kindergarten-through-sixth grade school went from 298 students in early September to 413 in mid-April,a nearly 39% increase. Growth didn’t stop there.

Whether Missouri legalizes abortion and sports betting, allows a casino at the Lake of the Ozarks or raises the minimum wage hinges on whether state and local officials judge that most of 1.25 million signatures on four petitions are legitimate. The secretary of state’s office has three more weeks to process the petitions and ship them to county clerks to verify the signatures.

School districts in Jackson County saw home property assessments leap by nearly a third — and add more heft to their tax bases. They set their property tax rates lower to reflect the beefier assessments — amid a furor from homeowners and politicians contending the numbers inflated the real value of properties in the county. That tossed Jackson County into the center of a court challenge from the state that could test who can challenge assessments and how. Meanwhile, those schools?

In some ways, a number changed how we viewed the pandemic. Early in the spread of COVID-19, the federal government made hospitals report how many of their beds were filled with patients suffering from the virus. News accounts — and often hospitals themselves — began sharing that tally with the public. The COVID count became a grim daily thermometer of how quickly the virus was coursing through a community. Health experts say it became an important reality check.

Takeaways: Kansas City and Missouri have recorded a rise in missing persons cases. The Kansas City Police Department has faced criticism police don’t take cases of missing Black people seriously enough and that filing a report is too hard. Distrust between Black communities and law enforcement discourages families from coming forward about missing family members.