Leading Out Loud

Profile

CINDY LANE, superintendent of the Kansas City, Kan., schools, says she enjoys “leading from the back of the room” and freeing people to do what they do best. But when the times demand it, she does not hesitate to stand up front.

Witness her September blog post titled “Dreamers, We Stand With You,” in which she roundly condemned the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “I feel deep sadness, and frankly disgust, at the decision by the administration to end the DACA program,” she wrote. “Are we really willing to discard 800,000 youth, who believed in our promise that America would do what is right by them?”

It was a particularly scathing post from her professional blog, “It’s Up to Us,” which has a link on the school district’s home page. But it is hardly an outlier. She has written and spoken passionately about issues of diversity, immigration and fiscal equity.

“Some superintendents and their boards might prefer advocacy that isn’t quite as out-front,” she says. “But because of my community and my kids and thankfully with the support of the board, I’ve had the opportunity to be a little more frank.”

Lane, 57, assumed the top post in the 22,000-student district in 2010. The system has a 90 percent poverty rate and is one of the most diverse school systems in the country. In fact, Wyandotte County, which encompasses Kansas City, is one of only two counties in the nation where no racial group has a majority, and where blacks, whites and Hispanics all comprise more than 25 percent of the population. (The other is Broward County, Fla.)

Richard Mabion, the NAACP local chapter president, says Lane values all of the district’s voices. “She’s like one of us, and that’s real,” he says.

Mabion praises the superintendent’s leadership in a statewide battle for funding equity, as well as her push for career academies in the district’s high schools. He’s effusive about her part in creating the Diploma Plus program, which lays out several distinct routes to high school graduation, including a year’s worth of college courses, a trade certification or a 21 on the ACT.

Another admirer, Kansas Education Commissioner Randy Watson, calls Lane, who was state Superintendent of the Year in 2016, “my hero.” He adds: “Cindy’s out to change kids’ lives. When she takes a position, it’s a moral position for her to do what’s best for the kids and the clientele she serves, and that’s rare.”

Lane knows firsthand how it feels to struggle. She had trouble learning to read in a school that emphasized sight words over phonics. It wasn’t until 7th grade that a teacher recognized her difficulties and began to put the pieces together.

Her first job out of college was teaching in special education in Independence, Kan., near her hometown of Parsons, and she worked with people with disabilities for the next 25 years as a teacher and administrator.

In 2006, while working as special education director in Kansas City, she was recruited into the two-pronged post of assistant superintendent of instruction and business. Four years later she became the district’s top leader and fiercest public advocate.

“I think I have a responsibility to speak for the children and families in my community,” she says. “My view of this job is that it’s about doing my job, not keeping my job.”