St. Louis Schools Watch
Frankie Freeman Lives!
By Susan Turk
January 18, 2018—St. Louis--Although celebrated civil right attorney Frankie Muse Freeman passed away January 12th she apparently spent the last few months of her life adding to her legacy regarding the SLPS by working with her long-time collaborator, Dr. Bill Danforth, to convene an ad hoc group to develop a transition plan that would continue to subvert the democratic aspirations of parents and teachers in the SLPS long after her death.
On Wednesday, January 17th the SAB’s task force on alternative governance for the SLPS had their final meeting. Item 8 on the meeting agenda was “Introduction by Michael Jones of a proposal.” That modest description masked a complete plan to extend The Danforth Freeman agenda for maintaining control over the board governing the SLPS for the foreseeable future. Rev. Jones, pastor of Friendly temple missionary Baptist church declined to name to participants in the ad hoc group which he described as meeting only twice. It is remarkable that they created such a detailed set of suggestions in such a brief amount of time.
It has 7 suggestions and Task Force Chair Richard Gaines arranged for them to be discussed and voted on individually. What was scheduled to be a 4 hour meeting lasted a marathon 8 hours during which task force members were provided with water but no food. Two breaks, of 10 and 15 minutes were allowed.
Jones and NAACP chairman Adolphus Pruitt played tag team throughout the meeting supporting each other’s motions. Earlier during the meeting Pruitt moved that, “This body recommend transition to an elected board with a definitive transition plan and a definitive transition process,” setting the table for what was to come. Rev. Jones seconded Pruitt’s motion. Most of the people in the room including the approximately 30 in the audience breathed a sigh of relief thinking this meant the task force was supporting the return of the elected board of education. The motion was approved on a vote of eight yeses and one abstention,
But as this publication has been attempting to communicate repeatedly over many months, there is a world of difference between supporting the transition to “an elected board” and “the elected board”. Once the St. Louis Plan as Jones called it was introduced, it became all too clear that the intention was anything but returning “the elected board” to governance.
The plan’s provisions are
The creation of a special oversight body with the power to intervene in low performing schools statewide in an effort to prevent their districts from losing accreditation.
Ensuring school boards which have previously lost accreditation are trained to understand their proper relationship with and the roles of their superintendent, administrators, principals and teachers.
Requiring that schools board wishing to terminate superintendents do so by means of a greater than 2/3 majority rather than a simple majority currently required by state law.
Allowing for more autonomy for principals concerning resources, staffing, curriculum and programming.
Requiring elected board to develop annual goals and publish a report on what they have achieved.
Extended trainings for boards whose districts have lost accreditation
Requiring that a public referendum be held in St. Louis in 2025 on the return of the elected board model AND upon the effective date of enabling legislation, assumed to be August 29, 2018, the dissolution of the existing BOE and SAB and their replacement with a seven member board three of whom would be appointed by the mayor, three of whom would be appointed y the president of the board of aldermen and one who would be appointed by the commissioner of the DESE AND for which current members of the SAB and elected board of education would be given preference.Three of whom would serve until April of 2019 when an election would be held to replace them and the other four of whom would serve until 2021 after which all 7 members would be elected.
All of these “suggestions were approved by the task force except #4 and the part of #7 which would have put a new appointed board in place to replace the SAB and eventually morph into “an” elected board. So, no recommendation was made regarding how a transition should look. The date of the referendum was changed to 2024 to coincide with the presidential election.
The SAB will make its recommendation tonight. It may or may not follow what their task force recommended last night. The meeting begins at 6 p.m.. Public comments will be allowed as usual.
Survey results revealed that 1554 participated. 664 or 464 favored a hybrid board. 608 or 43% favored an elected board and 154 or 11% favored an appointed board. Vector admitted that the difference between 46% and 43% was insignificant and meant a virtual tie.
