Kansas school district paying thousands for advice on name change
By the Associated Press
A Kansas school district that is named for a Ku Klux Klan leader is paying an advisory group to help lead discussions on how to change the name.
The Seaman School District’s Board of Education voted Monday to pay $30,000 to the Kansas Leadership Center for advice on the issue. The Seaman district is named for Fred Seaman, an “exalted cyclops,” or chief officer, in the Topeka KKK in the 1920s. Students, teachers and some community leaders want the board to change the name.
The district has named its own advisory board, but the school board will make the final decision.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas school district that is named for a Ku Klux Klan leader is paying an advisory group to help lead discussions on how to change the name.
The Seaman School District’s Board of Education voted Monday to pay $30,000 to the Kansas Leadership Center for advise on the issue. The Seaman district is named for Fred Seaman, an “exalted cyclops,” or chief officer, in the Topeka KKK in the 1920s. Students, teachers and some community leaders want the board to change the name.
The district has named its own advisory board, but the school board will make the final decision.
Topeka school district hires advisors to help with name change kshb.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kshb.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Local school boards in Kansas are beginning to have to revisit mask requirements in their schools as aggrieved parents are beginning to request hearings to review such orders.
The epicenter of these debates have been in Johnson County, but as of Thursday, not much of it has touched Topeka schools.
Last week, the governor signed into law a comprehensive package pushed by state GOP lawmakers that placed limits on COVID-19 restrictions at all governmental levels. That includes local school boards, which have been given under the new law sole authority over closing down schools or implementing virus restrictions.
At the same time, though, any aggrieved person is now able to request a hearing with the school board to be held within 72 hours to review whether a order is necessary, and a board has to issue a decision within a week.
He found few friends by being himself.
“I was trying to prove myself instead of just being myself,” Patterson told The Capital-Journal. “I think it was basically my junior year when I decided I really just needed to be myself instead of trying to fit into a stereotype.”
Now a recent graduate from the high school, Patterson said he reflects back on what eventually became a lonely experience at Seaman, and on how most people’s perceptions of who he was supposed to be, came not from a place of malice, but one of ignorance.
And it’s a similar perception he sees when it comes to discussions of the district’s namesake, Fred Seaman, and his role as an exalted cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan.