Recently, the work of SENT in the Hi-Crest neighborhood was recognized by the Kansas Department of Commerce through the Community Empowerment Program with its highest designation, Community of Excellence. We are deeply grateful for that recognition. It affirms years of work done in the Hi-Crest community, with the Hi-Crest community, and always alongside neighbors rather than for them.

As we continue to share what has happened in Hi-Crest and why we believe it is both scalable and replicable, one refrain consistently surfaces:

“What you’ve captured feels like lightning in a bottle. An exception, not the rule.”

Sometimes that sentiment is tied to my leadership, sometimes to our team, and to be clear, our team is gifted in many ways. But the transformation in Hi-Crest is not rare because of who we are. Hi-Crest matters because it shows what is possible when communities are given the conditions to thrive.

Hi-Crest is not the exception. It is evidence of what happens when people are willing to walk beside a neighborhood long enough.

Every neighborhood holds the same raw capacity for transformation if people are willing to walk beside it long enough.

Hi-Crest Shows That Talent Is Everywhere, Even When Opportunity Is Not

A newly released U.S. Census Bureau–linked research paper helps put data behind what communities like Hi-Crest have known intuitively for decades. The study, Gifted Identification Across the Distribution of Family Income, examines how students are identified as “gifted” across the full spectrum of family income using administrative education records linked to IRS data.

The findings are striking:

Fewer than 4 percent of students in the lowest income percentile are identified as gifted.
More than 20 percent of students in the highest income percentile are identified as gifted.
These disparities persist within the same school, meaning they are not simply the result of students attending different schools.

In other words, the gap is not about where talent exists. It is about who is seen, supported, and believed in.

Even more telling, when researchers controlled for early academic achievement using third-grade math and reading scores, income-based gaps narrowed for much of the distribution but remained large at the top. This indicates that advantages in gifted identification are driven not only by academic performance, but by access to resources, advocacy, expectations, and stability.

Hi-Crest Demonstrates That Belief Is a Form of Infrastructure

One of the most important takeaways from this research is not just about academics. It is about belief.

Student achievement, emotional health, recovery from addiction, physical wellness, and long-term stability all share a common ingredient: someone must believe change is possible before it becomes measurable.

Belief that:

A student can grow academically.
A person can become emotionally stable.
A neighbor can sustain recovery.
A family can experience physical health.
A community can change.

The study demonstrates how belief becomes institutionalized. Students from higher-income families are more likely to be identified as gifted not because ability is absent elsewhere, but because systems more readily assume potential, provide reinforcement, and invest early.

This mirrors what we see in neighborhoods. When communities are labeled “at-risk” long enough, we stop being surprised when opportunity is withheld. Untapped potential becomes an accepted category.

The Middle School Years Reveal Why Hi-Crest’s Approach Matters

The research identifies middle school (grades 6–8) as the sharpest inflection point in gifted identification disparities. This is the season when academic tracking, course acceleration, and long-term educational pathways begin to solidify.

It is also the season when many families face increasing pressure: housing instability, mental health stressors, food insecurity, transportation gaps, and reduced adult supervision due to work demands.

When families lack resources during this window, potential that was always present begins to fade from view.

What Hi-Crest’s ADI Scores Tell Us About Risk and Possibility

Hi-Crest ranks at the highest level of measured disadvantage, with a state ADI of 10 and a national ADI in the 98th to 99th percentile. What is happening here is not the product of advantage, but the result of sustained belief, presence, and coordinated support.

Another way to understand the conditions Hi-Crest faces is through the Area Deprivation Index (ADI), a nationally recognized measure of neighborhood disadvantage that combines indicators related to income, education, employment, and housing quality.

Hi-Crest has a state ADI of 10, meaning it ranks among the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in Kansas. Nationally, Hi-Crest falls in the 98th to 99th percentile, indicating that it experiences greater socioeconomic disadvantage than nearly every neighborhood in the United States.

These scores matter because ADI is not a judgment of people. It is a measure of cumulative exposure to barriers over time. High ADI scores are associated nationally with poorer health outcomes, lower educational attainment, higher housing instability, and fewer pathways to opportunity.

