Today is the second official day of what could be the beginning of a major upheaval in the structure of public education in the entire St. Louis metro area. The gate opened yesterday for disenchanted parents in the embattled Normandy School District to request transfers for their children to other school districts. A Missouri Supreme Court ruling just a month ago ordered that parents in unaccredited school districts, like Normandy and Riverview Gardens, can pull their kids out of school and move them to a district that is fully accredited. Technically, this means that thousands of students in the metro area could be uprooted. “Technically” is the big, operative word here. Nobody knows the number of eventual flight requests.
To the best of my knowledge, not a single one of the more than 30 suburban districts eligible to receive transferred students is feeling cordial and honored about participating in the plan. Is there a projected bee-line district? Yes. The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education cleverly (or should I say “diplomatically?”) asked each unaccredited district to pick just one school district to which it could best afford to pay for transportation.
Let’s use Normandy as an example: As districts donned camouflage, Normandy chose the Francis Howell School District in St. Charles County, rather than a district closer to home. Why? Normandy School officials say: Francis Howell is in the same geographic corridor as Normandy; is a “high-performing district”; would provide a mutually good environment for racial diversity; is large enough and spacious enough to absorb more students; and asks non-resident students to pay a tuition comparable to what Normandy receives in state revenue per student. (On Tuesday, it was reported that Riverview Gardens had chosen Mehlville as its destination district, another potentially controversial choice.)
Governor Nixon is being asked to guarantee there will be no tax increases in the Francis Howell School District or anywhere else. Nevertheless, reaction to Francis Howell being pointed out as a prospective Promised Land has been fast and furious. Lotsa furious. Judging by traffic on social media, and the incendiary opposition of one state lawmaker in particular, some Francis Howell district residents propose locking up the welcome wagons and removing locks from the warehouses where the pitch forks and torches are stored. Trenches are already dug for what some residents fear could become a Normandy Invasion. The message seems to be NIMSY: Not In My School Yard!
Normandy would have to pay transportation to Francis Howell, but Normandy has a critical cash flow problem. The state pumps revenue into school districts throughout the year, not all at once. There is no lump fund to underwrite students who jump ship en masse, but receiver districts are putting up stop signs and demanding to be given the money upfront.
Some money discrepancy examples: Brentwood spends about $17,000 per student per year. That’s about $7,000 more per student than Normandy has in its wallet. The Clayton School District requires students coming from outside the district to pony up a reported $21,000 or so per year. Let me whip out my abacus…seems like depositing a student in Clayton would require a deposit of $11,000 more than Normandy is accustomed to spending. Looks like the math doesn’t work out.
Of even more concern to districts that could be on the receiving end is that the down-trodden Normandy School District has gotten a bad rep—which its school officials say is a bad rap. Normandy defenders say reports of widespread district violence, drug abuse, and discipline problems are grossly exaggerated. But the most vocal of the transfer plan’s critics don’t seem to be buying the argument that they would be taking in the cream of the Normandy crop. Plan opponents also don’t want their tax money spent on any…uh…incoming…uh…immigrants. Yeah, that’s the word: immigrants.
My Grandma Hattie always said: “Never borrow trouble.” Some folks in these receiving school districts would add: “And why buy it?”
So far, Operation School Transfer seems like it would be a giant cluster, doesn’t it? But the proposal is fraught with even more problems. (And I’ve not had to drag the word “fraught” out in decades.) As a former St. Louis Public School teacher—field-decorated and honorably discharged, with 44 eighth grade students (some of them 16) in my first classroom at Hamilton School, when I was a mere 21 years old—it seems to me there is another huge unanswered question. Did the Honorable Missouri Supreme Court or anyone slightly lower than Their Loftinesses bother to ask any of the hard-working teachers facing forced involvement their thoughts? Can they reasonably handle an increased class load? Some are already digging into their own pockets for supplies.
And still more “fraughts.” I would hate to own a fast-food joint, a barber or beauty shop, a convenience store, or any other business where I am likely to go an entire Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. without seeing many of my frequent young customers and workers. Where would they be? Wasting too much of their young lives traveling daily as many as 40 miles roundtrip on a rickety yellow, danger-prone bus to and from far away schools their parents thought would be in yon “Greener Pastures” School District.
The financially strapped Normandy School District could grimace and possibly eke out the per-head payments for transferring students, but if the district kitty drops below 3 percent of the total annual budget, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education could then declare Normandy a “financially distressed” district and swoop down for a full takeover. DESE has done dat with the Wellston, St. Louis City, and Riverview Gardens school districts already. It hasn’t resulted in any hallelujah choruses that I’ve heard.
This blogger’s simple suggestion: Rather than spending a gazillion dollars on this flawed-from-the-get-go plan, would it not be a more sensible, less frustrating, and far less costly strategy to halt this current mishmash of a muddled migration mess? Instead of uprooting and replanting, how about devising a strategy for some heavy-duty and unprecedented weeding, sunning, pruning, watering, and even fertilizing inside Normandy and Riverview Gardens? Or do I smell too much fertilizer already?
Commentary by Julius K. Hunter
