The hits just keep coming for the embattled USD 500 Kansas City, Kansas Public School District, as ABC affiliate KMBC-TV reports that at least one board member is raising concerns over travel spending.
According to KMBC, Board Member Dr. Valdenia Winn has been gathering spending records and is raising alarms over high-priced hotel rooms.
“Some hotel rooms have been exorbitant,” she told the station. “There are some $700 hotel rooms, $900 hotel rooms. Nice for one night.”
She is trying in particular to get answers about “professional development conferences.”
“We’re talking Vegas,” she told the outlet. “We’re talking San Antonio. We’re talking in Wichita. And I can’t even imagine a $700 room in Wichita.”
She also told the station she had trouble getting records from the district — something KMBC said they have also struggled with.
“After submitting a Kansas Open Records Act or KORA request for school district travel records, a district representative responded that it would cost more than $6,700 to fulfill it,” KMBC wrote.
KMBC said community activist Louise Lynch said she had 10 KORA requests either unlawfully delayed or denied, and in one request a district representative quoted more than $50,000 to fulfill it.
Exorbitant fees to fill open records requests are fairly standard practice across the country and in Kansas. Known as a “go away price,” the hope is that if a news organization or resident is quoted an outrageous sum for records, they’ll simply drop the request.
This situation that has prevailed for decades and was addressed in 2025 in HB 2134. The most significant changes include:
- Charges may not exceed the actual cost of producing the requested information.
- 25 cents per page may not be charged in addition to employee time; only the actual cost that is closer to 5 cents.
- Per-page charges for electronic copies may not be assessed.
- Staff hourly rates are not to exceed the lowest rate of people capable of gathering the requested information.
- Agencies must make “reasonable efforts to contact” requesters to discuss mitigating costs when staff time exceeds five hours or the estimated cost exceeds $200.
Conflicts of interest discovered
Moreover, KMBC found Naomi Tolentino Miranday — the “coordinator for the ‘Attend to Achieve program designed to boost school attendance” has a contract for more than $79,000. The contract is notable as it was signed by KCKPS School Board President Randy Lopez — her husband.
It’s not the only potential nepotism the station came across.
“KMBC 9 Investigates also found the wife of board member Robert Milan is employed by the school district as a lunchroom supervisor, and she was hired while Milan was on the board,” the station reported. “Board member Yolanda Clark’s husband also works as a custodian for the district, making more than $78,000 a year.”
That is more than many teachers, and on Kansasopengov.org, KMBC found only one custodian who wasn’t a head custodian making more money.
USD 500 facing serious legal woes
As The Sentinel recently reported, USD 500 is potentially facing a $5 million lawsuit over the alleged sexual assault of an 11-year-old in a school restroom.
The $5 million lawsuit is on behalf of a sixth-grade boy who was allegedly dragged into a restroom by a group of eighth-grade boys, where he was “physically restrained while they sexually assaulted him,” according to David Smith, an attorney representing the boy and his parents.
Additionally, the United States Department of Justice is suing USD 500 Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools to stop secret gender transitions.
According to a release from DOJ on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, the department filed a ” first-of-its-kind lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS) to stop the district from facilitating secret “gender transitions” for children at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
As The Sentinel reported earlier this year, a whistleblower video confirmed that USD 500 Kansas City appeared to be continuing to flout state and federal law concerning “social transitioning” of students by having the conversations “be like underground railroad conversations … so not stopping the work, just not making it so public.”
