The St. Louis Community College (STLCC) has been the pathway for bettering the lives of thousands of people. Votes in the less-publicized STLCC Board of Trustees races are crucial in selecting leaders who can further opportunities for the community.
In the April 4 general municipal election, 12 candidates will vie for two seats on the St. Louis Community College Board of Trustees. The Subdistrict 1 seat largely represents North County, and Subdistrict 2 covers the city.
The winner of the Subdistrict 1 seat will serve a three-year term while the winner of the Subdistrict 2 seat will serve a six-year term.
Our story on March 16 featured three Subdistrict 1 candidates – Miranda Avant-Elliott, Kevin Martin and Marsha Bonds – because the American was able to track them down first. This report includes all three Subdistrict 2 candidates and the remaining Subdistrict 1 candidates that we were able to contact. (Some of them don’t have any online campaign presence so contacting them was a challenge or not possible.)
Subdistrict 2
Three candidates are vying for the Subdistrict 2 “city” seat, including Pam Ross, Patrick J. Burke and Ciera Lenette Simril. Incumbent Hattie R. Jackson did not seek re-election.
Ciera Simril is a neighborhood organization leader in North St. Louis and a member of the city’s Civilian Oversight Board, which reviews complaints of police misconduct. She works as an account processor at U.S. Bank and as a contracted pharmacy technician for BJC Community Affairs. She attended STLCC’s Forest Park campus and believes her insight gives her an advantage.
“I’m most passionate about continuing to make STLCC a quality education and affordable for students,” Simril said. “I also want to manage the budget properly so that not only students get the things they need, but that staff and faculty have the proper tools.”
She will push for more transparency and to engage the public in what the trustees do, she said.
Pam Ross is a member of the St. Louis Community College Foundation, and she believes her political activism in the region gives her an advantage over the other candidates.
“I’m not afraid of conflicts,” said Ross, who attended STLCC – Forest Park. “It’s a political fight who needs this education.”
Ross has no online campaign presence or way for the public to contact her about her campaign. However, she said as a trustee she would “reach out to young parents and create a pathway to living wage jobs through STLCC programs.” She also wants to return childcare to the Forest Park campus.
Patrick Burke is a board member of the Mullanphy Community School and a neighborhood organizer who graduated from STLCC – Forest Park. He said he is running because he wants urban students represented at the board level.
“Too many decisions have been made to the detriment of our city students and potential students,” Burke said. “Education is the single best way to improve people’s lives.”
He is passionate about removing the barriers to student success and finding solutions to barriers such as lack of mentors, lack of transportation, need for child care, inadequate educational preparation for college, financial issues, bias in financial aid programs and poverty-related disabilities.
Subdistrict 1
Nine candidates will be on the ballot for the Subdistrict 1 seat, including incumbent Derek Novel. The other candidates are Candace Gardner, Marsha Bonds, Kevin Martin, Marcus D. Adams, O. Daniel Gray, Veronica Avery-Moody, Theodis Brown and Miranda Avant-Elliott.
Subdistrict 1 includes the Hazelwood, Ferguson/Florissant, Riverview Gardens, Jennings, Pattonville, Ritenour, University City, Normandy, Clayton and Ladue school districts.
Candace Gardner of Florissant is a special education teacher at Northview Elementary School in the Jennings School District.She was elected in 2016 but resigned after former tax liens filed against her made her ineligible for the position.
“I want to help young adults in the transition into college and furthering their career,” Gardner said. “Preparation is the thing I’m most passionate about for these students.”
Her experience as a special needs teacher sets her apart from other candidates, she said, because she understands what it means to work for the community and the students’ needs. She spent a semester at STLCC – Florissant Valley before going on to a four-year university and wants to help students do the same.
Marcus Adams heads Centrue Bank’s Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Mortgage Origination team for the St. Louis region.
“I’m passionate about the working-class adults that are being laid off or are not able to compete in certain markets,” Adams said. “They need to get another education, retool, regroup, and attain new skills that STLCC might have for them.”
