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A college drop-out abandons a lucrative tech career for a life of inner-city poverty – and hopes to save an urban school district from oblivion

By Carolyn Szczepanski 

It's a horrible time to run for the Kansas City, Missouri, School Board.

Yet on a windy January evening, the Durwin Rice Gallery — a two-room storefront near 55th Street and Troost — is packed with people mingling casually, sipping red wine and snacking on cheese cubes under the striking collages hanging on the walls. They're here to support one of the only candidates to file for the election.

It's been nearly a decade since state officials stripped the Kansas City, Missouri, School District of its accreditation, and parents are impatient for administrators to find a way to raise test scores and eliminate the stigma so long associated with area schools. And now, the board has to sort out messy details after a divisive vote in November that turned over seven Kansas City schools to the Independence School District. And it has to find a new leader after ousting Superintendent Anthony Amato. Amato was the district's 24th superintendent in 39 years; he'd served just 18 months.

Few people seem interested in trying to change the leadership in a tattered district responsible for educating 27,000 children. Of the four board seats coming up for a vote in April, only one will be contested. In the 3rd Subdistrict, incumbent Duane Kelly is running unopposed. In the 5th Subdistrict, parent Ray Wilson is the only person who filed for the vacated seat. And nobody filed for the empty seat in the 1st Subdistrict — that chair will have to be filled by a write-in candidate.

The lone challenger is Airick Leonard West. He's running against incumbent Bill Eddy, a professor emeritus at UMKC's Bloch School of Business. (Eddy tells The Pitch that he'd never heard of West until West called him to let him know he was running. The two sat down for a brief discussion, but Eddy says he's waiting for upcoming forums to discuss their policy differences.)

Dressed in a neat business suit, West is a handsome 28-year-old with short braids and a quiet demeanor. An hour into his kickoff party at Durwin Rice Gallery, it's his moment to tell the packed room of lawyers, parents and politicians why they should support his bid for the at-large seat.

His pitch is simple. He's running on a unity platform that he says will better involve Kansas City's political and civic institutions in the life of the district's schools. He promises to identify policies that are working and throw out rules that aren't.

A longtime community activist, West has the kind of résumé that gives his name cache in many political circles. With his experience and reputation, West could run for the City Council or the statehouse — and win. Instead, he's vying for an unglamorous post that virtually nobody wants.

But there's more to West than what this crowd sees.

He barely made it through high school, and he left college before he got a degree. For West, though, running for school board makes perfect sense.

At the corner of 33rd Street and Wabash is a two-story home with dull, weather­worn siding. A mattress pokes out of a broken window on the second floor. On a recent Friday morning, a jittery man crisscrosses the block trying to sell a "Foot Spa" jammed inside a tattered cardboard box. Teenage boys who should be on buses headed for school roughhouse as they saunter down the street.

The front door is off its hinges, held in place with an armchair and a couple of plastic buckets. After West pushes it back and slides the door to the side, he hops up and shoves a blue towel into the gaping crack at the top of the frame. It's been weeks since a teenager busted it down in a moment of anger. By now, West is used to the chair-bucket-towel routine.

Boards are propped against the windows to block the cutting draft. In the darkened living room, furniture consists of a couch stacked with blankets and a couple of bookshelves. Along the walls, electrical wires bloom like weeds. An exposed-brick column divides the dining area from the kitchen.

There's no TV or stereo, no family photos on the walls. The one hub of activity is a small table next to the kitchen, where a computer sits amid a sea of paper. West spends most of his time at that station, near an open vent that blows warm air into the chilly space.

In his attic bedroom, West sleeps on top of a few blankets on the floor.

In the short hallway to the bathroom, a handful of suits and coats hang on a rail. West doesn't own a pair of jeans. He did invest in some sweat pants for the campaign — when he's staying up until 4 a.m. studying school district data, he sheds the suit. It cuts down on dry-cleaning costs.

West describes himself as a neighborhood guy, devoted first to the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council. His roommate, Robyne Turner, is a fellow neighborhood activist.

They know their living arrangement is unconventional. West's work is almost exclusively grass-roots; Turner is a professor at UMKC. West is a 28-year-old bachelor. Turner describes herself as a "madcap divorcée." But the multiracial, multigenerational, intentionally minimalist household is built on a common vision.

Almost six years ago, Turner moved from Florida to Brookside to chair the Cookingham Institute of Urban Affairs at UMKC. When West was working on the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Plan, he sent out a plea for area officials to lend their expertise to the neighborhood's efforts. West says nobody replied except Turner.

At first, he was skeptical about an ivory-tower professor dictating knowledge to the lowly citizens. But Turner was anything but overbearing. The two found they had similar interests and sarcastic senses of humor.

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