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City
schools have new superintendent
By Trisha Howard
Of the Post-Dispatch
02/25/2005
Creg Williams talks on the
phone with Mayor Francis Slay after he was announced as the new
superintendent.
(David Carson/P-D)
The board unanimously chose Creg Williams, a deputy chief academic
officer for the Philadelphia School District.
Creg Williams was about to board a plane and fly out of St. Louis Friday when the St. Louis School Board called and asked him to stay - for several years, if possible.
Williams rushed back downtown in time for board President Darnetta Clinkscale to introduce him Friday evening as the district's next superintendent.
Clinkscale said the board had unanimously chosen Williams, who has never served as a superintendent but currently oversees 58 high schools as a deputy chief academic officer for the Philadelphia School District.
And the usually contentious board made its choice in only an hour.
"I'm a happy lady," board President Darnetta Clinkscale said of the choice.
Williams, 44, said he hoped to take the district's reins in early April. He and the board have yet to work out a contract; Williams makes about $200,000, including benefits, in Philadelphia.
In the public interviews of the four finalists Friday morning, School Board members hinted that they would expect a long-term commitment. Board member Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. asked several of the candidates whether they expected to stay in St. Louis for four or five years.
State law allows metropolitan districts such as St. Louis to appoint superintendents for up to four years.
Board member Robert Archibald said later that the district "needs external and internal stability" after two years of interim superintendents and massive change.
"Dr. Williams wants that kind of commitment from the board," Archibald said. "And we want that kind of commitment from him."
Williams' appointment was the grand finale to two days of school tours, interviews and public introductions. He was among two men and two women vying for the district's top spot.
The others were Deborah Jewell-Sherman, superintendent in Richmond, Va.; Paula Dawning, superintendent of the Benton Harbor Area School District in Michigan; and John W. Thompson, former superintendent of Pittsburgh.
All four shared some basic philosophies. An urban district with a high mobility rate needs a single curriculum for all schools. Teachers need extensive and ongoing professional development to sharpen their skills. Facts - not feelings - must drive important decisions, whether about finances or academics. The district must find ways to engage parents, teachers, students and the community and mobilize people behind the goal of student achievement.
What set Williams apart, board members said, was his expertise and vision. Williams has headed high school reform in the Philadelphia School District, establishing ninth-grade academies that provide intensive instruction in literacy and mathematics and increasing the number of students taking Advanced Placement courses and tests.
In the process, the number of high schools meeting annual performance goals in the district more than doubled, to 16 last year from seven in 2002-03.
Mayor Francis Slay praised the board's choice, calling Williams "an impressive educator."
"He believes in kids and their ability to learn," Slay said in a written statement. "I look forward to working with him to improve the academics in the St. Louis Public Schools."
But Mary Armstrong, who leads teachers union Local 420, was lukewarm about the board's choice. Armstrong said she had preferred Thompson, who was recently bought out of his contract in Pittsburgh after the School Board voted 5-4 to oust him.
Of Williams, she said: "That's someone who has no prior experience as superintendent. Coming into a situation like St. Louis, I don't think you need a novice on the job, trying to deal with a budget deficit and bridge the gap with the community. ... But we have no choice but to work with whoever the superintendent is."
Reporter Trisha L. Howard
E-mail: thoward@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8172
Public schools go after alumni to fund big-ticket projects
By Carolyn Bower Of the Post-Dispatch
Sales
of wrapping paper, entertainment books and T-shirts have become
familiar ways for schools to pay for playground equipment, field
trips and even classroom supplies. Now public schools have found
another way to pay for extras.
Donations. Big ones. Gifts that can pay for the sort of projects that school tax money might have financed in more flush times.
Consider:
For years, private schools and colleges and universities have raised millions of dollars from alumni for building renovations, teachers, programs and technology.
Now public school districts have begun to follow suit.
Some districts have found themselves in a financial squeeze because local and state revenue has not kept pace with rising expenses. At the same time, schools face higher expenses in offering extra help to prepare students to meet tough standards for reading, writing, science and math. In addition, some St. Louis County districts are receiving less money than in the past to educate children in the desegregation program.
