Barbara Shelly

Journalist

Kansas City, Mo.

Freelance reporter, writer, editor. Specialize in education, health care, politics. Regular contributor to KCUR public radio, The Pitch KC , The Beacon, Flatland KC and the Community College Daily. Published in The Hechinger Report, The Week, NBC News Digital and The Huffington Post. Education Writers Association fellow. Formerly a reporter, columnist, and associate editorial page editor at The Kansas City Star.

Barbara Shelly

Journalist

Kansas City, Mo.

Featured
The Goodbye Kids
For a full 2016-17 academic year, KCUR contributor Barbara Shelly immersed herself in a second grade and a fourth grade classroom in the Hickman Mills School District to learn firsthand how 'churn' affects students and their education. The frequency with which students change schools during the academic year is a significant but under-the radar aspect of education.
KCUR 89.3FM
Children Will Bear The Brunt Of A Looming Eviction Crisis
This story about the effect of evictions on children was produced as part of the series Critical Condition: The Students the Pandemic Hit Hardest, reported by HuffPost and The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Mikaela Johnson has a vague notion of a home she’d like to live in with her mother and her younger brother and sister.
Hell to the Chief
Kansas City’s police department has had five chiefs over the past two decades, not counting interim appointees or the current occupant. If you average out their tenures, a good expectation for time of service is five and a half years. Current Chief Rick Smith will reach four years in August. It’s hard to see how either he or the city can hold out another year and a half. The smoke-and-mirrors illusion of Kansas City having one of the nation’s best police departments has been smashed into bits over the last year or so—the latest blow being a “scorecard” that ranks the department 495th of 500 nationwide.
The Pitch
Northland Parent Association takes a censorship approach to education
In the summer, angry parents began commandeering the public comment periods of school board meetings in the Northland. They loudly objected to mask orders, read passages from books in school libraries and called them pornographic, and accused schools of indoctrinating their kids. Some claimed an affiliation with a new group, the Northland Parent Association.
These Kansas residents want COVID-19 shots to be a choice. But few trust in them yet.
The residents of Wallace County, on the Colorado border, don’t seem to begrudge their neighbors for choosing to get one of the coronavirus vaccines. But they hold little trust in the federal government and state agencies pushing them and don’t want to be told what to do. In a place where freedom of choice and personal autonomy are of high value, even trusted messengers such as pastors, whose views might prove persuasive, rarely broach the topic.
Kansas Leadership Center Journal
Thousands visiting an Olathe hospital were sued for medical debt. Dozens went to jail
In Kansas, patients taken to court for medical bills can’t escape the debt simply because they lack the ability to pay. Frequent lawsuits to collect on unpaid bills for care given at Olathe Medical Center raise broader leadership questions about how the state’s nonprofit hospitals can best balance financial responsibility with compassion when it comes to the daunting challenge of medical debt.
When home is where the hazards are: Healthy, affordable housing remains scarce in KC
Sakinah Cooper considers herself lucky. She likes the place where she’s living with her two young children and her boyfriend. It’s a two-bedroom rental in a community of converted mobile homes in Kansas City, North. “At first we were kind of debating about this, but once we actually viewed it, it was pretty nice,” Cooper said.
Kansas City Beacon
Featured
School At Any Cost: Former Refugees Seek Better Lives At Kansas City's Community Colleges
The Kansas City area is home to three agencies that work with the federal government to resettle people displaced from their home countries by war, conflict and persecution. Jewish Vocational Services, Della Lamb Community Services and Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas — welcome enough people to make refugee families a presence in the metro.
KCUR 89.3FM
Community college students get free KC bus rides, but long commutes can cramp college life
For Jonathan Myers, taking the bus from his home in Missouri to school at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park saves money but not time. The journey from Lee’s Summit, which includes one transfer in downtown Kansas City, takes about 90 minutes each way on RideKC buses. “Weather permitting,” Myers said.
Getting Unlicensed Drivers Off the Road … By Helping Them Get Licenses
At age 16, Ulisa had fallen into a trap that is familiar to hundreds of teenagers, immigrants and low-income adults around Kansas City. Because the region mostly lacks reliable public transportation, people routinely drive without valid licenses. But the consequences frequently include court dates, escalating fines and bewildering encounters with law enforcement and legal bureaucracies.
Kansas City Public TV
Welcome to Missouri, the Show Me Hate State
In the days following the Capitol insurrection, I received a lot of messages from people who live in other places. The common thread was, “What is wrong with your senator?” It was as though people couldn’t understand how a state famed as the birthplace of plainspoken Harry Truman and very recently represented by a Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill, suddenly birthed this frightening aberration. But Missouri has always served as a cradle for right-wing extremism.
The Pitch
Which side of Sly James will Kansas City remember: the Bow Tie or the Bully?
Kansas City Mayor Sly James uses a phone app to track his time left in office. He can’t check it often enough. “Ninety-one days, twelve hours, 34 minutes,” he boisterously told an out-of-town developer at a ceremony marking construction progress on the new downtown convention hotel. “Seventy-seven days, 14 hours, 12 minutes,” he announced to a class of middle-school students at a charter school.
How community colleges help students travel to campus
Dozens of community colleges are looking for ways to help students get to campus. Some are re-upping bus passes and other programs that were set aside during the pandemic. Others are initiating new partnerships with regional transit systems. For students who can’t get to bus lines, schools are offering help with car repairs and fuel expenses.
Community College Daily
Too few Latino teachers leaves a void in Kansas schools
One in five of public school students in Kansas are Hispanic, according to the Kansas State Department of Education. But only about 2.5% of the educators in the agency’s teacher licensure database during the 2019-20 school year identified as Hispanic or Latino. Educators have long understood that Black and brown students are more likely to succeed in school if they have adult role models who look like them in the classrooms.
Kansas Leadership Center Journal
A Workforce Bridge for Refugees, Immigrants
Around the nation, the demand for workers in fields like childcare, health care and construction is acute. To meet the needs, employers and colleges are looking toward immigrant and refugee populations — where motivated adults often languish in low-paying factory and processing jobs because they don’t speak fluent English.
Community College Daily
Going Straight to Good Use
In the cold of a Nebraska winter, amidst the misery of the Covid pandemic, recruiters from Northeast Community College in Norfolk began reaching out to high schools with a message of hope for students.
Community College Daily

About

Barbara Shelly

Reporting

Writing

Editing

analysis

I am a veteran journalist and writer based in Kansas City, Mo. I specialize in education writing, but also report on health care, politics, consumer issues or pretty much whatever the occasion demands.

I am a regular contributor to:

--KCUR public radio in Kansas City
--Flatland, a digital publication of KCPT public television
--The Pitch KC, an alternative journalism product
--The Beacon, a non-profit news source in Kansas City
--The Kansas Leadership Center Journal, a publication exploring big issues in Kansas
--The Community College Daily, a product of the American Association of Community Colleges

My work has also been published in:

--The Hechinger Report, a journalism service specializing in education issues
-- The Week
-- The Huffington Post

Other projects:

--Part-time editor for KCUR public radio
--Recipient of an Education Writers Association fellowship to report on School at Any Cost, a journey of refugee students striving to further their education in community college
--Reported for KCUR radio The Goodbye Kids, an account of a year in a high-poverty school where children move in and out of classrooms frequently.

Prior to freelancing I was a reporter, columnist, editorial writer and associate editorial page editor for The Kansas City Star.