St. Louis Schools Watch
____________________________________________________________________
The Three Candidates Who Did Not Respond to Our Survey
By Susan TurkOctober 25, 2018--St. Louis— As we wrote in the previous issue, the November 6, 2018 school board election is potentially the most significant one since the 2007 state takeover of the SLPS and instatement of the appointed SAB. I write this because it is widely believed that governance is going to be returned to the elected school board in the near future. The SAB’s current three year term ends June 30, 2019. Consequently seven people have filed to run for the two seats in contention. The candidates are incumbents Donna Jones and Bill Haas and five challengers, former SLPS administrator Joyce Roberts, Adam Layne, Jared Opsal, Cydney Johnson and former school board member David Jackson. In contrast, four years ago when there was no buzz about a potential elected board return to governance, only Jones and Haas filed, and not having challengers, were automatically re-elected.
Keep in mind that there is no guarantee that the elected board will be returned to governance. But one or two of the candidates appear to have sprung from the corporate/not for profit community network tied into the Regional Business Council. They would not be running were it not for behind the scenes assurances that the elected board is being returned to governance. Civic Progress no longer seems to be in the saddle. Many of those elite companies have been bought by out of town or multi-national corporations, so they no longer sweat the small change local power battles.
Between the November 2018 and April 2019 school board elections, four new people could be elected to the board of education. If all of them were corporate community sponsored operatives, everything that the SLPS community has struggled to maintain, during the eleven years of appointed board governance, most of all an elected board representing SLPS parents, would be for naught. If the elected board becomes a mere subsidiary of the RBC, the aspirations of city students, parents, and teachers for much needed community based school reform will die.
Three school board candidates for the November 6, 2018 election did not return SLS Watch candidate questionnaires; Adam Layne, Cydney Johnson and David Jackson.
They did send in answers to the 7th ward candidate questionnaire which you can read at https://7thwardstlouis.wordpress.com/2018/10/07/school-board-candidate-views-goals-survey-answers-now-posted/
The Watch has researched them and can report that Adam Layne is a former Teach for America corps member who taught math in the SLPS at Clyde C. Miller Academy for 3 years. He is currently the Director of Inspire STL. He succeeded Board Member Charli Cooksey in that job. Inspire is a not for profit company which identifies academically promising middle school students in the SLPS and charter schools and provides them with resources to help them succeed academically. Inspire provides tutors, counselors and whatever other means of support may be needed for their student clients. Inspire assists them in applying to rigorous college prep high schools and eventually college. About half of their clients attend Metro and McKinley in the SLPS but they also direct about half of their clients to private and parochial high schools, Layne also serves on the board of directors for Kairos Academy, the charter school which Mayor Krewson’s son Jack is planning to open for the 2019 school year.
At a recent ward meeting, he stated that there were only 3 SLPS high schools that parents thought were worth sending their children to, the small college prep high schools, Metro, Mckinley and Collegiate. He stated that the other 12 high schools were not good enough, were not quality programs. That is an outlook held by parents striving to send their children to elite colleges and universities. He definitely has an elitist bias and does not believe that parents choose to send their children to any of the other high schools. But there are more than 5,300 high school students in the SLPS and many parents would disagree with that assessment, especially parents of students in Gateway, Soldan, Clyde C. Miller, and Central VPS, among others.
Layne says he is opposed to the Consortium Partnership Network, but he believes the intent of the people who are planning it is pure and he wants to learn more about it. He has also expressed openness to having board members elected by sub-districts.
As of September 30th, his campaign had only raised $395.
Layne is working for two ventures which drain students from SLPS making it harder for SLPS to succeed. Both Inspire, and Kairos when it opens, remove promising SLPS students making it harder for the district to meet accreditation requirements and depleting funding from the district. Why then is he running for the SLPS school board? At candidate forums he has responded that he thought there should be a black man on the Kairos Academy board and he was the only one. But he also said at the 8th ward meeting that he thought Kairos needed an educator on their board and he was the only one. Either way, if he were to serve on both a charter school board and the SLPS board of education at the same time, it would be a conflict of interest and he did not answer the question about why he is running despite the conflict. He simply advocated for why he is on the Kairos board and the good work that Inspire does.
Layne may possibly be the beneficiary of last minute financial assistance from Teach for America as Board Member Charli Cooksey was. She received $60,000 in the final weeks of her campaign blindsiding other candidates and enabling her to send out three citywide mailers attracting low information voters to vote for her. Cooksey was the highest vote getter when she ran in 2017. If Layne receives the same late infusion of T4A funding, he may very well win a seat on the board.