"At a time when money is tight, we have to learn to think in a different way," Kirkwood Superintendent David Damerall said.
Kirkwood's district foundation plans to appeal to 28,000 alumni next year for a couple of million dollars to invest in science upgrades, including science equipment.
About one of every three or four of the nation's 16,000 school districts has a foundation, most generating $100,000 to $500,000 a year, said Pete Karabatsos, a foundation development consultant based in Denver.
Although a number of school districts in the St. Louis region have foundations, including St. Louis Public Schools, many do not. More and more have begun to update databases of alumni, with an eye toward seeking donations.
Karabatsos said he has seen poor and affluent districts becoming entrepreneurial in raising money. Karabatsos said the effort is a relatively new movement in public education.
"Foundations are not to replace lost tax dollars," Karabatsos said. "Foundations established to replace tax dollars are not successful. Foundations established to take kids to the next level of excellence are successful."
On a shoestring
Affton school officials know what it is like to make do on a shoestring. The district won state recognition for distinction in performance for three years in a row while spending $1,700 less per pupil than the St. Louis County average.
At Affton High School, until this year, students ate in an institutional-green cafeteria. Students pronounced it dreary, dark and dungeonlike.
Bill Thompson, class of 1963, met his wife, Nancy, class of 1965, by a locker in a hall not far from that cafeteria. The Thompsons donated $1 million for the recent improvements at Affton High School. The Thompsons believe in public schools, Bill Thompson said, adding that schools such as Affton High can serve as the center of a community.
"Sometimes it is just not sufficient to depend on public funding to support things, especially enhancements," said Bill Thompson, chief executive officer of PIMCO, an investment management company based in Newport Beach, Calif. "Once in a while you have to reach out and find folks to step up and help out.
"There is no reason to think that Affton as a public school is any less deserving of delivering to kids the same things as (private schools such as) Burroughs or Principia."
University City High School Principal Beth Bender agrees.
"If private schools can raise those amounts of money, I don't know why it can't be that way for public schools," she said.
Although voters recently authorized a $9.6 million bond issue to pay for improvements at University City schools, the high school lacks the money for air conditioning or replacement of its aging pool and athletic complex, Bender said.
A group (Project Appleseed) led by parent Kevin Walker and other University City alumni sent letters last winter seeking donations from alumni. The group posted its plans online.
Bender now spends her nights thinking not only about air conditioning and a recreation center, but also about other renovations - space for the dance students now confined to the school's basement, improvements to a gym where plywood covers holes in the floor caused by a leaky roof, office space for each department, upgrades to allow the school to become wireless.
"CBC has done an amazing job," Bender said of the private high school that recently moved into a new building in west St. Louis County with a wireless computer network. "Why can't my kids have that? Why can't my staff have that? And I'm hearing alums say, 'Why not?'"
Stephen Bahn, class of 1969 at Ladue High School, saw the need for a field house and artificial field and track. Bahn became concerned that people who attend athletic events at a school with such a high academic reputation have to use portable toilets. Now Bahn is helping to coordinate a fund-raising campaign by Friends of Ladue High School Athletics.
"School districts are strapped," said Bahn, a commercial real estate broker. "Tax increases are getting turned down left and right. We can't wait for the school district to appropriate money. It is just not going to happen. We have to do it ourselves."
Controlling the money
The prospect of such large donations raises some issues for school leaders.
Who will control the money? Will projects follow a district's bidding process or be bid out privately? Will school officials have a say in naming rights? Will they allow buildings or spaces to be named for people? For corporations?
The Ladue School Board decided that although the alumni group would raise money on behalf of the district, the district would have final say on what the field house and improvements look like, where they are located and what, if any, names are allowed on the building. The board generally agreed it would not support using corporate names on the building. The project will be subject to the district's competitive bidding requirements.
