ST. LOUIS • Andrew Wimmer, a candidate for the city’s elected School Board, cut to the chase.
“A lot of people have asked the question, why run for the School Board when the Special Administrative Board is in control of the district?†he said at the Ward 8 meeting last week in the city’s Shaw neighborhood.
It’s the same question posed to the four other candidates from time to time as they run for three open seats on the school district’s Board of Education — a group that lost power in 2007 after the state stripped ºüÀêÊÓƵ Public Schools of accreditation.
“My answer is the Board of Education — the elected board — is in a position to reconnect with parents and families,†Wimmer, 57, told the 20 voters gathered in a church basement. “The detrimental effect of having the SAB in control for this long is, little by little, people have disconnected from the schools.â€
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On April 2, city voters will elect three members to a board charged with monitoring — not governing — the school district. The Special Administrative Board, made up of Chairman Rick Sullivan, Melanie Adams and Richard Gaines, controls the district’s purse strings and sets its policy.
Even so, the seven-member elected board continues to meet most months inside the dance studio at Carr Lane VPA Middle School. And every two to three years, seats are up for election. This time, incumbents Chad Beffa, Emile Bradford-Taylor and Rebecca Rogers are stepping down. Susan Jones, Bill Monroe, Anthony Schilli, Kathy Styer and Wimmer are running for their spots in citywide races. The terms are four years.
Potentially, the three new members could serve during the board’s transition back to power. That is, if the Missouri Board of Education allows it.
“The feeling is, the Special Administrative Board is due to go out of existence at some time,†said Mary Beth Purdy, campaigning for her grandson Tony Schilli at the ward meeting last week.
An advisory panel led by former Washington University Chancellor William Danforth and civil rights leader Frankie Freeman recommended the elected board return only after the district is back on track and receives provisional or full accreditation. That was in 2010. The district received provisional accreditation last September.
But Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro has shown no indication that she favors returning the district’s control to the elected board anytime soon. The special board is set to expire in June 2014. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will consider this fall whether to recommend another extension to keep the special board in place, Nicastro said by email.
“The local elected board is what got the school district in trouble in the first place,†State Board President Peter Herschend of Branson said in September.
The elected board’s lack of power angers candidate Monroe, a former police officer and charter school executive who blasts the appointed board whenever he tells folks he’s running. Earlier this month, he told the SAB members they should involve the elected board at their meetings.
And the reality bothers candidate Styer, an accountant whose two daughters graduated from city schools. She told the small audience at the Ward 8 meeting she wants to ease the transition, and accelerate it, back to the elected board.
Jones, 26, who lobbied against the takeover as a high school student, told local radio host Lizz Brown last week that having an appointed board is equivalent to taxation without representation.
“When they took over the schools, they took away the voices for not only the students, but the community,†said Jones, who works in the Ritenour School District. “The SAB, their time has come to an end.â€
Jones’ mother, Donna Jones, is a current board member.
About a decade ago, the elected School Board became known for theatrics.
One board member put a curse on the mayor in 2003, and the following year she was arrested for dumping a pitcher of ice water on a high-ranking school administrator. Meetings routinely erupted into yelling matches. Superintendents complained of micromanagement. By 2006, the district had gone through six superintendents in three years.
Over the years, elected board members have met with Nicastro about their concerns and the future governance of ºüÀêÊÓƵ Public Schools. They drafted a transition plan in 2010. They attended a governing workshop put on by the Missouri School Boards’ Association.
But the board remains in limbo.
“It’s been quite frustrating,†said David Jackson, vice president of the elected board. “Every time you think you’re moving forward, you take a step back, or come to a complete standstill.â€
Missouri education officials credit the district’s gains in recent years to Superintendent Kelvin Adams, hired in 2008 by the Special Administrative Board. Members of the special board were appointed by the governor, the mayor and the aldermanic president.
Whenever asked whether that board’s term should be extended, Sullivan, its chief executive, declines to comment, saying it’s not his decision.
But candidates openly speak against it.
“The longer the tenure of the appointed board, the more disconnected and disenfranchised people become,†said Wimmer, an instructor at ºüÀêÊÓƵ Community College at Forest Park who has one son in city schools and another son who is a graduate.
A bill filed by state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-ºüÀêÊÓƵ,would return the district to an elected board as early as July. The bill, however, hasn’t made it out of committee.
Almost monthly, the seven elected School Board members walk into the mirrored dance studio at Carr Lane, where they gather for discussions related to the district. They sit at a table with name placards. Yet there are no microphones, no secretary and hardly an audience. Members pass resolutions that carry no weight. Meetings can last for hours.
For a few years, a videographer from the school district would come and tape the meetings. No longer.
“A lot of people don’t know we exist,†Jackson said.
