Lee's Summit R-7 School District: Gold Star and Blue Ribbon Schools

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: Gold Star and Blue Ribbon Schools



These state and national programs recognize high-achieving and improving schools. At the state level, the Gold Star Schools Program is the recognition program administered by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The rigorous criteria of the Gold Star Schools program is aligned with the national Blue Ribbon Schools program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.



Please play close attention to how many of our schools are on this list.  Also, look at the dates. Blue Springs had several elementary schools on this list.  We had none.  This list goes back to 1992.  Can we continue to say that we are the best?

Missouri’s Gold Star Schools program was established by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in 1991 and is designed to identify schools that are performing at a high level academically or making exceptional progress.

The National Blue Ribbon Schools program and the Missouri Gold Star Schools program utilize the same criteria for nomination. In order to recommend a school to the Commissioner of Education as a Missouri Gold Star School, the school must meet the nomination criteria outlined by the U.S. Department of Education for the National Blue Ribbon Schools program, complete the National Blue Ribbon Schools application and the U.S. Department of Education must accept the schools National Blue Ribbon Schools application.

The Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes schools whose students achieve at very high levels or schools that make significant progress in closing the achievement gap. The Blue Ribbon Schools Program sets a standard of excellence for all schools striving for the highest level of achievement. 

Missouri may nominate up to eight (8) schools for the national Blue Ribbon Award. One-third of the schools (3) must be identified as disadvantaged schools. To be nominated, schools must have at least 100 students enrolled. In addition, nominated schools must have assessment data for at least 10 students in each tested grade for both English language arts (ELA) and mathematics.

Gold Star Schools 



1992 - 2013





Lee's Summit North High School    Lee's Summit R-VII        2002 

Lee's Summit Sr. High School        Lee's Summit R-VII        2008, 93 



Lee's Summit West High School    Lee's Summit R-VII        2013



Blue Springs High School                Blue Springs R-IV          2008 

Brittany Hill Middle School               Blue Springs R-IV          2004, 00

Chapel Lakes Elementary School   Blue Springs R-IV         1999 

Georgeff-Baker Middle School        Blue Springs R-IV         1998



Hall-McCarter Middle School          Blue Springs R-IV          1997 

Lucy Franklin Elementary School    Blue Springs R-IV         1996



Moreland Ridge Middle School      Blue Springs R-IV          2002 



THE NATIONAL BLUE RIBBON SCHOOLS PROGRAM
RECOGNIZING GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOLS SINCE 1982

Founded in 1982, the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes public and private elementary, middle, and high schools where students perform at very high levels or where significant improvements are being made in students' academic achievement. A National Blue Ribbon Schools flag overhead has become a mark of excellence in education recognized by everyone from parents to policy-makers in thousands of communities. Since the program's founding, the U. S. Department of Education has bestowed this coveted award on more than 7,000 of America's schools.

National Blue Ribbon Award Winners 

Missouri

Chapel Lakes Elementary School      Lee’s Summit        98-99 

Lee's Summit West High School        Lee's Summit        2013 

Blue Springs High School                  Blue Springs          82-83 

Blue Springs Junior High School        Blue Springs          86-87

Brittany Hill Middle School               Blue Springs          2004

Lucy Franklin Elementary School      Blue Springs          96-97

Moreland Ridge Middle School         Blue Springs         01-02

Why I’m not feeling blue on Autism Day | Irish Examiner

Why I’m not feeling blue on Autism Day | Irish Examiner

The message being used by one organisation is instilling fear and hatred about the condition, says Fiona O’Leary, who has Asperger’s.

TODAY is World Autism Awareness Day, and the sound of alarm bells ringing is eerily unsettling to me, and to many other people who are on the autism spectrum.

I did not use the term ‘disorder’, as I do not feel disordered and I object to this negative language. But who will speak for me, and for the autistic community?

We have a voice, we are connecting and supporting each other, yet we are not being heard above the mainstream portrayal of autism as a ‘devastating disorder’. We are being left out of most discussions regarding our future, because the stereotype of us is so debilitating.

Nineteen years ago, my son was diagnosed with autism.

It was not easy then, but as challenging as it was, I feel the parents whose child is diagnosed today receive a barrage of negative information from powerful ‘awareness’ groups.

