There’s at least one attribute that you can say the St. Louis School Board has and that’s consistency. Consistently insensitive, consistently incompetent, consistently ineffective.
Their approach to hiring the most important person in the school district is consistent with their mode of operations. The local only person I’ve heard who thinks this board is doing a great job is the same person who says he’s “made no mistakes” in his job, and that’s Mayor Francis Slay.
The board gave little notice to the general public about their forum to introduce the candidates for superintendent. Consistent with their disrespect of the community and particularly the district’s parents, the board set up the forum on the same night of the Parent Assembly meeting. These meetings have been the same since I can remember. These kinds of acts are at the heart of why the community is distrustful about the intent and agenda of this board.
The selection process moved so quickly that one has to wonder how thorough a job was done. Need I remind you of the fiasco with Rudy Crews?
This was the lone candidate for superintendent the first time around. Just like the fast-talkin’ New Yorker, Bill Roberti, Crews ran game on St. Louis by using us to get his job as superintendent of the Miami school district with a phat salary. You would think after having to wipe egg off their faces from that episode, the board would have proceeded with more caution on the hiring process and more openness to community involvement.
I want to be open to the selection of the new supe, Creg Williams, but it’s very difficult, given the past record of the local board.
Williams has never been a superintendent, and it concerns me that, once again, we’re experimenting with a district that needs tried and true leadership, research-based curricular and best practices for teaching methodology. I believe the board felt that, with Williams being a novice, he would be easier to manipulate. Time will tell.
Clearly, John Thompson had strong vertebrae and was perceived to be a threat to the Schoemehl-Slay agenda.
Knowing that Thompson had left the Pittsburgh school district and could possibly end up a candidate here, I inquired about him with some teachers and community activists when I was in Pittsburgh last month. With a few exceptions, most thought he had done a good job. Thompson was always accessible to the community and open to their concerns. Their board could only come up with silly criticisms of Thompson that the community thought had little to do with his performance, such as the cost of his clothes.
Our community didn’t have a whole lot of input with the selection of Williams, but we can have more in deciding the next three board members to be elected. We need to do our homework on each of them so that we can make an informed decision.
If you can’t do that individual investigation into the candidates, you need to check out a couple of forums before the April 5 election. For example, you may find it difficult to believe the commitment of a candidate to the district’s needs when they’ve attended few or no board meetings or never visited a school. Such was uncovered during the candidates forum broadcasted live on Lizz Brown’s Wake up Call on WGNU radio last week.
The school board candidates are Veronica O’ Brien. William (Bill) Purdy, Peter Downs, Jennifer A. Allen, Frank W. Kriegel Jr., Monica L. McNichols-Johnson, Dan Kinney, Nancy Galvin, Joe Moramarco, Flint W. Fowler and Joe Keaveney.
Upcoming candidate forums include one sponsored by the PTO at McKinley Middle School, 2156 Russell Blvd, on March 10 from 6:30-8:30 pm.
All concerned citizens (and that’s whether you have children in the district or not) must take action. The district is at a pivotal place; we have an opportunity to put this derailed train back on track.