Margie Vandeven may be Missouri’s new commissioner for elementary and secondary education, but she is entering the job at the first of the year concentrating on some old problems.
One of them, she told reporters in a conference call after her unanimous selection by the state board of education, is working for changes in Missouri’s student transfer law, to help protect the budgets of districts whose students are eligible to leave.
Because of the financial drain from payments for tuition and transportation, Vandeven said, those districts suffer financially, which in turn hurts students who stay. Earlier this year, the state took over Normandy’s finances and dissolved the district in favor of the Normandy Schools Collaborative. Riverview Gardens faces the possibility of similar financial problems.
A bill designed to alleviate the problems was vetoed earlier this year by Gov. Jay Nixon for several reasons, so the old transfer law remains in place. Lawmakers have filed bills to fix the problem of tuition payments for the session that begins in January, and Vandeven said changes are a top priority to help improve struggling school districts.
“One of the first things that we need to address is a tuition fix,” she said. “Normandy is 80 students away from potential fiscal insolvency. And while all children deserve access to a high quality education, there are ways to make that happen without bankrupting the whole school district.”
The issue, Vandeven added, is helping to make sure that students don’t have to leave their home district to attend good schools.
“We did many meetings with the Normandy families,” she said, “and one thing they spoke loudly and clearly about was that they needed and wanted quality schools in their own neighborhoods and in their own communities. So we really need to be able to attract the best leaders and the best teachers for those schools, and with the question of fiscal insolvency, that’s a challenge to do so.”
Of the five final candidates to succeed Chris Nicastro, who retired at the end of December after five and a half years on the job, Vandeven, 46, was the only one who has not served as a superintendent.
A native of O’Fallon, Mo., she joined the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education nine years ago, after experience as an English teacher and administrator in private schools in Missouri and Maryland, and worked her way up to deputy commissioner in charge of learning services.
“She was a good choice in a good field of candidates,” said Peter Herschend of Branson, president of the state school board. “She has an absolute dedicated passion for the kids in this state to be successful.”
Asked about how her experience as a classroom teacher would help shape her approach as commissioner, Vandeven said, “I take the advice as commissioner that I received as a classroom teacher, and that was to know your students and your content well. Over the last nine years at the department, I believe that I’ve gained a great understanding of the diversity of our state and the people that we serve, and I’m committed to working collaboratively with them in the building of relationships.”
Vandeven said she plans to meet with superintendents in every region of the state, stating that they are critical to the success of Missouri schools. Asked whether DESE has the resources it needs to give struggling districts the support they need, she said it does not have them at this point, but the department has submitted a new budget request for such work.
She also noted that she would like to see the department become more diverse, to more closely mirror the districts it is becoming closely involved with. “It’s a challenge, as you know,” she said. “Geography makes that a challenge.”
That lack of diversity was raised as an issue when the five final candidates were named and all were white, as is most of the top leadership in DESE. Because most of the districts that the department has dealt with in recent years have had a heavy minority population, the disconnect was seen by some as a sign that Jefferson City was out of touch with districts that needed help the most.
“As long as the state capital is in Jefferson City and the state pays what it pays, attracting top-flight minority talent is always going to be a problem for Missouri,” said Mike Jones of St. Louis, an African American who is vice president of the state board.
Don Senti, who heads EducationPlus, a consortium of area school districts, said he was “surprised that a DESE insider was chosen over “four experienced, highly respected superintendents.”
“I must therefore assume that the Board is satisfied with DESE’s current initiatives and progress … and that Margie would be the best person to continue that work,” Senti said. “I hope that Margie will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the current reality in our state to determine if we are, in fact, on the right path.”
Edited for length and reprinted with permission from news.stlpublicradio.org.
