Stories

On a beautiful Tuesday in May, the seniors in the Harrisonville High School class of 2025 fanned out across their town to help people. All of the yard work, painting, tidying and other odd jobs were these students’ way of giving back to the community that gave them so much.

Grain Valley School District staff members have changed the lives of students like Jonah and Brenton, but not all of those staff members are human. Each Grain Valley school has a highly trained therapy dog that helps students feel ready to learn.

In the Blue Springs School District, elementary students are excited to practice their lessons, because they get to work with a robot that personalizes the learning to them. And when they succeed, the robot might dance, play air guitar or ask them for a fist bump!

Grandview High School was such a positive, supportive learning environment for Alec Burks that when he went on to become a professional basketball player in the NBA, he knew he wanted to stay connected to his school.

In public schools around the Kansas City region, the first day of school is a time of positive anticipation. In Liberty, Carter experienced her very first day as a kindergartener, with her mother as a teacher in the same building. Baron experienced his very last first day of school as a senior at Liberty High School. This sweet story, told by the Liberty Public Schools team, shows all the excitement of these experiences.

Using power tools, each fifth grader in the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District gets to build their own wooden birdhouse. This project gives them the opportunity to try something entirely new while opening their eyes to career pathways they might never consider otherwise. Check out our story about how Lee’s Summit educators created this innovative program to inspire their students early as they prepare for successful futures.

Leah Mayfield isn’t afraid of being scared anymore. Mayfield and two other Northland Career Center students successfully presented an “American Spirit” project at the state SkillsUSA competition and advanced to the SkillsUSA National Leadership & Competitions event in Atlanta. Achieving that success required extraordinary confidence, as she shared her expertise and insights with judges she’s never met. That’s something the Kearney High School student never would have attempted before enrolling at NCC and joining the SkillsUSA club.

The Spill the Beans coffee shop at the LEAD Center in the Raymore-Peculiar School District gives students in the transitional skills program a chance to learn hands-on employability skills, and it gives other students the opportunity to learn from these important classmates.

At just 14, Halley Vincent is rewriting the bookselling game! Meet the youngest bookseller in the country, breaking records and reshaping teen entrepreneurship with Seven Stories bookstore in downtown Shawnee.

In a groundbreaking competition at Platte County High School, students EmmaLyn Burnett, Lucy McClain, and Katherine Morgan emerged victorious in the PCHS Aspiring Entrepreneurs contest. With innovative business plans and a focus on real-world skills, each winner received $10,000 to kickstart their ventures, showcasing the power of creativity, philanthropy, and determination in education.