St. Louis Schools Watch
Lining Up The Ducks
By Susan Turk
September 4, 2017--St. Louis--At their August 8, 2017 regular monthly public meeting St. Louis Board of Education President Susan Jones reported that she had been interviewed by SLPS Foundation President Jane Donahue as part of a foundation initiative to study governance of the SLPS. Towards that end the foundation was interviewing 8 people. In addition to Board President Jones, SLPS Superintendent Dr. Kelvin Adams, SAB Chair Rick Sullivan, Mayor Lyda Krewson, DESE Commissioner Margie Vandeven, former DESE Commissioner Chris Nicastro, State Board of Education Member Mike Jones, and former SAB Member Melanie Adams were interviewed.
Board President Jones recounted that in the course of her interview she expressed dismay that the interviewees did not include SLPS teachers, students or parents and did not reflect nor were they representative of SLPS stakeholders. She was told that the thoughts of those groups would be explored in the future.
Jones was informed that foundation donors have expressed an interest in having a say in the future governance of the SLPS. Foundation board members are usually donors. The SLPS Foundation board includes representatives from the St. Louis Cardinals organization, Mastercard Worldwide, Wells Fargo Advisors, Ameren, Merrill Lynch, and the St. Louis Regional Chamber just to give an idea as to whose wants a say on governance.
Jones further reported that the St. Louis Regional Chamber and the Regional Business Council were also setting up committees to discuss future governance of the SLPS. She recounted that she had been told this in confidence so please don’t repeat what you have just read.
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The August 15, 2017 State Board of Education meeting discussion about SLPS governance was shorter than expected. It centered on a recommendation from DESE Commissioner Vandeven that the State Board back away from involvement and allow conversations, which she stated had begun between the Elected Board and the SAB, to develop a locally determined transition process. She based her reference to conversations on letters she had received from the SAB and the EB. Those letters were reported on in the previous issue of The Watch. Vandeven expressed concern that a transfer of governance not result in “a jolt” for the district. She noted that the State Board has the authority to make the switch but has no authority to dictate a transition process. The State Board accepted her recommendation without voting on it. It was noted that the SAB is serving a term through June 2019 so the SAB has plenty of time to work out a transition plan. Then the State Board members laughed.
State Board Member Victor Lenz, who has been attending elected board meetings since March 2016, had told the EB he would report to the State Board about the wonderful things the elected board was doing. At the State Board public meeting he did not follow through. The State Board member representing the 1st Congressional District, Mike Jones also refrained from speaking on the elected board’s behalf.
There are no conversations going on between the SAB and the EB regarding transition of the EB back to governance of the SLPS district.
On August 8th St. Louis Board of Education President Susan Jones sent a letter to Rick Sullivan letting him know that the EB was looking forward to returning to DESE led tri-lateral transition planning discussions. After the State Board decided to drop out of discussions, Board President Jones sent a follow up letter to all three SAB members informing them that the EB, “looks forward to reconvening transition meetings with the Special Administrative Board.”
To date there have been no meetings.
What communication there was was a June 26 letter from the SAB to Board President Jones asking for the EB to send 2 representatives to SAB meetings to sit in and comment but not vote and for the EB to work with the SAB on public forums to determine public opinions on alternative forms of governance for the SLPS. Jones responded to Sullivan by phone that the EB did not want to make any decisions about sending representatives to SAB meetings or participating in public forums with the SAB until the restart on transition planning discussions. The SAB has not responded to Jones’ request to hold bi-lateral transition planning talks.
What Vandeven was saying rather heavy handedly on August 15th was that the EB should be good little children and do what the SAB wants them to do. The State Board isn’t going to mediate.
By concurring with Vandeven’s recommendation, the State Board has abandoned its responsibility to make the decision that is in the best interests of our students and our community, to re-enfranchise our electorate and to return governance of our public school district to our elected BOE. More than 35,000 voters participated in the April school board election, as many voters as participated in the election of Mayor Krewson. Continuing governance by the SAB nullifies their school board votes.