Cydney Johnson has run for two other offices in the past year and a half. He ran for 27th ward alderman in 2017 but was not listed on the ballot for either the primary or general election and in the August 2018 democratic primary for state representative in 76th house district where he placed fourth among four candidates. For both races he filed limited activity reports for his campaign meaning that he never raised or spent more than $500 in a quarter. He started the current reporting period with $300, took in $522 and spent $475 leaving him with about $351 on September 30th. He also had an outstanding debt of $3,614.48.
When this reporter interviewed Johnson by phone he seemed uninformed about SLPS. His personal experience was with county schools through the desegregation program and charter schools. Several of his younger siblings currently attend charters. He has said that he thinks there should be a young black man on the elected board and that he should represent that demographic.
He is an idealistic young man self-identifying as a democratic socialist.
David Jackson served 2 terms on the elected board from April 2007 through April 2015. In 2015 he came in third behind the Teach for America funded Chari Cooksey and well respected incumbent Katherine Wessling. He attempted to regain a seat in 2017 but came in 6th in a field of 7 candidates.
Jackson did not complete a candidate questionnaire when he ran in 2017. In declining he accused the editor of The Watch of being biased and opinionated. After 24 years of SLPS activism, I admit to having formed opinions based on observations. Despite those opinions, I give the candidates a forum for expressing themselves directly to readers such as yourselves whereby you can form your own opinions. Having forfeited that opportunity, Jackson leaves you subject to what I report and analyze.
Having known Jackson for eleven years, eight of which he served on the board, I can say that he is a charming, amiable man who runs an orderly meeting. But, he also demonstrates bullying tendencies. He called for the elected board to “cease and decease” three months after he was elected because of the SAB’s authorization. The date that the SAB would take over was well known during his election campaign so why did he run if he was going to call for the cessation of the board so soon after his election? Was it because his fellow board members did not give in to his demand to immediately elect him board president? Soon after his election in April of 2007, Jackson let it be known that he intended to throw his hat in the ring for election as board president that June at the annual election of board officers. Board members generally do not do that. They become acquainted with board procedures and sometimes run for board offices after being on the board for a year. Jackson was adamant not only about running immediately, but winning the board presidency. He threatened to resign from the board if his fellow members did not pledge to elect him president. This precipitated a crisis because if a board member resigns, the mayor gets to appoint the replacement. The rest of the board did not want to give Mayor Slay that opportunity. Peter Downs, who had been elected in 2006, was planning to run for board president in 2007. The rest of the board supported his candidacy. Jackson forced negotiations and the promise of being elected board vice president to assuage his ambition.
Jackson was eventually elected board president in 2013. He clearly enjoyed the prestige the title afforded him and frequently, commendably traveled to Jefferson City at his own expense to lobby the legislature and the state board of education about returning power to the elected board. But he did not understand the need to organize the community to apply political pressure on politicians. Jackson exhibited excessive confidence in his own abilities to sway political opinion. Each time the SAB’s term was up for renewal he was certain it would not be extended because he personally had lobbied those in power to end it. Although Jackson has never been successful in influencing the return of power to the elected board, he has never conceded that he alone cannot be effective. His sole ambition appears to be to hold the title of president of the board of education. To achieve that single minded goal he supported his friend Bill Monroe’s candidacy for the board. The prestige meant a great deal to him. He had a hard time accepting his election loss in 2015 and went off the reservation, so to speak, harassing Board Member Susan Jones after she succeeded him as board president trying to convince her that she needed his constant advice and could not fulfill the responsibilities of the presidency without his oversight. She finally blocked his repeated calls to her cell phone.
To honor him for his service after he lost the 2015 election, Board Member Katherine Wessling proposed that the board provide Jackson with the honorary title of community liaison for the board and the board approved it. Within a month, Board Member Bill Monroe submitted a resolution to the board of a four page job description for an executive community liaison who would actually be a shadow board president. The detailed job description, had it been approved, would have made it impossible for the president of the board to perform her duties without Jackson’s involvement. It was never voted on. Five months after Jackson was approved to be the board’s community liaison, he began speaking publicly claiming to represent the board without their instruction to do so and his title and position of community liaison were revoked. Jackson subsequently demanded that the board retract that vote and threatened to file a lawsuit against the board seeking monetary damages if they did not, but did not carry through with the threat. Afterwards, however, he frequently publicly remarked that he no longer supported the return of the elected board to governance. It appeared that if Jackson was not a member of the board and especially if he was not leading the board that its existence served no purpose for him. This was reminiscent of his behavior calling for the board to cease and decease immediately after the SAB was instated in 2007.
The following is from Jackson’s Facebook page.
“The Missouri State Board of Education has made it clear, on June 30, 2019 the City of St. Louis Transitional School District and its governing authority, the Special Administrative Board will cease and decease its operations and governance of the school system and will convert back to the local Board of Education for governance.”
The above statement is completely inaccurate. Jackson’s statements are not always based on facts.
The facts are that the state board of education has not made a decision about the future of the SAB and SLPS governance. The current term of the SAB ends June 30, 2019 but the state board has not decided whether to reappoint the SAB to yet another three year term or not. While there are indications that the state board is considering returning the elected board to governance, they have also stated reservations about doing so. While it is known that some of the current SAB would like to retire, the state board of education has the option of appointing new SAB members to replace them. A decision may be made this winter.
During the 2017 campaign’s League of Women Voters Candidate Forum, Jackson exaggerated his influence with the SAB and Dr. Adams. Jackson took credit for things the district accomplished that the elected board had no power over and dismissed the role fellow board members played in things they did, as if he alone was responsible for their accomplishments. He made similar claims at the 8thward meeting last week. On his current campaign literature Jackson takes credit for former DESE Commissioner Chris Nicastro’s decision to retire in 2014. He seems to have an inflated opinion of the effect of his actions on people and institutions.
Jackson also disparages the SLPS for being fully accredited when about half of the schools do not meet the criteria for individual accreditation by building. Jackson has failed to understand that accreditation is a moving target. Every five years, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education changes the criteria for district accreditation. Under the current standards the SLPS meets the requirements to be fully accredited whether Jackson likes it or not. He is correct in being concerned that there is room for improvement but given the punitive nature of the impact of losing accreditation his protestation regarding the district’s accreditation status is not helpful.
Jackson has not filed his campaign committee with the Missouri Ethics Commission. City school board candidates are not required to do that but most of them do. If they don’t the only way the public can become aware of candidate fund raising and spending for school board races is to visit the city board of election commissioners’ office at Olive and Tucker in person and ask to read their campaign finance reports which are required to be filed there.
Most of the seven candidates are highly qualified to serve on the board of education. Voters have a lot to consider this year. Please avail your selves of all resources at your disposal to educate your selves before November 6th.
The following link is for the League of Women Voters candidate forum from October 24th.
https://www.facebook.com/lwvstl/posts/2139883989379856
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.
............................................................................................................................................
Questions for The Watch? Letters to the Editor? Stories to contribute? News tips? Send them to SLS_Watch@yahoo.com
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Calendar
November 6, Tuesday, Election Day, Board of Education election, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
November 13, Tuesday, 6:30 p.m., regular monthly meeting of the Board of Education, Washington Montessori, 1130 North Euclid Ave., 61113, 6:30 p.m.
November 14, 2018, Wednesday, Better Schools Better Budgets Public Hearing, Central Print, 2624 North 14th St. 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. Dinner will be provided. RSVP online at bit.ly/bbbsletter!
November 15 2018, Thursday, irregular monthly meeting of the Special Administrative Board, 6:00 p.m., 801 N. 11th Street, room 108
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Please Subscribe to the SLS Watch.
If you have never subscribed because friends have forwarded The Watch to you, please consider subscribing now. Internet newsletter mailing and management services are not free. The Watch has always concentrated its efforts on getting you the news and analysis of the SLPS that you value rather than on keeping itself in the black. But in order to pay our bills, we do need your subscription. For a dollar a month, you will get news, opinion, and analysis that you won't see elsewhere in the media. Please write a check today.
Subscribe to the St. Louis Schools Watch.
Name:____________________________________________
Street No.:________________________________________
City:_____________________________________________
State/Zip:________________________________________
Telephone:_______________________________________
Email:___________________________________________
I am enclosing:_____$12 for a 1-year subscription (make checks payable to Commonsense Publishing, and mail to P.O. Box 1983, St. Louis, MO 63118.)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
The St. Louis Schools Watch was founded on the premises that parental and community involvement is needed for good schools to flourish, and that public participation is a cornerstone of democracy. St. Louis Schools Watch offers information and analysis that we hope contributes to a public debate over what changes are necessary to improve St. Louis public schools and what works.
Our mailing address is:
Common Sense Publishing
P.O. Box 1983
St Louis, MO 63118
