Regretfully, she is gone – Tiffany Anderson is now leading Topeka Public Schools in her adoptive home state of Kansas. She no longer serves the Jennings School District, which is now in the hands of new Superintendent Art McCoy.
To prepare for her new position leading the district at the center of the epochal 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case, Anderson has been visiting churches every Sunday in Topeka since February. Visiting local African Methodist Episcopal churches, she met Linda Brown, the child plaintiff in Brown vs. Board of Education, and her mother.
“The great-grandchildren and grandchildren of Linda Brown attend our schools, and the charge to continue to address equity is so very clear,” Anderson told The American.
Anderson has made national news in her valiant, comprehensive effort to turn around the struggling Jennings School District – before, during and after the neighboring municipality of Ferguson erupted – but in Topeka she sees herself taking a place in the history of American education.
“Sixty-two years ago a movement ending segregation began in Topeka, and as the first African-American female charged with leading the 14,000-student district, the movement in making history – and, most importantly, transforming the future – continues,” she said.
Before working a single day on the books for her new district, she had a mobile food bank in Topeka slated to open in August, replicating what she did in Jennings. “And,” she said, “the discussion on school-based clinics and trauma training have also started, as I have been voluntarily planning in Topeka on the weekends and holidays.”
In moving up in scale – the Topeka district is more than four times the size of Jennings, which has some 3,000 students – she believes she can make a larger direct impact now.
“Topeka is the third-largest employer in Kansas, and having a role, as a longtime Kansas resident, in job creation and in job stabilization focused on education is a privilege,” she said, “as we truly work to improve economic opportunity for children and adults.”
Leading the school district that serves the state capital also moves her into the legislative arena, a somewhat new frontier for this reformer.
“My new role of serving as an educational voice, giving testimony on legislative issues, as my district serves the capital is a humble responsibility,” she said.
“It will be their first time seeing an African-American female as the educational voice speaking on behalf of Topeka Public Schools, and that alone begins to bridge the gap between voices from the underrepresented to those in the legislature.”
However, she does not try to disguise her misgivings about leaving a minority district turnaround that is still very much in progress – and the people who were turning it around with her.
“St. Louis has some incredible people, and this collective responsibility to take care of our youth together has been what’s improved Jennings in getting families employed, children’s health needs met, and students into college and careers,” she said.
This year, she pointed out, the district’s 95 percent graduation rate increased, and she predicted that when the state reports four-year statistics for graduation and college- and job-placement numbers, its college-readiness points will show an increase.
“Before I began in 2011, they had two points out of 30 in college- and career-readiness towards accreditation, and now we have above 20 of the 30 points needed,” she said.
“This year, in addition to meeting the majority of the accreditation standards in college- and career-readiness, we place 100 percent in post-secondary opportunities. Our middle- and high-school student attendance rate is above 80 percent, and attendance at elementary school is above 90 percent, based on the state’s rigorous 90/90 standard, in which 90 percent of students must be in school 90 percent of the time.”
Financially as well as academically, she is leaving Jennings with a stronger foundation.
“We have 26 percent in reserves, where only 4 percent is required by the state, much of which was built during my four years, as well as approximately $200,000 in donations between the foundation we created and the donations being given to the district’s general fund we established,” she said.
Her advice to McCoy and his leadership team is plain.
“With thoughtful, visible leadership that monitors academics and minimizes spending, and with a clear focus on genuine relationships first,” she said, “the district will be in great shape if they keep in place the process that’s been started as a foundation.”
She looks back on St. Louis with love and gratitude – “God has blessed me in ways I couldn’t have dreamed of as I demonstrate what love truly looks like in action” – while marching on to work in Topeka.
“I enter Topeka with my tennis shoes on,” she said, “ready to get started walking the talk and showing what’s possible when we work together to truly serve the needs of people in our community.”
