The New Role of the Elected St. Louis School Board

The following viewpoint was submitted to me by a regular reader that I have met in person. Given that we will be electing two new members to the St. Louis Public School board in the face of a state takeover, I thought this was timely and of interest.  The election is this coming Tuesday April 3, 2007.

When reviewing the lists of tasks proposed for the new versus the existing leadership boards, I wondered, “What positive impact and responsibilities would the publicly-elected board have?”The answer appears to be the same function as that of a group of officers elected to represent a large PTA, in its traditional role (see mission of National PTA). Reflecting on what I recall that PTAs of my generation would do for their schools and their district, I don’t recall any PTA being involved in representing much less leading labor and employment matters, nor capital expenditures, nor curriculum, nor any of the functions that are being proposed to be assigned to the new appointed board. The PTA’s role was to act as a macro conduit from the parents to the schools in improving communications and guidance ultimately to the superintendent for the benefit of the students and to act as a conduit from the schools to the parents to improve the parents’ abilities to raise, educate and protect their children…nothing more. They had no taxpayer-funded, salaried staff nor outside legal counsel reporting directly to them, as the present board has. They did not get involved in union negotiations or any personnel decisions, nor did they have a role in reviewing neither curriculum nor vendor contracts. They simply were to act a constructive voice of the parents as well as a constructive voice of the schools.I think the elected board’s new role could be a very positive thing to publicize going forward. The people running for office to serve in this new role of a publicly-elected board would have to ask themselves and sell to the public why they were interested as well as qualified to serve in this more limited, but still very important function. The superintendent and other school officials would find it helpful to utilize this group to download new policies and procedures that were designed to improve classroom and student outcomes, to increase volunteer and community support of existing and new programs and the neighborhood schools themselves and, most importantly, to improve parents’ abilities to, frankly, be excellent parents of their children.

Perhaps the elected board would assign themselves geographic areas of the school district, so every school would have one board member assigned to it to facilitate the dialogue between each parent and school management. If a parent could not make progress on their own to resolve an issue or could not understand how to assist their children on a matter, then the board member could be turned to for following through on the issue, acting as an advocate for the parent but also to help communications and provide assistance on educational and parental topics if indeed that was all that was needed.

In essence, the present and newly elected board members would serve as the vox populi, a role that many could clearly be qualified for.

The author of the above also suggests reading the report; School Boards: Focus on School Performance, Not Money and Patronage
By Paul T. Hill. From the introduction:

Local school boards meet frequently, sometimes more than once each week, and produce a steady stream of policies and initiatives. They spend the bulk of their time on budgetary and personnel issues and on resolving complaints, leaving little time for oversight of instruction or even reviewing data about school performance.

Should Americans be content with the principle that government oversight follows money and jobs? This paper argues to the contrary, that government regulation and oversight are now both excessive in one dimension (budgetary) and shockingly negligent in the other (school performance). It concludes that the work of local school boards can be focused on what children need to know and whether the schools are teaching it effectively. The report has three parts:

• Why the existing structure of oversight does not promote school performance;
• What performance-focused oversight of schools would entail; and
• How the missions and activities of school boards and district central offices must change.

This is certainly all food for thought. What do you think?

ADA Ramp Fixed Before Project Completion

In January I brought you images of an ADA ramp under construction that, if completed, would ironically prevent the public sidewalk from being ADA compliant (see prior post). In addition to posting the information here, I bought the issue to the attention of several city officials who were able to intervene in the public’s interest.

Above is the situation from late January, with the wall for the ramp into a building entrance very close to the lamp post and the parking meter just out of view.  This basically blocked the public sidewalk from being ADA compliant.

It wasn’t long before the contractor had the curving brick wall torn down and rebuilt so that it intruded less into the public right of way.  The above is from 3/26/07 showing the area nearly complete.

Another view of the too-close wall and how little space it left for pedestrians on the sidewalk.  Those using mobility scooters or wheelchairs would have had a nearly impossible time getting past this area.

Today the sidewalk works for pedestrians and the ADA ramp works for those entering the renovated building. It is nice to see things work out well in the end. I just hope that the city, designers and contractors will begin to pay more attention to these issues so that work must not be redone midstream.

Sound Off on St. Louis Public Schools

The other night a friend said I was “suspiciously silent” on the entire St. Louis Schools controversy, knowing I had been on vacation in California when the latest went down. Everyone is likely aware of the events of last week, the state of Missouri taking the final step to strip the St. Louis Public Schools of its accreditation and appoint a 3-member board to run the system, all effective in June. Governor Blunt has appointed suburban sprawl profiteer Rick Sullivan with Mayor Slay and President of the Board of Alderman-elect Lewis Reed to appoint the remaining two.

My silence has more to do with my lack of a clear position on the entire mess. I’m conflicted on events over the last few years leading to this point.