In effect the State Board threw our elected Board of Education to the wolves. It gave the SAB the time they will need, two years of legislative sessions, to submit bills amending current statutes to create an alternative form of governance for the SLPS.
A year ago, the EB was told that the State Board would consider restarting tri-lateral transition discussions pending the outcome of the April 2017 school board election. With their acceptance of the Commissioner’s recommendation the State Board in effect abandoned the EB to a fate being worked out by the people who really run things in this town, the plutocrats, aka the business community, people who for the most part do not live in the city and do not enroll their children in SLPS. If you recall, we discussed in the previous issue of the Watch that the SAB has taken upon itself the task of studying alternative forms of governance for the SLPS. Is it a coincidence, that in approximately the same time frame, the SLPS Foundation, the RBC and the SLRC are also studying SLPS governance?
Not at all. Ducks are being aligned. At some as yet undetermined point in time, all of these entities will all announce the same conclusion and this publication predicts that it will not be returning governance of the SLPS to the current elected Board of Education. Things are going according to plan, the plan being the Danforth Freeman Special Advisory Committee Final Report of 2010.
Page 18 of the Report lists recommendations. It states that the SAB, “is a temporary solution…When accreditation is regained, we recommend that DESE initiate a return to a permanent form of governance. Well ahead of that time the legislature should be asked to amend RSMo 162.1100 to allow for the transfer of operational power from the SAB to a permanent board.”
And “The transfer from the SAB to an elected board should be done in such a way as to maintain stability and continuity and to minimize disruption. We recommend that an elected board be gradually phased in over a period of several years. The Legislature should amend RSMo 162.601 to accomplish that goal”.
Please note that the report talks about transferring power “from the SAB to a permanent board” and “an elected board” being phased in. They are not recommending the return of governance to the sitting elected board of education but to an alternative board.
As currently worded, RSMo162.1100.12 reads,
“The transitional school district in any city not within a county shall be dissolved on July 1, 2008, unless the state board determines, prior to that date, that it is necessary for the transitional district to continue to accomplish the purposes for which it was created. The state board of education may cause the termination of the transitional school district at any time upon a determination that the transitional district has accomplished the purposes for which it was established and is no longer needed.…The state board of education shall provide notice to the governor and general assembly of the termination … of the transitional school district and the termination … shall become effective thirty days following such determination.”
The transitional district is the temporary school district superimposed on the SLPS when DESE removed accreditation in June 2007 and which is governed by the Special Administrative Board, the SAB. The State Board has extended the transitional district three times. RSMo162.1100.12 clearly allows the State Board to decide at any time that the SAB has completed its purpose and to return governance of the SLPS to the EB. The transfer would occur 30 days after their decision. That sounds like a transition process.
Pretending that the State Board Of Education should not make that decision because there needs to be a transition process to prevent destabilizing the district, that there is genuine reason to be concerned about the need, “to maintain stability and continuity and to minimize disruption” is merely a smoke screen for their obeisance to the will of the business community as most likely directed by the governor’s office. The commissioner and the state board members all serve at the pleasure of the governor after all.
RSMo 162.601 was approved as part of SB 781, legislation which was passed in 1998 to facilitate the settlement of the Caldwell Liddell federal lawsuit intended to desegregate the SLPS. RSMo 162.601 addresses two issues. The first was a provision of SB781 that altered the composition of the city board of education from twelve members to seven members. It detailed the way that elections would go for several years to reduce the number of board members. Previously every two years, four board members were elected to staggered six year terms. As a result of SB 781, terms were shortened to four years and members are now elected either two or three at a time.
