WATCH: “Thank You For Your Service, Frank!”
Growing up in a small town in Western Kansas, Frank S. Henderson, Jr., realized early on that education was the key to success. He didn’t know his life’s journey would take him to the halls of state and national power as a leader for public education.
Frank will retire from the Seaman USD 345 Board of Education in January after 17 years, including service as the first Black school board member to be elected President of the Kansas Association of School Boards and only the second Kansan elected President of the National School Boards Association.
As such, he’s been involved in some of the most critical and controversial issues in education from the local to the national level, including battles over school finance lawsuits and funding formulas, a local uproar over the legacy of racism, and national controversy over the role of parents and protests that drew NSBA into a fight between the Biden administration and Republicans in Congress and statehouses across the nation.
Frank says he has been motivated by public education’s commitment to the success of every child every step of the way.
I’ve known Frank from the beginning of his school board career. He attended the KASB new board member workshop before taking office in July of 2007 because his superintendent stressed the need for members to receive training for their positions and participate in their state association. Almost immediately, he was selected to serve on the KASB Legislative Committee, which I staffed as part of my 30 years as a KASB lobbyist.
But sitting down to talk with Frank recently about his years of service taught me some things I didn’t know about a soft-spoken man who became a national leader in American education.
Frank grew up in the town of Sharon Springs in Wallace County, just east of the Colorado border, with a population of about 1,000 that has since shrunk to about 750. His ancestors were part of a migration of emancipated African Americans from the South drawn by the promise of homesteading in the “free soil” of Kansas after the Civil War.
Nearly 100 years later, not many remained. As a long-time resident, Frank said his family was generally respected and accepted despite being among the few Black residents in the area. But he remembers examples of classmates who seemed to face lower expectations – one young Black man wasn’t invited to a college recruitment event despite later having a distinguished career in education. He also said Hispanic families who came to the area to work in agriculture faced much more prejudice as newcomers. It shaped his perspective on those with less connection and support.
Despite growing up without much wealth or economic security – the family lost its farm during the Great Depression - Frank credits much of his success to an upbringing emphasizing faith, family and education. He remembered a generous neighbor who gave the family a package of Christmas gifts. One was a Monopoly game. When the family opened the box, they found what Frank smilingly called “an abomination” – a pair of dice, forbidden in the Henderson home. But his mother traded the board game for a set of books, typical of the family commitment to reading and learning.
Talking to Frank made clear that he deeply values the support he received from his family and church for an education that helped him succeed. In an editorial he wrote for the Topeka Capital-Journal, he remembered: “As a teen, there were about a dozen descendants in my age group in Wallace County. We spent many hours driving tractors and learning how to dream. We quickly realized that education was the vehicle to see our dreams fulfilled. We had strong families, strong faith and some amazing teachers who propelled us along the way. The majority of us attained graduate degrees, and several even received law degrees.”
But he is keenly aware that not every child has that same support. He stressed over and over that public education is the only institution committed to the success of each child, regardless of their circumstances. “A strong public education is the key to dream fulfillment in Kansas," he wrote in that same article. “The Kansas Constitution envisioned a public education system purposed to meet the needs of every student and provide them the opportunities to fulfill their God-given potential.”
Much of his professional career has been working with those that education has not reached. He started as an income maintenance worker for the old Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, then moved to the criminal justice system, providing services to those in poverty, the mentally ill, as well as victims and offenders, earning a bachelor’s degree from Washburn University and a master’s degree from Kansas State University.
Frank was appointed as Chairman of the Kansas Parole Board, where he served for four years, then served in the Office of the Attorney General for seventeen years as the Executive Director of the Kansas Crime Victims Compensation Board, holding the offices of President of the Kansas Organization for Victim Assistance, and the National Association of Crime Victim Compensation Boards. He went on to work for the Topeka Rescue Mission, dealing with issues of homelessness, hunger and human trafficking in the capital city. In most cases, he says, improving education is one of the best ways to address these issues.
His career took him from western Kansas to Topeka, where he and his wife Lorraine settled in the Seaman school district in northern Shawnee County and raised two children, Ashley and Frank III. Like many school board members, an interest in his children’s education got him involved, first as a PTO and site council member at his children’s school and an unsuccessful run for school board before winning a seat in the next election. He hasn’t lost an election since.
As a school board member, he moved from focusing on his own children to being concerned for all children. He recalls learning that one PTO for a school serving a low-income area couldn’t raise the same funding as other schools, limiting the students' resources. It was a local example of the need for “equalization” in school finance to ensure each district can provide an equal and quality education, regardless of local wealth.
Those two concepts – the equal ability to raise revenue and funding adequate to allow all children to learn – were standards set by the Kansas Supreme Court for constitutional school finance and were part of two school finance cases (Montoy in the 2000’s and Gannon in the 2010’s), five governors, multiple school finance changes (a four-year funding plan following Montoy, tax and funding cuts, “frozen” funding through block grants, and a six-year funding plan after Gannon).
