Kansas City, Mo. ? A year after the Kansas City School District announced the largest foundation grant it had ever received, the district is in a fight with the donor that could withhold or delay some funding because of training standards.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation agreed last summer to donate $6.1 million to the district over four years for a new secondary school and for a reform program, Achievement First, in an effort to increase high school graduation rates.

The foundation is supposed to make the second $1.7 million payment on July 16, but the foundation, in a June 7 letter, said it has become concerned about the quality and quantity of training being given to teachers in four of the six schools involved in the reform effort that is funded by the grant. The foundation threatened to withhold the payment if conditions are not improved.

“It is vital that we convey the importance of a resolution of these issues before we release any second-year funding,” Kathy Klock, senior program officer for the foundation, wrote in the letter.

Gates spokeswoman Marie Groark said the foundation often considered delaying payments until its concerns were addressed but had never actually revoked a grant once it had been donated.

District officials said they were working with the foundation to answer its questions and said they were confident the money would be paid, although the payment may not be received on time.

Part of what is making the teacher training question difficult, district officials said, is that the district is in the middle of difficult negotiations with the teachers’ union and it’s impossible to say how much training time teachers will have once the issues are resolved.

“We have every intention of getting it resolved by the start of school,” said Dianne Cleaver, a district administrator who oversees the programs. “We feel like we are well on the road to resolving them.”

About $4 million of the grant is to go toward Achievement First, a reform program modeled after ones in Philadelphia, Kansas City, Kan., and Topeka, Kan., that the foundation hopes will double the Kansas City, Mo., district’s graduation rate by 2010. The Kansas City School District currently graduates less than 40 percent of its students.