But, the last two paragraphs of RSMo 162.601 lay out an alternative method for choosing board members. It reads,
”7. Members of the board of directors shall be elected to represent seven subdistricts. The subdistricts shall be established by the state board of education to be compact, contiguous and as nearly equal in population as practicable. The subdistricts shall be revised by the state board of education after each decennial census and at any other time the state board determines that the district's demographics have changed sufficiently to warrant redistricting.
8. A member shall reside in and be elected in the subdistrict which the member is elected to represent. Subdistrict 1 shall be comprised of wards 1, 2, 22 and 27. Subdistrict 2 shall be comprised of wards 3, 4, 5 and 21. Subdistrict 3 shall be comprised of wards 18, 19, 20 and 26. Subdistrict 4 shall be comprised of wards 6, 7, 17 and 28. Subdistrict 5 shall be comprised of wards 9, 10, 11 and 12. Subdistrict 6 shall be comprised of wards 13, 14, 16 and 25. Subdistrict 7 shall be comprised of wards 8, 15, 23 and 24.”
These two paragraphs of the statute were never implemented. They were successfully challenged by a lawsuit and never went into effect. By suggesting that RSMo 162.601 be amended, the Danforth Freeman SAC 2010 Report does not specifically address the issue of electing board members by sub-districts. But that would be an alternative form of governance and one that would limit citizens’ representation on the board. Electing board members at large as is current practice makes all seven board members accountable to the entire city electorate. Election by sub-district limits representation of the citizenry to the one board member for whom they are allowed to vote, Board members would have fewer constituents and be less inclined to be concerned about the district as a whole. But it would be easier for the people who really run this town to once again control who is elected to the board. It would be easy for the aldermen and committee people to choose candidates and raise large campaign funds to elect them. It would be harder for SLPS parents to get elected to the board.
Whether sub-districts or some other method of alternative governance will be the recommendation of the people who really run this town is anyone’s guess at this point. What is apparent is that the State Board of Education has decided to ignore its ability to resolve the ten year colonization of the SLPS by the state.
They are using the notion of the need for a transition as an excuse for unnecessarily prolonging the SAB’s rule. When the SAB was appointed on June 15, 2007 there was no transition and there was a jolt. Rick Sullivan had no prior knowledge or experience with public schools. The original three SAB members did not even take their MSBA training until February, 2008 meaning that for the first 8 months of their tenure, they were not even certified to govern a district. The only SAB member who was at all qualified was Richard Gaines who had served one term on the EB in the 1980s.
All of the current elected board members have been MSBA trained and certified. They are properly prepared to govern a school district. Pretending there would be a jolt, discontinuity, disruption or destabilization of the district if they were returned to governance is utter nonsense.
This is what government by appointed board amounts to. The appointed State Board of Education is no more accountable to us mere citizens than the SAB is. Whether we will find the recommendations of the people who really run this town acceptable remains to be seen. But for some unspeakable reason, they refuse to allow the return to governance of the currently constituted elected Board of Education. All concerned citizens can do at this point is bait their breath and wait unless of course they want to badger their elected representatives about this matter, write letters to the editors of local publications, draw attention on social media, raise questions during the public comments section of SAB meetings, and so on.
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Update: David Jackson
For those of you who have been wondering what former Board of Education Member David Jackson has been up to, there is plenty to report. Jackson, who served two terms on the Board from 2007 to 2015, lost his re-election bid for a third term in 2015 and lost another election in April, 2017 to regain a seat on the Board.
Jackson recently established two discussion forums; one for former board members and one for community groups for the purpose of putting before the State Board of Education and the Missouri Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education, the St. Louis community's commitment towards an elected board. Despite having lost two elections, Jackson continues to try to present himself as representing the will of the community.
Jackson believes that the SAB is working to replace the EB with a permanent hybrid board, a board consisting of both elected and appointed members. It is his intention that his forums will conclude that the Danforth Freeman 2010 Report’s conclusion that an elected board would be more acceptable to the community is correct.