Adams said he faced three bouts of unemployment and knows what it’s like to “regroup” several times to continue to maintain a competitive pay. He wants to promote and attain more adult education programs and resources for STLCC. He is also passionate about getting students prepared for college. He believes his background in budgets and finance will be an asset to the board.
Incumbent Derek Novel of Florissant is a retired educator and active community volunteer. He was appointed to fill the Subdistrict 1 seat that Gardner left vacant in May 2016. He said he is passionate about being fiscally responsible as the college addresses Missouri’s budget cuts to higher education.
“Although we have instituted some hiring freezes, we have neither raised tuition nor have we been forced to implement widespread reductions in staff as elsewhere,” he said. “We need to work even harder to market and promote ourselves.”
He said he is the only candidate who has experience as a school principal. He believes that true pathways to career and college readiness begin in the primary grades.
SLPS school board
On April 4, voters will select three out of seven candidates for Saint Louis Public School’s elected Board of Education. Five candidates responded in a timely manner to questions we posed to them regarding school issues and governance, summarized below.
Susan Jones is running for re-election to the board, where she currently serves as president. The supplier diversity manager and former educator said a community’s best investment is in educating its children. Jones said the three most important issues facing SLPS are poverty and homelessness, funding and parental education/involvement.
Jones said elected school board members are in place to incorporate the views of the community and she favors a smooth transition of governance from SAB to elected board “so that taxpayers in St. Louis will have a say in education once again.”
Jones is not a fan of charter schools in public education. “Charter schools are independently ran organizations that cipher education funds away from public schools and have no accountability to the tax payers that pay to run them,” Jones said. “There should be a moratorium placed on any new charter schools in the city of St. Louis.”
Dorothy Rohde Collins is a former SLPS teacher and parent of an incoming kindergartener in the district. As a parent, Rohde Collins said she is impressed with the number of options and opportunities available, yet frustrated over the lack of information to make decisions and difficulty in navigating district procedures.
She said enrollment, confidence in the district and the status of neighborhood schools are the three most important issues facing SLPS.
She stated charter schools have gotten away from their original role of experimenting with new ideas and curriculum, now offering essentially what public schools offer. “We have far too many schools which are all competing for the same funds, resources, and students. This has led to the closure of many neighborhood public, which is chipping away at the identity and community of many neighborhoods across the city,” she said.
David L. Jackson Jr. is a product of SLPS andpreviously served on its school board before and after the SAB oversight. The business consultant believes in both traditional and vocational educational outcomes for SLPS. The three most important issues facing SLPS, according to Jackson, are financial stability, student learning and recruitment/retention of qualified teachers and administration.
Jackson finds both good and bad points with charter school education. “I believe Charter Schools and Public School Districts can co-exist if true collaboration and partnership develops,” Jackson stated. “SLPS has not been successful in providing quality and successful special education, foreign languages, math and science curriculums and programs. I believe these are some areas where charters and the public school district could collaborate and partner.”
Brian P. Wallner wants technology in SLPS to be the best to prepare students as future leaders. An IT support and IT business analyst, Wallner said a vision of high expectations for student achievement and goals to create it are the most important responsibility for the board.
Waller said the three most important issues facing SLPS are its reputation, teacher turnover/recruitment and future opportunities for students.
Regarding charter schools, Wallner said, “Charter schools in St. Louis would seem to exert competitive pressure on the Saint Louis Public Schools and encourage them to improve.”
Natalie A. Vowell is running for the school board because it affects children, everyone and the city’s future. She describes herself as a tireless volunteer and she founded an organization that she says prevents the seizure of owner-occupied homes at sheriff’s tax auctions.
Vowell said the three most important issues facing SLPS are ending the school-to-prison pipeline and punishing students with suspension and felonies; empowering teachers to shape policy and directly engage with parents; and ending cyclical poverty.
She said charter schools should provide a unique education, not simply duplicate a regular SLPS curriculum. “We need to make sure any charter school who takes on a student is willing to guide and inspire them throughout their entire education, instead of just sending them back to SLPS after they’ve collected the allocated per-child funding,” she said.
