Over the past two years, the St. Louis School Board has been the focal point of numerous protests and confrontations, mostly directed toward a slate of four board members n who constituted a new majority on the seven-member board n elected in 2003 and supported, among others, by the St. Louis Black Leadership Roundtable and Mayor Francis Slay. These protests were organized and led primarily by elected officials and community leaders from North St. Louis, who accused board members of being pawns of Civic Progress and Mayor Slay.
For nearly a year, St. Louis School Board meetings were loud and raucous sessions where board members were harangued by a variety of people and groups opposed to the fiscal changes the new board majority felt were needed to address the district’s dire financial shortfalls. A corporate turnaround firm was hired, schools were closed, services were outsourced and hundreds of employees were laid off to reduce a more than $75 million deficit inherited by the new school board members.
The EYE figured that, after all of the noise made by these so-called leaders n ranging from neck-bone radio talk show host Liz Brown to civil rights activist Percy Green n that a slew of candidates from North St. Louis would be standing in line to run for school board. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Of the eleven candidates who filed for election to three open seats on the April 5 ballot, not one is a resident of North St. Louis. As a matter of fact, the only signs advertising a school board candidate the EYE has seen in the ‘hood are those of Bill Purdy. Purdy is a former school administrator and chairman of the previous school board that created the $75 million dollar deficit.
This is another case of North Side elected officials acting like children instead of adults. Like children, they whine and scream about what The Man is doing to the school system, instead of standing up like adults and organizing a slate of candidates for election to the board to push their ideas for school reform.
Which begs the question, what are their ideas for school reform? During all of the contentious meetings over the past two years, the EYE has seldom heard one of the protesters mouth a credible, constructive word about improving academic performance for St. Louis Public School students. Once again: sound and fury, signifying nothing.