The Clayton board has decided that while the Friends of Clayton Athletics will raise the money, the district will retain the right to handle the bidding, contracting and construction of the project. The board also reserves the right to sign off on the naming of the facility.
In University City, Walker said the alumni and parents would like to name a recreation building and rooms after donors. The group expects to submit a recommendation to the district's School Board this year.
Lynn Deane, president of the Ladue School Board, said board members spent several hours questioning Bahn's group. "This is a huge jump for us," Deane said. "We are grateful. I think this is a wave of the future. When school districts strapped for money want performance arts centers or science centers, this is how it will come to be."
Highland Superintendent Marvin Warner said the donation from the estate of Dorothy Kempff Freeman has been a boon in tight financial times.
"In our case, we had some very good fortune," he said. "We haven't actively gone out and sought this, but we would welcome other donations. Tomorrow would be fine."
In Affton, where the Thompsons approached school officials about making a gift, Superintendent Gay Tompkins said the entire community was touched.
"We hope other alumni will want to give back," she said. Affton High School students sipped coffee, nibbled french fries and talked with friends recently in the white, airy commons that opened with the start of school this year.
Of the Thompsons' gift, sophomore Dzana Beslagic, 15, said, "It's really generous for them to think of our school."
Kevin Eckert, 17, Affton's senior class president, said: "This really boosts school spirit. Our school has something to be proud of, to show off."
Eckert said if he makes enough money someday, he would give some of it to Affton High School.
"The way it affected us students, it would be cool to do the same."
Board votes to close 5 buildings Chris McClarren grabs for a sign that she brought with her to the school board meeting at Vashon High School Tuesday evening. (J.B. FORBES/P-D)
By Jake Wagman Of the Post-Dispatch
06/29/2004
The St. Louis School Board, a day before its controversial management team leaves town, voted Tuesday night to close five more school buildings.
The move, just like nearly every other public decision made by the board since a corporate turnaround firm was hired last year, was met by vociferous opposition.
Security personnel at the meeting, held at Vashon High School, had to intervene several times as audience members shouted at board members. One woman was escorted out after an officer tore from her hands a sign unfurled during the meeting. It read: "With every school you close, St. Louis loses a part of its soul."
There were however, fewer people than at earlier School Board votes, with many empty seats at the Vashon auditorium.
Under the plan approved by the board, the Lafayette, Banneker and Eliot elementary schools will close.
The buildings housing the Bunche Middle School and Central Visual and Performing Arts High School will close. Their programs and students will move to the old Southwest High building.
"This was the decision the board had to make," Board President Darnetta Clinkscale said. The vote to close the schools was 6-1, with Bill Haas the only dissenter.
District officials say the shuttering of additional schools - 16 were closed last summer - is a response to a steady decline in enrollment.
The district has schools that are more than half empty, with schools that are also well below capacity nearby. For instance, Lafayette, which is in the Soulard neighborhood, is operating at 48 percent capacity, with room for about 250 more students. Less than 1.5 miles away is Peabody Elementary, which is just over half full. Even with accepting some of Lafayette's students, Peabody will still be more than 25 percent empty.
But the demographics are little solace to residents of neighborhoods who lose a school. Or parents whose children will have a longer trip in the morning.
Some children who had to change schools after last year's closings will be affected again. They include students at Banneker who were moved there when Carver Elementary closed. Now, those same students will be moved again, this time to Dunbar Elementary. Similarly, students from the closed Lowell Elementary were moved to Eliot. Now, they will attend one of three elementary schools - Bryan Hill, Clay or Columbia.
Shakmia Pernal has two sons, two nieces and two nephews who attended Eliot. When she and neighbors found the school was slated to close, Pernal said, "They were kind of lost for words, because every child on the block goes to Eliot school."
Both the Eliot and Banneker schools were recently air-conditioned at a cost of more than $1.5 million each. Students at Banneker just returned to the building last year after months in a holding school while the air conditioning was installed. Teacher Mihline Manning said her principal called her Saturday at home to tell her the school could close.
"She said, 'Get your personal things because Banneker is probably gone,'" Manning recalled.