Informed by decades of experience in state government and policies, Frank helped lead KASB’s involvement in those issues, serving on the KASB Board since 2009 as a regional vice president, a three-year-cycle as president-elect, president in 2013-14 and past president, and then as an ex-officio member due his service on the NSBA board.
Frank’s emphasis has always been on building connections and partnerships. During his term as president, KASB became part of a regular consultation process between major education organizations to address issues together. He also served on the Kansas State High School Activities Association board, the Kansas Governor’s Advisory Council on Education and as a Kansas commissioner on the Education Commission of the States.
Ultimately, the Legislature passed and funded a plan meeting the court’s standards for constitutional equity and adequacy. However, Frank expresses disappointment the Legislature has not kept its commitment to state law to fund 92 percent of special education costs. (Congress hasn’t met the funding commitment made in federal law, either.)
As a state school board leader, Frank’s interests broadened to national issues. The NSBA Western Region twice elected him to the NSBA Board of Directors, then was elected as Secretary-Treasurer of NSBA, president elect and president, with his term as past president ending in April. He also served as President of the National School Board Action Center (NSBAC). He served two terms on the Board of Directors of the National Black Council of NSBA, where he established the Recognizing Innovative Strategies in Equity (RISE) award.
Frank continued to serve on his local board and helped lead it through one of its greatest challenges. A group of high school students tracked down and confirmed rumors the district’s namesake, Fred Seaman, who had been superintendent and principal decades earlier, had also been a prominent area leader of the Ku Klux Klan. “I’d heard those rumors,” said Frank. “I just didn’t believe them.” But the students found solid proof. Henderson, the first black president of the Seaman school board, found himself presiding over a school district named after the most notorious racist organization in America.
It was an issue that split the community, which has relatively few racial minorities. Led primarily by white students, many community members demanded that Seaman’s name be removed. Others argued the name had been associated with a community, not a person and that most people had no idea who Fred Seaman had ever been.
Frank has nothing but praise for the students who did the research and worked for change they thought was important, but says he also understands the community’s sense of identity. He helped develop a compromise that kept the name “Seaman” but removed any reference to the person. Frank admitted it was a compromise that “probably everyone hated,” but in the end was accepted.
Former State Representative Fred Patton, who served with Frank on the Seaman board for many years and also served as KASB President, said Frank’s quiet style of leadership and willingness to listen to all sides helped keep the community from becoming even more divided. “I think Frank helped us start healing,” said Patton. As the first African American to serve on his local board, Frank was appointed to chair a district “Equity Council” focusing on “Belonging” for every student.
Those skills would be called upon as Frank faced another crisis, this time with the National School Boards Association. As Frank prepared to take over as NSBA president, the organization released a letter calling attention to hostile and even threatening rhetoric by some critics opposing school board policies, particularly during COVID, and suggesting the Biden administration investigate whether such actions could constitute domestic terrorism in certain circumstances.
The letter ignited widespread controversy, with some calling it a blanket condemnation of parent protesters and an invitation for federal overreach. Frank and other NSBA leaders, including former KASB executive director Dr. John Heim, who has been appointed to the same role at NSBA in the face of the controversy, apologized for the letter, saying it had not been properly vetted before release and committed to changes in the association’s procedures. But much damage was done. About half of the member state school board associations dropped out of NSBA, many prompted by political backlash from Republicans at the state level, and the organization faced threats of investigations from Congressional Republicans.
Verjeana McCotter-Jacobs, Dr. Heim’s successor as Executive Director and CEO of NSBA, credits Frank with leading NSBA through these challenging times, citing his long experience on the board, calm personality and willingness to listen to all sides. “Frank has been an incredible resource for me as new executive director,” she said.
Despite the challenges, Frank remains upbeat about NSBA, saying it has refocused efforts on its core mission and strengthened its commitment to non-partisanship. But he remains baffled that a school board association could be painted as anti-parent when most board members are parents or grandparents elected by their communities where parents and families of students are the largest groups of voters. He noted that “parents” were not the focus of the NSBA letter and that the association worked with the National PTA to produce webinars and training on parent engagement.
As Frank ends his term of office, he plans to do some educational consulting and speaking, with a particular focus on helping students identify their career interests and matching employers' needs. “I think there's a lot of opportunity out there for students to get connected with opportunities that students and parents do not know exists,” he said.
Looking back, Frank says he has no regrets. “One of the things I'm very proud of is getting NSBA through a challenging time. We have a new executive director who is ready to help us be there for all kids,” he said, noting the theme of his presidency was “Every Student Matters,” and that NSBA worked with the Learning First Alliance to launch a campaign at the National Press Club on the purpose of public education called “Here for the Kids.”
“I’m also proud of the strides KASB made in promoting the importance of public education in Kansas, proud of the efforts we made toward funding,” he said noting that Governor Laura Kelly had held a ceremonial bill signing for education funding in the Seaman district the day we spoke. “We're in a better place now than we were 10 years ago. In terms of getting funding, I think there's a greater awareness of what we need and understanding that kids are in greater need than 10 years ago. We can’t just ignore these issues and say everybody will be all right. That doesn't work. I feel like we do have a greater awareness about meeting the needs of every child, and that’s what public education is all about.”
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