One such organisation is Autism Speaks, which is the driving force behind the ‘Light It Up Blue’ campaign that has been adopted by many of the prominent Irish autism charities and awareness groups.

I, for one, and many other individuals on the spectrum, along with the majority of self-advocacy groups, will not be lighting anything blue, and for indisputably good reasons.

Firstly, Autism Speaks’s senior leadership does not include a single autistic person, and excludes autistic adults from its board of directors, leadership team, and other positions of seniority.

In November, 2013, John Elder Robison, the only Autism Speaks advisory board member who is on the autistic spectrum, resigned his post.

Elder Robison was protesting the organisation’s portrayal of ‘the problem’, which described the families of autistic children as not living, but merely existing.

Elder Robison stated in his resignation letter that after four years of attempting to reform the organisation from the inside, he had been unsuccessful, and he could no longer be a part of the “only major medical or mental health, nonprofit organisation whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a large percentage of the people affected by the condition they target”.

In one of Autism Speaks’s most prominent fundraising and awareness videos, one of its executives says how she had considered driving off the Washington Bridge with her autistic child.

She didn’t, because she had a ‘normal child’ also. Her words were spoken while her autistic child was playing, within earshot, in the background. Another video, the now infamous ‘I Am Autism’ ad campaign, tells the listener that ‘autism’ knows where you live, that it is an epidemic worse than cancer, AIDS, and diabetes combined, that it will destroy your marriage and make you bankrupt, that you will never go to a church, a park, a birthday party again, without a struggle, without embarrassment. Is it any wonder that lady felt like driving off a bridge: how long can one breathe in this demonisation and horror?

There is much more to highlight about this organisation, but if the reasons here are not alarming, then we need to wake up from the utopia of ignorance in which we doze.

Because Autism Speaks does not speak for me and I have Asperger’s.

It does not speak for my two wonderful and gifted boys, my reasons to live, who are on the autistic spectrum.

Yet Autism Speaks is ‘sounding the alarm’ with their latest awareness campaign, around the world and, most worryingly, right here in Ireland.

I participated on the panel of the final public consultation meeting of the IARB (Irish Autism/Neurodevelopmental Registry and Biobank) held at University College Cork last month.

The proposed Registry and Biobank is a partnership between Trinity College Dublin, NUI Galway and Autism Speaks. When I saw Autism Speaks’s logo — of a blue jigsaw piece — occupying equal space on the literature and advertising of a proposed biobank, I was more than a little unhappy. I was stunned at the logic of including an organisation that is controversial within the autistic community in a venture that needs that community’s cooperation if it is to be successful.

I expressed my concerns and I was invited to participate.

Myself and a small group of advocates went to object to the involvement of Autism Speaks, making the logical point that by including Autism Speaks they would be excluding a huge number of autistic people and their families, who rightly boycott that organisation.

Our premise, ‘nothing about us without us, is a good place to start.

Any research that will bring positive benefits to people on the autistic spectrum is welcome. However, the propaganda used by Autism Speaks is instilling fear and hatred about a condition that is struggling to find acceptance in society.

This is one of Autism Speaks’s most controversial videos, which depicts autism as a ‘monster’ coming to get your child.

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: He Just Keeps Going

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: He Just Keeps Going



Isn't he supposed to be objective?  He has already tweeted that one candidate was willing to lie to get what he wants.  We all know that it was not the candidate that was lying.  And now he tweets this.  Is Lee's Summit that blind that they can't see what is going on?  The same people are on every committee in this town.  Do you really think that your voices are ever heard?  Do you wish to continue to be used and abused while you blindly stand by?  I am not willing to give up my right to freedom of speech or my duty to stand up for those that can not.  I hope at some point the rest of the citizens of this city will join me.

	David McGehee @DrDavidMcGehee
R 7 School Board Election today. Don't forget to VOTE! Board-Supt relationship a research-proven key to successful school districts. 12:47 p.m. Tue, Apr 8

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: The Citizens Aren't That Pleased With The Current Board

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: The Citizens Aren't That Pleased With The Current Board

LEE'S SUMMIT SCHOOL BD. - Precincts Reporting: 0%
Winner	Candidate	Votes	Vote %
	HARMON	186	30%
	BAIRD	168	26%
	STORMS	146	23%
	OUSNAMER	136	21%

It is just like when I ran.  The votes go in the order of the list.  Since you are at the bottom it proves that Mark's votes are REAL.  That’s what the Tribune said about me.  Stacey Martin had another idea.

