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Idea Space KC, new after-school learning hub in Leawood, now accepting students

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IDEA Space KC, The Barstow School’s new hands-on learning center in Leawood, will officially celebrate its grand opening with a ribbon-cutting next month.

Where exactly: Idea Space KC will operate out of a renovated Hy-Vee grocery store at 12200 State Line Road, which closed in 2014. 

  • Idea Space KC will be a few blocks south and on the other side of State Line Road from The Barstow School campus in Kansas City, Mo.

What is IDEA Space KC? The learning center aims to offer various hands-on “STEAM” programming, focused on the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts and math.

  • The 32,000-square foot facility will feature a technology lab, a “brainstorming incubation hub,” a fabrication workshop for activities like woodworking and metalworking and a “makerspace.”
  • The center will offer after-school courses and school partnerships to K-12 students across the Kansas City metro.
  • Idea Space KC began offering summer courses at the new space in July, and fall programming starts in September.

How to sign up: After school classes hosted at IDEA Space KC are open to all K-12 students in the Kansas City metro, according to Barstow officials.

  • Students and families can browse individual courses and enroll here
  • Current courses being offered last from a month up to an entire semester and cover topics like computer coding and building drones.
  • Idea Space KC’s website lists courses as costing between $120 and $300, depending on the age level and length of the course.

Zooming out: Before the Barstow School officially broke ground on IDEA Space KC, the school received a donation $2 million for the project — at the time, the largest individual donation the school had ever received, according to Barstow officials.

  • The donation came from Dan and Cassidy Towriss, who are now the namesakes of the center which is officially named the Dan and Cassidy Towriss IDEA Space.
  • Cassidy graduated from the Barstow School in 2012, and Dan Towriss is an executive with Indianapolis-based insurance company Guggenheim and founder of financial services firm Group 1001, according to a LinkedIn profile.

About the author

Lucie Krisman
Lucie Krisman

Hi! I’m Lucie Krisman, and I cover local business for the Johnson County Post.

I’m a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, but have been living in Kansas since I moved here to attend KU, where I earned my degree in journalism. Prior to joining the Post, I did work for The Pitch, the Eudora Times, the North Dakota Newspaper Association and KTUL in Tulsa.

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