Breaking News Update! KC School Superintendent John Covington Resigns! Board Has Not Accepted Resignation

img02860

In a move with no advance warning, Kansas City School Superintendent John Covington tendered his resignation to the school board Wednesday night.

That has touched off another round of turmoil in a district in a district known throughout the nation for turmoil.

A school Board spokesman, Andre Riley says Covington tendered his resignation to the board at the Wednesday evening meeting. Riley also says the board has not accepted Covington’s resignation. Riley says the board will have a closed meeting to discuss the sudden developments.

Kansas City AFT Union President Andrea Flinders was at the meeting. She says  “This could not have happened at a worst time”. Flinders and Covington have clashed in the past on issues of teacher jobs, assignment and pay.

Flinders says Board President Arick West announced the Covington resignation “and they went along with the board meeting like nothing was wrong”.

Covington did not give a reason for his resignation but there are reports of a growing gulf between Covington and Board President West.

The gulf may have something to do with an upcoming newspaper article about delays in a large construction project the school district is about to embark upon. Covington and West may be in disagreement over how the project was handled.

Spokesman Riley says neither Covington, nor his cabinet nor the school board will have anything to say tonight about Covington’s bombshell announcement.

After Covington jolted the board with his resignation, School Board Member Arthur Benson announced that if Covington was out, he is leaving, too.

Benson says  he resigned from the school board at 5:53pm tonight following a closed-door session with the school board. He said his resignation followed that of the resignation of superintendent Dr. Covington. Benson wouldn’t go into why Dr. Covington resigned but did say he would take back his resignation if Dr. Covington came back but said if Dr. Covington is out,” I’m out”.

He wrote his resignation out by hand three minutes after Covington submitted his resignation and handed it to  West.

Covington was hired in July of 2009.

His no- nonsense style was welcomed by the business and political community. The Kansas City, Missouri School District is one of more than a dozen districts within the city limits. But its reputation as a  struggling school system with monumental problems is a black eye on  rest of Kansas City, Missouri.

Covington’s biggest  accomplishment as Superintendent has been the controversial closing of more than two doesn school buildings because of a dramatic drop in student enrollment.

According to the Missouri Department of Education Kansas City’s enrollment was almost 26,000 students in 2006. By 2010, it had dropped to under 17,000. It  continues to drop.

The academic  problems of the schools are so severe it is on provisional  accreditation from the state of Missouri.  Patrons of several schools on the east side of the district organized a successful move to flee the district and join  the neighboring Independence, Missouri school system in 2007.

In the recent Missouri Assessment Program test scores, the Kansas City district actually had worse this year than last year.

The superintendent and school leaders blamed the reversal on the turmoil in the school system because of the building closures last year.

By most accounts, Covington is the district’s 26th superintendent in 40 years.