Abby Hoover
Managing Editor

SchoolAppKC offers families 26 options from preschool, to private and charter schools.

Show Me KC Schools’ SchoolAppKC enrollment period launched for a fifth year on Saturday, Nov. 12. Families will have access to apply to 26 schools including preschool sites, charter and private schools.

“SchoolAppKC streamlines the school application process for families here in the Kansas City Public School (KCPS) boundaries,” said Robyn King, director of SchoolAppKC at Show Me KC Schools.

The online application can be found at SchoolAppKC.org. The process takes less than five minutes to complete with a few simple questions, and King says it’s easy enough to fill out on a smartphone.

SchoolAppKC is a special project of Show Me KC Schools, a nonprofit with a mission to help families understand their school options, in partnership with a number of local Kansas City organizations committed to educational equity.

Show Me KC Schools is based in Northeast Kansas City, a diverse community with a variety of public, charter and private school options.

“It is important, I think education is so valuable and necessary, and here’s why, to make sure these families have the same accessibility that all families do,” King said. “So the research, putting in that work as well, then they can do that, even online, in one area. So making it more accessible for them and different options.”

The application process is translated into eight different languages.
“When they sign up, they put their preferred language and so everything that they’re able to see on that site is in their preferred language,” King said. “But I would say in addition, though, because this is a project of Show Me KC Schools, we have school navigators, and one of our navigators does speak Spanish as well.”

The organization has other resources that are available for families that speak other languages. It’s important to King, Show Me KC Schools and their partners, to provide access and opportunity to the community as a whole.
SchoolAppKC launched in 2018 starting with 16 schools that collaborated to make the application process in Kansas City more accessible to families.
The application has expanded to include daycares and preschools recently, and gives parents options for all levels through 12th grade, including private schools Cristo Rey and Plaza Academy.

“For the last four years families that completed the survey state a 94% satisfaction with SchoolAppKC,” King said.

Prior to SchoolAppKC, King said it was very difficult to apply to the schools.
“Schools had different deadlines, different application processes and different requirements,” King said. “What is needed to even get in a waitlist, different lottery dates and things of that nature, to get in by that certain deadline. There wasn’t one area for that knowledge. So it was very difficult prior to this collaboration that we’ve done in Kansas City.”

A “lottery” is conducted by charter schools when they have more applicants than seats.

SchoolAppKC is still accepting applications for the current year and serves around 8000 families per year. The deadline to be entered for schools that conduct a lottery is March 1, 2023. All 26 participating schools can be found at SchoolAppKC.org.

In addition, Show Me KC Schools’ seventh City School Fair was held at the Kansas City Public Library’s Central Library, 14 W. 10th St., on Saturday, Nov. 12. Families visited with over 50 schools they are interested in applying to, and were able to complete an application on a mobile device or computers located in the library. Community partners were also present to share resources and provide information.

“Families are able to visit those schools at that time, so let’s say they already applied or they’re interested in applying, they can talk to different schools and see how that school meets their needs, and then go ahead and apply at that time too,” King said.

Show Me KC Schools is a nonprofit organization with a mission to help families make informed decisions about their child’s education by providing vital information about the school options available.

They offer a variety of programs for Kansas Citians including a City School Fair, school tours, a thriving website and one-on-one school navigation support. Show Me KC Schools’ system helps families narrow down options because it only shows schools students qualify for, and then shares all the information about those schools in one place. For more information, visit their website at showmekcschools.org.