Panic over the state of 狐狸视频 Public Schools is a favorite pastime of elected officials and the local media. For the vast majority of people casting stones, their involvement with the city鈥檚 school district is as a casual spectator. The swift and cynical judgment from armchair quarterbacks is not helpful, consistently wrong and often classist and racist.
In 狐狸视频, this has led to frequent takeover movements from the 鈥淢ayor鈥檚 Slate,鈥 Freeman-Danforth Commission, turnaround firm Alvarez and Marsal, the Special Administrative Board, the Consortium Partnership Network and the current mayor and former superintendent鈥檚 privatization effort 鈥淏etter Futures STL.鈥
From 2007 to 2019, a three-person Special Administrative Board, with members appointed by the governor, mayor and president of the Board of Aldermen governed 狐狸视频 Public Schools. While the SAB turned a $60 million debt into a $100 million fund balance, this era of austerity happened at the expense of the district鈥檚 buildings, its teacher workforce, student achievement and most dramatically enrollment.
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In January 2023 the School Board, five elected members and two members appointed by Mayor Tishaura Jones, voted unanimously after a months-long nationwide search to hire a first-time superintendent from Seattle, Dr. Keisha Scarlett.
She had charisma and a big vision. It was never meant to be a safe choice. The Board never asked her to maintain the status quo, which no one believed was sustainable. But it appears that maybe those risks were too big and came at too high a cost.
It was the School Board who recognized its mistake and the majority of the Board took quick, corrective action.
Now the pearl-clutchers and opportunists are ready to pounce with the same old lazy solutions: mayoral control, state control, more charter schools!
The School Board is owning up to its mistakes, but this current scandal is just another addition to a long list of serious problems that we鈥檝e been working to fix.
Just four years ago, the district lacked a uniform, evidence-based, literacy and math curriculum, school fences tested positive for lead, school libraries were stocked with old books, teachers hadn鈥檛 had meaningful raises in over 20 years, proposed state legislation threatened to divert $18 million a year from the district to charter schools, there was no coherent plan to deal with the scourge of crumbling vacant school buildings and years of deferred maintenance made for bleak learning conditions for students and staff in dilapidated occupied buildings.
All of these problems, largely unaddressed by the miserly and unaccountable Special Administrative Board, have been tackled head-on by the elected Board in just the last four years, all while growing the district鈥檚 cash reserves to over $200 million.
But turning this ship around is tireless, gut-wrenching work. Since the 鈥渆lected鈥 Board has regained governance, four members have quit, and vacancies lingered waiting for apathetic mayors to find and appoint replacements.
Democratically elected school boards can be messy. School board members, like any elected officials, can easily become puppets of special interests whether it鈥檚 book burners or the teachers鈥 union. Some school board members are only there to climb the political ladder while some others focus selfishly on their own child鈥檚 school.
It would be wonderful if we could staff school boards with seven altruistic, highly knowledgeable, experienced and diverse leaders who will volunteer to accept every criticism and absorb all of the blame for every systemic problem only to receive nothing in return for their service. In reality, it鈥檚 not a call that most people will answer.
But school boards are representative democracy at its most basic level. Mistakes only equal incompetence needing wholesale overhaul if board members don鈥檛 recognize and correct them. The SLPS Board of Education continues to own up and correct its own mistakes, as well as the mistakes of past governing bodies and administrations.
鈥淐haos, crisis, turmoil!鈥 are the familiar cries of the fearmongering mob that only occasionally disrupts the city鈥檚 power structure from its complacency.
This city is brutally hostile to families trying to raise children and the school system constantly struggles under the stress this places upon it. The schoolchildren of 狐狸视频 deserve better than half-baked, knee-jerk solutions. They deserve something they never have: unwavering support from the entire community.