I know this much, Veronica O’Brien still seems to be the most unstable figure in the process as evidenced the recent phone incident with Superintendent Diana Bourisaw. See report from KSDK. Furthermore, we have a school board election just over a week away to replace two members whose terms are ending, yet it is doubtful anyone will pay attention as the elected board will likely be powerless. The local teacher’s union is pushing two candidates who will most likely win.

Legal challenges to the state takeover will also be put forth soon enough. A good thing or simply delaying the inevitable? Meanwhile Mayor Slay is pushing for the right to sponsor additional charter schools in the city.

I’m still researching and talking with various individuals closer to the subject than myself, hoping to form a clear and coherent position on the state and future of our schools. In the meantime, let me know what you think about where we’ve been over the last few years and what you think the future holds.

My Listing in the 8th Annual Big Big Tour

This years marks the 8th annual “Big Big Tour” of for sale homes in the City of St. Louis. As with past years, the events includes a wide variety of properties for sale. From their website:

St. Louis’ ONLY city-wide house tour returns soon for its eighth year! This popular and FREE extreme open house and Homebuyer’s Fair will be held Sunday, March 25, from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. (Homebuyer’s Fair starts at 12:00, properties open at 1:00) beginning at Central Reform Congregation, 5020 Waterman at Kingshighway in the Central West End.

This year, over 200 “for sale” properties priced from $30,000 to well over $600,000 will be available to tour in neighborhoods in all corners of the city.

Be sure to check out the Big Big Tour this Sunday afternoon!

And while you are out and about, stop by and see my latest listing — a former shotgun house reconfigured into modern living space.

I think this home may change your perceptions about what a shotgun house can look like. The owner of this house (which is not me, btw) relocated the kitchen from the back to the second room. This creates a public space in the front two rooms with a private bedroom area at the back. At just over 900sf, this is larger than some new lofts.

And the new kitchen is stunning! Many of you may recognize the cabinets as being from Ikea, they are very effective providing lots of storage. But the point of this post is not to sell you the house but to show a new way to think about the shotgun house of which St. Louis has thousands of examples.

The living room, dining area and kitchen all feel spacious and the relationship to each other is quite nice.

Originally this house was actually a 4-room shotgun. The area you see above was a tiny kitchen. By removing the wall between the old kitchen and the closet sized bedroom the home feels so much more open.

A bed now fits nicely in the back room with plenty of room for a home office and dressing area.

The bathroom is entirely new and completely reconfigured from the original bathroom.

Many people have claimed these homes are “obsolete” as a means of justifying razing them. However, given the massive quantity of houses like this that we have I think it makes more sense to reconfigure the interior spaces to work for modern life.

Come by Sunday afternoon between 1pm and 4pm to check it out for yourself, the address is 3459 Itaska (map). For more information review the official listing; #719782 ($109,900).

14th Street Pedestrian Mall, Thirty Years Ago Today

The first day of the grand opening of the 14th Street Pedestrian Mall was thirty years ago today, March 21, 1977. The big
official dedication followed on the 26th:

Three decades ago someone thought it a good idea to close off two blocks of a commercial street, intending to compete with then “open air” suburban malls. However, by 1977 the city had already experienced significant population losses, making it more challenging for the retailers, which included a JC Penny department store, harder to stay in business. Interestingly, a classmate of mine mentioned her family visited the new mall — once. They came to see what it was all about because it was new. After seeing the new mall they resumed their shopping at Northwest Plaza.

By 1977 the “pedestrian mall” movement was pretty well over, except in St. Louis obviously. By this point new suburban malls were enclosed. Thus, while 14th Street was intended to compete with the suburbs it was dated by the time it was opened. In the 1980s formerly open suburban malls, such as Northwest Plaza & Crestwood Plaza, were often enclosed.

Today the mall is nearly vacant, with a few holes where buildings have been razed and as you can see, another is in the process of collapsing.  A long debate in the area is about the wisdom of the mall at the time.  Some suggest the mall helped preserve these buildings — that they would have fallen to the wrecker like so many others immediately around the area.  Others, myself included, counter that we would have seen abandonment and destruction in the area anyway but that the mall prevented revitalization efforts from taking hold in this former commercial district — that without the mall efforts to revitalize the neighborhood over the last 30 years might have gone further.

The neighborhood is on a role, finally.  Many of the remaining old buildings on the surrounding residential streets have been rehabbed or are in process.  New homes are being constructed on in-fill lots and of late organizations working together have purchased many of the buildings along the mall.  Plans are in the works to rip up the “mall” and return this to a street once again.  The only debate I am hearing at the moment is if the single cross street, Montgomery St, should be opened as well or remain closed.

The new 14th Street will most likely never be the major shopping destination it once was.  This would be the case regardless of the ‘malling’ or not.  The question is can it hold its own as an interesting commercial street anchored by the outstanding and popular Crown Candy Kitchen on one end?