But the plan passed by the board is not all cuts. Seeking to increase the number of students by building on success, the board voted to expand Metro High, the district's academic magnet school. While the number of actual students in Metro's building will remain steady, a second class of Metro freshman will be housed at McKinley Middle, a feeder school to Metro with room to spare. Whether those students in the "Metro Annex" will move on to create their inhabit their own building is not yet known.
Tuesday night's session was the
last meeting of acting Superintendent William V. Roberti, the
straight-talking turnaround executive who has been schools chief
for the past year. Roberti, a managing director in the firm Alvarez
& Marsal, will leave office today, but not before an afternoon
news conference at which he plans to present a final report.
District veteran is picked interim chief Floyd Crues
By Jake Wagman Of the Post-Dispatch
A veteran educator and district insider will lead St. Louis Public Schools for the next year.
The School Board on Tuesday chose Floyd Crues, whose career in the school district began more than 25 years ago as a classroom teacher, as its interim superintendent.
"I just want to thank the board for putting me in this position," Crues said. "It's an honor and a privilege."
Crues, 59, will run the district for a year or more, as the School Board embarks on a national search to find a long-term leader.
The appointment of Crues represents both a step forward and a step back for the School Board.
Last year, the board hired a corporate management firm, putting turnaround specialist William V. Roberti in the superintendent's chair. The idea was to improve the operations end of the district - everything from food service to textbook delivery - so the district could attract a high-caliber superintendent who could focus on academics.
Instead, the School Board spent months on a superintendent search that became a hunt for one man: Rudy Crew. He is an educational adviser to the turnaround firm running the district and is the former chancellor of New York City schools. The attempt to land Crew turned into a tug-of-war with several other districts. Last month Crew took a lucrative contract to lead the Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
Without any other serious candidates, the St. Louis School Board found itself up against the clock. Roberti's contract expires at the end of the month, giving the School Board just weeks to find a replacement.
While Crues lacks the national profile the board has been seeking, he is an experienced instructional leader whose charge will be to begin the academic improvements sought by the board.
Those changes were outlined in a report by the Council of the Great City Schools, an urban education collaborative based in Washington.
The group's 132-page report issued last month said the district lacked a "sense of urgency" as well as a cohesive plan to raise student achievement. It also criticized the district for isolating special education and allowing textbooks to sit unused in a warehouse.
The council recommended that the district hire a chief academic officer, a move the district has paved the way to make. Just before the Memorial Day weekend, Roberti told two high-ranking officials - David G. Flieg, head of elementary schools, and Larry Hutchins, in charge of data and other programs - that their positions will not exist next year.
Crues will take over July 1, the day after Roberti's contract ends. The School Board said Crues' salary and contract details were still being worked out. Crues made about $80,000 in his position as director of alternative education with the previous district administration.
He will have plenty to keep him busy, even as school lets out for the summer. On Monday, state Auditor Claire McCaskill is scheduled to present an audit that shows problems with the district's bidding procedures for services. The district also continues to have budget problems. Too few employees signed up for a retirement incentive plan, keeping open the prospect of deep cuts, including layoffs and closing schools.
Mary Armstrong, president of the city teachers union, said Tuesday morning at a news conference that the interim superintendent must be able to raise the plummeting employee morale. Armstrong told reporters that while she had the "utmost respect" for Crues, her top choice for the job was Charles Brown, a former district official now with the state department of education.
"We need to have an individual come into this district where the community will have faith and trust in that person's ability to get this boat, that is sinking, back on keel and being able to sail forward until a permanent superintendent is selected," Armstrong said.
Brown could not be reached for comment. He was not among the two candidates interviewed Friday by the board. In addition to Crues, the board interviewed Pamela R. Hughes, the former principal at Metro High who is now in charge of all high schools for the district. While Hughes has backers on the board, she does not have superintendent certification from the state.
The board voted to appoint Crues on Tuesday in a closed meeting in the library at Vashon High. The vote was 6 to 1, with Bob Archibald the lone dissenter.
