Kansas Policy Institute

Always great to welcome on and say good morning to, uh, Dave Trabert.

He is joining us from the Kansas Policy Institute.

He is their CEO.

And, uh, I wanna start, Dave, always good to have you on the show, in Lansing, and that is where you have school boards trying to silence school board members because they have the audacity to be student-focused instead of systems-focused.

They've got it upside down.

Wow.

Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute CEO, is joining us.

We have not talked to you, Dave, since the Olathe closures.

Uh, it's just, it's, it's unbelievable.

We've got, uh, James Franko with the Kansas Policy Institute joining us here on Monday in the morning.

And you had the Olathe superintendent get named the Kansas Superintendent of the Year less than a week after he closes six schools in Olathe.

Uh, you can't make it up, James.

Without intending to sound elitist, it is nonetheless true that housing costs in our district often provide a check on resident student growth now." So it's not surprising that he was out of touch in his comments just in the last couple of days because he was out of touch in his comments a half a decade ago as well.

That's a good point.

James Franko, Kansas Policy Institute, is joining us on KCMO.

And let's not forget, you know, the money is spen- Uh, the district is spending a lot of money on lawyers and, and legal battles as well that they have willingly taken up.

95.7 FM, KCMO Talk Radio.

They always have amazing data at the Kansas Policy Institute.

That's why we love having them on.

Dave Traubert is here on KCMO Talk Radio.

And make... require them to publish, as part of their budget, a one-page summary of all the reserves they hold.

Well said.

Dave Traubert, Kansas Policy Institute.

Keep up the great work, Dave.

Yet at the same time, what do they do and what have they done? Well, we've talked about it ad nauseum on this show.

Dave Traubert was here yesterday with the Kansas Policy Institute highlighting the fact that Olathe has continued to grow its non-teaching positions.

In fact, since 2020, they've lost 2,200 students and they've added 250 new non-teaching positions while eliminating 93 teachers.

Their administrator to student ratio is one of the highest or lowest, depending on how you want to look at it, meaning they have more administrators per pupil than most schools do in the area.

All right, Dave Roberts here on KCMO in Kansas City.

He is with, of course, our friends at the Kansas Policy Institute.

He's got a new piece that just dropped this morning on SentinelKSMO.org. Right-sizing staffing is an alternative to closing schools in Olathe.

Of course, they want to close six schools.

We did a piece yesterday that talks about the Lansing School District is trying to pass a new policy that says if a board member asks for information, it has to be approved by the majority of board members.

That's designed to stifle board members looking into how money is being spent.

Dave Traubert, Kansas Policy Institute.

Great stuff as always.