LAKE OZARK, Mo. - An NBC Action News hidden camera investigation uncovered a high dollar retreat held by the Kansas City School District at a resort more than three hours from Kansas City.
I counted as many as 96 missing and late enrolled teachers and principals at one point during seminars at resort conferences which are budgeted to cost at least $170,836.25, according to district records we obtained.
An undercover NBC Action News producer recorded video inside an Ozarks nightclub where the district officials and teachers gathered.
The district says the disco gathering was not officially sanctioned.
“The district did not schedule a “social hour,” said spokesman Andre Riley in an e-mail. “As is the case with any reputable business, once the business day has ended, employees are able to participate in a variety of activities.”
However, according to documents we obtained during our investigation, the original schedule, which authorized the budget for the resort training, included a 9 to 11 p.m. “Academy Social.”
Riley said the District did not sanction any alcohol related events during the conference.
"Any gathering after hours was taken out of the plan before the event happened," Riley said. "We cancelled it in advance of the event. It would be highly inappropriate for us to be involved in anything like that."
Riley offered no explanation as to why so many district employees showed up at the same disco at the same time of the originally schedule social hour.
That’s when our undercover cameras recorded the disco gathering of the Kansas City School District.
Inside the Mist Nightclub, hidden cameras record a bartender who couldn’t keep up with drink orders.
At points, there were 10 minute waits for beers.
“It's a teacher's convention,” the bartender said explaining the wait. As he tried to keep up with drink orders, he said the crowd came from the Kansas City School District, “every one of them.”
School administrators I approached just outside the disco acknowledged 90 percent or more of the people packing the dance floor and bar were teachers and principals participating in the taxpayer-funded seminar.
Taxpayers didn't pay for their drinks, but out of federally subsidized Title 1 and Title 2 Funds, tax dollars did pay for $61,000 in hotel rooms at the Lodge of the Four Seasons, $22,000 for food, and $20,000 for mileage, and lots more. That's according to a district budget.
Those costs don’t include the cost of the actual seminar or the costs of an exclusive conference held earlier reserved for district brass.