The board chose to promote within the district, partly because of the time crunch but also to restore stability to a system that has been rocked by intense changes made mostly by outsiders.
Board member Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. advocated naming Hughes as superintendent now, but having her take the job a year from now. Schoemehl, in an e-mail, said this would help "avoid the drama" of a prolonged superintendent search.
"The 'search process' and all of its perceived flaws will be the story for the next six months or so; then the story will shift to the selected candidate; then it will wrap up with some lame coverage about what the interim superintendent didn't get done in the past 12 months," Schoemehl wrote to all board members except Bill Haas.
Haas, who was later forwarded the e-mail, alleged that the message violated the Open Meetings law.
Reporter Jake Wagman
E-mail: jwagman@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8172
Crew not coming to St. Louis
By Jake Wagman Of the Post-Dispatch
Rudy
Crew will not be the next superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools.
Weeks of anticipation ended today when Crew, the former chancellor of New York City schools, told School Board president Darnetta Clinkscale that he does not want the job.
Crew has been offered the top spot by the Miami-Dade County school board, and is being considered for the same position in Washington. It is unknown if he has taken one of those posts.
His decision not to come St. Louis is a setback for the district. Just last week, a report by a national reform agency underscored the need for instructional leadership. The report cited the district for a chronic lack of focus, little sense of urgency, and no cohesive plan to improve student achievement.
"We had hoped to bring Dr. Rudy Crew to St. Louis as our next Superintendent," Clinkscale said in a statement. "When we asked for a definitive answer, he said that he had decided to seek the position in other districts. We wish him the best of success."
Crew was the only superintendent candidate identified by St. Louis Public Schools. The district will likely appoint an interim superintendent, maybe from within, before it starts a national search. A search could take months. Clinkscale, in the release, said the district would not settle. "We are not looking to find any superintendent," Clinkscale said, "but the right one."
For more on this story, read Tuesday's Post-Dispatch.
Reporter Jake Wagman
E-mail: jwagman@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8172
St. Louis School Closings Create Divide
By CHERYL WITTENAUER
Associated Press Writer
ST. LOUIS -- Parents and teachers are upset over the closings
of a dozen schools in mostly black north St. Louis, saying the
changes imposed by out-of-town consultants endanger children's
safety and have torpedoed a disenfranchised community.
Relations have deteriorated so much that school board member Vince Schoemehl, a former mayor, called protesters who stormed board meetings Nazis (he later apologized). And black board member Rochell Moore wrote a letter apparently placing a curse on white Mayor Francis Slay because he supported the slate of new board members who initiated the changes.
Some angry parents and teachers were calling for a boycott when school started Sept. 8 but first day enrollment was higher than the previous year.
Missouri's largest district, with an enrollment of 42,000, has laid off 1,400 people and closed 16 schools, 12 of them in north St. Louis. The radical changes, due to the school district's mounting deficit, were announced just three weeks ago with little warning.
"It's callous, reckless and roughshod," said first-grade teacher Catherin Rowe-Uddin, a 39-year classroom veteran.
Last month, she was among a group of teachers and parents who walked the route some children whose schools were closed will have to take over highway overpasses and through busy intersections and unsafe neighborhoods. She hugged a former student and said: "We're trying to save your schools, baby ... so the bad people will go home."
The "bad people" are the consultants hired by a multi-racial school board in May for $5 million to run the district temporarily. The district contracted with a New York City-based corporate turnaround firm, Alvarez & Marsal, which has never before worked with a public school system.
Katrina Kelley, the National School Boards Association's urban program director, said some other city school districts have privatized aspects of their operations, but only St. Louis has turned to a private company for governance.
The district's annual budget is $500 million. In December, an auditing firm selected by the mayor's office reported no deficit, but before he retired this summer, superintendent Cleveland Hammonds Jr. said the district was $55 million to $60 million in the red.
Days after the consultants were hired, they said they had discovered the deficit was $90 million, and they promptly made plans for the layoffs and closings.
