The Missouri State Board of Education voted unanimously on Tuesday, April 16 to return governance of the Saint Louis Public School District (SLPS) to the voter-elected St. Louis Board of Education, effective July 1.
SLPS has been under the governance of the three-member Special Administrative Board (SAB) since 2007, when the district lost accreditation.
In advance of the vote, State Board member Mike Jones thanked members of the SAB for their service. The SAB is currently made up of Richard Sullivan, Darnetta Clinkscale and Richard Gaines. Jones praised them for putting together a stable, productive team under the leadership of Superintendent Kelvin Adams.
“It’s a story about how to do something the right way over an extended period of time,” Jones said.
The state’s accountability system in 2007 outlined challenges linked to school finance, governance, and academic instruction and rigor. Since that time, the district has taken meaningful strides to improve academics, restore fiscal stability, expand educational options, upgrade aging facilities, develop community partnerships, and provide enhanced professional development and ongoing support to teachers and staff.
Based on those improvements, the State Board of Education granted SLPS Provisional Accreditation on October 16, 2012 and Full Accreditation on January 10, 2017. Reaching that milestone triggered the SAB’s next task: to make a recommendation to the State Board about future governance of the district.
In late 2017, the SAB convened a 10-person special committee to study board governance and make a recommendation regarding the future governance of SLPS. After reviewing the committee’s findings and extensive feedback from the community, the SAB unanimously approved a motion on February 13, 2018, to recommend the State Board of Education transfer governance back to the elected board.
The St. Louis City Board of Education will regain power with the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. Five board members – Board President Dorothy Rohde-Collins, Donna Jones, Susan Jones, Natalie Vowell and Joyce Roberts – have completed several months of training provided by the Missouri School Boards’ Association. Two members elected on April 2 – Adam Layne and Tracee Miller – will complete 16 hours of training, as well.
Jones welcomed the elected board and encouraged them, “Put in the work, prepare yourself, and then trust your judgment.”
The elected board has its work cut out for it, as members of the SAB will tell them.
“Our number-one goal was every child reading at grade level, and we’ve never achieved that goal, and there’s still a lot of work to be done to accomplish that,” St. Louis Public Radio reported Sullivan saying earlier this year.
SLPS student test scores are below state averages; St. Louis Public Radio reported that only 19 percent of third-graders were reading at grade level in the most recent state assessments.
The current enrollment of SLPS is just under 21,000 students. Since the state takeover in 2007, St. Louis Public Radio reported, the district has lost more than 10,000 students as more enroll in charter schools and the city loses population.