Rift Between Board, Chief Has K.C. in Turmoil
The contentious relationship between Kansas City, Mo., Superintendent Benjamin Demps Jr. and school board members has temporarily derailed the district's desegregation case and spurred state lawmakers to speed up plans to take over the troubled system.
Public disagreements between board members and Mr. Demps over management issues and the possible state takeover also have put the superintendent's future with the 29,500-student district in doubt.
The uncertainty surrounding Mr. Demps' tenure prompted the district's lawyers to withdraw a court motion for "unitary" status, which would declare Kansas City free of the vestiges of segregated schooling and release it from more than two decades of court supervision under a desegregation order. The school system must prove to the court that...
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