"If it's a systemwide problem, why should the brunt be on one community, one side of the city," asked Sheryl Johnson, 49, who is black. "Why is there no parity in the closings?"
The management team has said its criteria for recommending which schools should close were occupancy rate, the building's physical shape, whether the site is air-conditioned and academic achievement.
The consulting firm's chief managing director, William Roberti, did not respond to telephone requests for an interview, but told KTVI-TV he was somewhat surprised by the negative reaction to the closings and layoffs. He said only an outside entity could make such tough decisions.
Among those laid off was Harry
Acker, 59, who until Aug. 11 headed the district's audio visual
department. The entire department was closed.
"They never once came out to look at our operation. They
looked at a piece of paper," said Acker.
Hammonds said both enrollment and the tax base have declined in the city because of suburbanization. In addition, some families have opted for parochial and more recently, charter schools, which the district must pay for.
The district also bore a costly desegregation agreement stemming from a 1972 federal discrimination lawsuit. A settlement in 1999 ended court supervision of the state-subsidized plan, which will be phased out over the next decade.
Schoemehl said the $5 million
price tag for fixing the schools is small considering the challenge.
"Right now, we're spending $11,000 per kid and the kids can't
read," Schoemehl said.
Averting disaster: Tough cuts to save St. Louis Public Schools
by William V. Roberti
St. Louis Public Schools face
both a financial crisis and long-term systematic problems. While
there are areas of excellence, far too many students leave school
ill-prepared for the work force and lives as productive citizens.
When we took this job, our only bias was the strong belief that
every child can learn.
Our first analysis showed the district could not, without disaster, continue to spend money at its current pace. In fact, only an unusual loan from a restricted district fund on July 1 made it possible to meet the current payroll and continue preparations for the coming school year.
The previous administration projected the district's deficit at $55 million, and recommended $36 million in personnel cuts, and $19 million in non-personnel cost reductions. We believe that estimate is too low, because it was based on a miscalculation of the district's fund balance, and unfounded optimism for projected revenue and expenses. Using more realistic data, we project a cumulative deficit of more than $90 million.
Three-quarters of the district's annual expenditures are to pay the salaries and benefits of more than 8,000 employees. Any significant reduction of the district's expenses will certainly involve significant cuts in personnel.
Last Tuesday, the new Board of Education approved a proposal to sell or mothball 56 buildings, including 16 under-utilized or under-achieving schools. Even as student enrollment has dropped substantially over the last two decades, the district has failed to adjust its inventory of buildings to match this decline. As a result, the district has far more schools than other urban school districts of similar size. As a result, money that would otherwise be invested in the classroom is being spent supporting the infrastructure. Selling or mothballing the most expensive-to-continue buildings will have the effect of making the remaining 96 schools stronger, and closing nearly $30 million of the district's deficit.
We propose to address the remaining deficit by suggesting sharp streamlining of the district's non-classroom personnel, and elimination of some non-classroom services. For example, an audit of the district's headquarters found more than 700 non-teaching employees in the facility, an annual payroll of $35 million. We believe that number could be reduced significantly. The prior superintendent had over 120 direct reports. We have streamlined the administration to 6 direct reports. A copy of our proposal will be ready for public discussion early next month. We believe substantial economies can be realized without increasing the current teacher-pupil ratio.
William V. Roberti, a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, specializes in working with under-performing or troubled companies by providing critical crisis management and operational restructuring services.
© 2003 American City Business Journals Inc.
Editorial
KEVIN
Walker, the
founder and president of Project Appleseed, has some great ideas
for getting parents involved in their children's education. Claiming
success around the country through his parental involvement pledge,
he's now trying to help the St. Louis Public Schools get more
parents committed to helping their children learn and helping
the schools improve.
Experts agree that involved parents are key to student success. Mr. Walker announced last summer his goal of adding 5,000 new volunteers in St. Louis each year for three years. His program centers on getting parents to sign pledges promising to work each night with their own children and to also give five hours each semester to the school.
The Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District signed up with Project Appleseed last year and quickly saw parents from 75 families pledge their commitments. Jo Ann Ford, parent involvement coordinator, praised the program for offering the small district a systematic way to connect with parents. "I have parents who would never cross the threshold of a school who are helping now," she said. They are doing everything from stuffing envelopes to tending the school garden. Larger districts, including those in Boston and East Orange, N.J., have also signed up for Project Appleseed.
In the St. Louis Public Schools, more than 8,000 dedicated community volunteers already pitch in through the district's volunteer office, school officials say. Each volunteer is important. But it's the commitment of parents in particular that makes the biggest difference in children's lives. Disappointingly, even with a staff of 15 people working on volunteer services, the district doesn't know how many of the 8,000 volunteers are parents.
Project Appleseed in St. Louis wants to start in the 40 schools targeted for improvement by the desegregation settlement. Mayor Francis Slay has pledged to help raise $150,000 in private money toward Project Appleseed's $500,000 budget for one year. That's a lot of money. And it makes you wonder why, if the St. Louis school district is already are paying 15 people to recruit parents and other volunteers, the city needs a half-million-dollar private effort as well. Mr. Walker says he has raised only about $28,000 -- far short of his goal. He blames the sluggish economy and would-be contributors who gave instead to Sept. 11-related causes.
Mr. Walker's ultimate goal is a worthy one. As schools in the city and elsewhere try to improve student achievement, it's essential that parents understand how much their efforts -- large or small -- can help.
This Editorial was published on Wednesday, February 6, 2002.
Editorial An "A" for Mr. Slay
St. Louis Mayor Francis G. Slay
ST. LOUIS MAYOR Francis Slay understands that fixing all that's wrong with the St. Louis Public Schools is a major undertaking. That's why he's trying to learn everything he can about what works around the country and then help the district figure out how to do it here.
The mayor's recent appointment of Robbyn Wahby as a researcher for the city is a good step in that direction. She joins Rev. Earl Nance Jr., appointed by the mayor in May to serve as his education liaison. Rev. Nance, pastor of Greater Mount Carmel Baptist Church, uses his part-time position with the mayor's office to pair up local businesses and colleges with the public schools. Both are former School Board members.
Mrs. Wahby will spend much of her time looking at successful charter schools. While the mayor's long-term goal is to improve the public schools, in the short term he wants city parents to have more charter schools as immediate alternatives.
In addition to studying charter schools, Mrs. Wahby, the former director of alumni relations at the University of Missouri at St. Louis and wife of 7th Ward committeman Brian Wahby, will also look for urban public school successes around the country. She hopes to find models that can be copied here. Mr. Slay and Missouri Education Commissioner D. Kent King have stressed that they don't want to take over the St. Louis district, at least not yet. But if the recent modest gains in student achievement don't accelerate, or they begin to slip, there may be no option left.
Mr. Slay deserves credit for doing more than just complain about the schools. For starters, he has attended every regular School Board meeting since his election last April. Watching the divisive, and largely unproductive, goings-on should help him grasp one of district's main challenges.
The mayor, through Rev. Nance, is trying to raise money and support for Project Appleseed, a volunteer recruitment program aimed at parents. Parental involvement -- a rarity in city schools -- is considered the most important ingredient for the success of individual students and schools as a whole.
To address the chronic shortage of qualified teachers, Mr. Slay wants to connect the St. Louis schools with the national Teach for America program. Operating much like the Peace Corps, Teach for America recruits recent college graduates to work for two years as full-time teachers in urban and rural public schools. The program has been used successfully in Atlanta, Baltimore, rural Louisiana and New Mexico, drawing young people who might not otherwise have considered teaching as a career.
Mr. Slay understands that if the city of St. Louis ever hopes to reverse its drastic population loss of the past decades, to attract new companies and new residents and to become culturally vibrant again, it must have a functional public school system people can have faith in.
For his first-semester efforts Mr. Slay deserves an A.
This Editorial was published on Jan. 2, 2002