And yet, Hi-Crest’s progress makes something critically important visible. When a neighborhood facing the highest levels of measured disadvantage is met with long-term presence, coordinated supports, and belief in human capacity, transformation is still possible.

This is why what is working in Hi-Crest is not unique to Hi-Crest. Communities across Kansas and the country, whether urban or rural, share similar ADI profiles. The work does not require extraordinary neighborhoods. It requires extraordinary commitment to walking beside them long enough for stability, belief, and opportunity to compound.

This is why SENT focuses not on isolated programs, but on wraparound presence. Stable housing, accessible food, mental health support, addiction recovery services, and trusted relationships are not parallel efforts to education. They are the conditions that allow potential to remain visible.

What Workforce Data in 66605 Reveals About Belief

Another lens that reinforces why Hi-Crest is not the exception comes from workforce data for the 66605 zip code, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau’s OnTheMap tool. Workforce data does more than show where people work. It reveals what kinds of futures a community is structurally connected to.

In neighborhoods like Hi-Crest, the majority of jobs available to residents are concentrated in lower-wage, lower-mobility sectors, including service and hospitality roles, logistics and warehousing, and healthcare support positions, often characterized by limited advancement pathways, irregular schedules, and minimal employer-sponsored benefits. These patterns are not accidental. They reflect how opportunity has been historically distributed and, more subtly, what society has come to believe is realistic or appropriate for a given community.

When the local job market primarily offers positions that emphasize labor over leadership, short-term productivity over long-term development, and survival over stability, it quietly reinforces a narrative about who is expected to advance and who is expected to endure.

This mirrors what the gifted identification data shows in schools. In both education and employment, systems tend to reward those who already have access to stability, advocacy, and belief. Over time, the kinds of jobs clustered in a neighborhood become another way potential is narrowed before it is ever tested.

And yet, just as with education, workforce outcomes are not a reflection of ability. They are a reflection of access.

This is why intentional workforce pipelines matter. When communities are connected to training, credentials, and career pathways that align with real labor-market demand, they gain not just jobs, but the stability and upward mobility that allow families and neighborhoods to thrive.

Hi-Crest’s progress challenges this pattern. When families experience housing stability, when mental and physical health are supported, when recovery is sustained, and when young people are seen as capable of growth, the workforce horizon expands. Career pathways that once felt out of reach begin to feel possible, and the local economy starts to reflect a different set of expectations.

This is why what is working in Hi-Crest can work in any under-resourced urban or rural community. Workforce transformation does not begin with job placement alone. It begins with belief, stability, and long-term accompaniment, the same ingredients that allow talent to surface in classrooms, families, and neighborhoods.

Why Calling Hi-Crest an Exception Misses the Point

The most dangerous part of this conversation is not inequity itself. It is how comfortable we have become with the phrase untapped potential.

That phrase quietly shifts responsibility away from systems and onto communities. It implies talent is dormant by choice rather than constrained by design.

The data tell a different story.

Communities do not lack the talent or know-how to transform themselves. What they often lack is someone willing to walk beside them long enough for belief, stability, and opportunity to compound.

Hi-Crest is not an exception because it is uniquely gifted. Hi-Crest is a demonstration of what happens when belief is restored, systems are aligned, and neighbors are treated as capable partners in their own transformation.

That is not lightning in a bottle.

That is what happens when untapped potential is no longer treated as acceptable.

Rather than trying to replicate a model, the invitation is simpler and more demanding: walk beside a community long enough for belief, stability, and opportunity to take root.

Sources

Ainsworth, N. J., Ainsworth, A. J., Cleveland, C., Clark, L. R., Brummet, Q., Penner, E. K., Hanselman, P., & Penner, A. (2025). Gifted Identification Across the Distribution of Family Income. U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies Working Paper CES-WP-25-73.

Kind, A. J. H., & Buckingham, W. R. (2018). Making Neighborhood Disadvantage Metrics Accessible: The Neighborhood Atlas. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(26), 2456–2458. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1802313

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Neighborhood Atlas: Area Deprivation Index (ADI). https://www.neighborhoodatlas.medicine.wisc.edu/

U.S. Census Bureau. OnTheMap: Local Employment Dynamics (LED). https://onthemap.ces.census.gov/

DONATE

Why Hi-Crest Is Not the Exception