Voters had an option Tuesday of four board candidates for three seats. Maybe the outcome was indicative of lazy voting habits, where the candidates at the top of the ballot get the most votes. Check, check, check and move on. But maybe the outcome was indicative of growing displeasure with the entrenched members of the board. Whatever happened, newcomer Sherri Tucker came close. She was just 2 percent shy of overcoming incumbent Jon Plaas, who won 5,065 to 4,679.

Plaas had a slim 386-vote separation from Tucker. However the top vote getter, Jeff Tindle, had 2,246 more votes than Tucker, and Jack Wiley had 1,878 more votes than the newcomer. Tindle was listed first on the ballot, followed by Wiley, Plaas and then Tucker. The top two candidates were so far ahead of the bottom two that it appears voters were gravitating toward Tucker.

Superintendent's Blog: Father's Day will never be the same

Superintendent's Blog: Father's Day will never be the same



For a minute I felt a little compassion for our Superintendent. It must be hard to watch your child go off and start of life of their own.  Then I remembered that he stole that opportunity from my child and that compassion disappeared.

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: Superintendent's Blog: If we don't advocate for our students and staff, who will?

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: Superintendent's Blog: If we don't advocate for our students and staff, who will?



He never advocated for my son and I can give you a list of people that he hasn't advocated for.  Is he advocating for those that don't need it?  Or those that drink the Kool-Aid.

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: Mark Ousnamer, school board candidate | Election | Lee's Summit Journal

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: Mark Ousnamer, school board candidate | Election | Lee's Summit Journal

Recently, Superintendent David McGehee joined with other superintendents to put forth a plan on the school transfer issue. Missouri Rep. Mike Cierpoit has a recommended plan as well. Do you support either of these plans and why?

No, I don’t support either plan because each is focused on symptoms (transfers) and not the actual problems causing the school district(s) in question to fail. Each plan will address the school transfer issue in theory, with the base goal being to prevent burdening adjacent districts, but neither provides concrete actions to address poor MAP scores. Academie’ Lafayette is an elementary charter school in the Kansas City Missouri School District that I helped establish as one of many involved parents on a shoestring budget. In 2012-2013 it’s students out performed many of Lee’s Summit R-7 elementary schools in combined MAP scores. The key is having the student’s home community providing solid structure and support to remove the need for transfers.

A recent Lee’s Summit R-7 audit revealed mostly good news, with some exceptions in how the district conducts competitive bids. Are you familiar with this audit and does it signal some needed changes?

I am familiar with the audit and I firmly believe that any time the District breaks Missouri State laws and even it’s own administrative procedures that strongly demands changes be made not only in the lack of competitive bids, but also in other flagged areas in this partial audit. Un-monitored purchasing cards with $600,000 monthly limits? Hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to subsidize the Lee’s Summit Educational Foundation? $25,000 to $60,000 in construction change orders being made without bids or authorized signatures? A $15,000 premium membership to the Lee’s Summit Economic Development Council? The superintendent being paid $15,000 per year in car allowance which violates Federal law as well as other undocumented employees getting car allowances. Yes, this signals needed changes.

How is the district poised for future growth in existing school buildings and, perhaps, with new construction?

The District is poised too well. If one looks at the ratios of students to buildings for instance, then in an uncertain economy the ratios should be bumping the upper acceptable limit and not be firmly in the middle. We should be delaying construction to ensure we have enough students to fill the buildings we have and avoid burdening the district with more hard assets that require yet more dollars to construct and maintain.

Cost containment has worked well in recent years following the failed school bond issue. With state funding always in limbo, what financial measures can the district continue to take to stay healthy?

Considering we have the highest paid superintendent in the state and pay a premium to our Central Office staff I think containing from the top should be a priority. We should be professional in how we manage our funds and heed the partial audit. I am also concerned that the CNG fleet conversion cost us far more than is justifiable, but the district has been unable to provide data for review. Extremely large leases like this put a huge cash flow burden on the district. I would also caution against deferred maintenance as has been suggested. With the money the district has tied up in hard assets, massive amounts of equity and value can be lost very quickly unless it is professionally monitored and administered.