Jackson, however, has put forth the supposition that the EB should be reconfigured. He would add a student and a representative from the mayor’s office to the EB. They would be non-voting members. But he thinks that there should be no more than seven board members so he is suggesting that there only be five elected board members who will continue to be elected at large.
Jackson is also promoting the consolidation of school districts. He suggests combining the Riverview Gardens, Normandy, and Jennings school districts with SLPS. He also plans to recommend that there only be three school districts in the St. Louis region; the expanded SLPS, one district for the rest of the county and the special school district which serves special education students in the county.
Jackson’s ideas are stunning.
Since losing a seat on the board of education in 2015, he has been crusading to get re-elected. But he has been doing so by attacking the district’s regaining full accreditation. That is not an approach that is likely to inspire people to vote for him. And Jackson is angry. He resents board members who outpolled him in the two elections he lost. So it is not surprising that he would want to make it more difficult for people to win a seat on the board of education by eliminating two of the elected positions.
As far as consolidating Riverview, Jennings and Normandy into the SLPS goes, it boggles the mind to think that putting the only three districts under state control into one district would enable them to be governed by an elected board in the foreseeable future. And why would Jennings, which is doing somewhat better in language arts MAP scores want to affiliate with districts whose test scores are lower and why would they want to lose governance by their elected board? Moreover, it was the consolidation of the state run Wellston Public schools into Normandy which was the final blow that brought down Normandy’s achievement ratings to the point of justifying their state takeover. If you were going to wed these districts to others, why not join them with stronger contiguous districts rather than weaker ones?
The idea of consolidating all of the county districts into one concur with the goals of the people who really run things in this town who have been campaigning in recent years to consolidate county municipalities so as to have less government and lower taxes. Jackson has always tended to try to ingratiate himself to the people who really run things. He aspires to be one of them. He has not had much success.
Hopefully the people Jackson invites to join his forums will not agree with his ideas and he will abandon his plan to promote them to the State Board of Education and the Legislature. But I wouldn’t put much stock in the possibility Jackson believes in himself.
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Town Halls With Mayor Krewson
Mayor Lyda Krewson is hosting a series of Town Hall meetings to offer you and other residents the opportunity to engage in conversation with her and other representatives from City Departments. The format of the Town Halls will include a brief introduction from Mayor Krewson and city representatives, with a majority of the event reserved for questions and commentary about the issues facing St. Louis. It’s an opportunity to ask the mayor to support returning governance of the SLPS to our elected Board of Education and to tell her not to support an alternative form of governance for the SLPS.
The first Town Hall meeting is this Tuesday, September 5 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm at O'Fallon Park YMCA (4343 Florissant Avenue) and I encourage you to attend this meeting. If you are unable to attend the first meeting, please try to make it to one of the other meetings at various locations around the city. A list of the remaining locations and times is below.
Schlafly Branch Library - Thursday, September 7
6:00PM - 8:00PM
225 N Euclid Avenue
Vashon High School - Tuesday, September 19
6:00PM - 8:00PM
3035 Cass Avenue
Carpenter Branch Library - Thursday, September 21
6:00PM - 8:00PM
3309 S Grand Boulevard
Carondelet Park Rec Center - Saturday, September 23
12:00PM - 2:00PM
930 Holly Hills Avenue
If you require any reasonable modifications or auxiliary aids and services for effective communication because of a disability, please call 314-622-3686 48 hours in advance
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The editor encourages readers to forward The Watch to anyone you think would be interested. Our city and our schools need as much public awareness and public engagement as we can muster at this time.
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Questions for the Watch? Letters to the Editor? Stories to contribute? News tips? Send them to SLS_Watch@yahoo.com
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Calendar
September 12, 2017, Tuesday, Board of Education regular monthly meeting, 6:30 p.m., Wilkinson Early Childhood Center ,1921 Prather Ave, St. Louis 63139
September 28, 2017, Thursday, Special Administrative Board meeting, 6:00 p.m., 801 N. 11th Street, room 108
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