School Board Meetings Tell a Story
SLPS Board Meeting Review - May 2024
Lots of information for you today - including consultant contracts, transportation, Prop S spending, and new hires for the Superintendent’s cabinet. It appears there are lots of changes underway for the district!
A great deal of communication happens at each school board meeting. Announcements are made for the benefit of the public; administrators present data, information, and evaluations; board members dialogue; and members of the public address the board. Votes communicate the board’s position on policies, procedures, and practices that ultimately affect thousands of individuals every day. All of these things occur in full view of the community drawing new participants into the governance process. People watch the meetings, not only for the information they contain, but to see the behaviors that are exhibited by board members, administrators, and members of the audience.
Over the course of time, whether that’s one school year or a decade, school board meetings tell a story. We can learn a board’s priorities based on what topics make it onto the agenda (and the one’s that don’t!), and how they allocate their budget. We observe how board members interact with each other and the superintendent which sets the tone for how the district conducts business with the broader community.
Decisions from one meeting are woven with decisions from the next, taking on new meanings and becoming more or less significant in the larger context. A few million dollars allocated to a program or the new consultant’s contract may seem inconsequential against the backdrop of an individual meeting but can be part of a longer trend or pattern. Considering each meeting as part of a bigger story also helps identify the often overlooked aspects of decision making — inconsistencies, deficiencies, and unintended consequences.
At the January 2024 board meeting the “Return on Investment” presentation included the following slide which listed the all (some?) of the strategic consultants working with the district:
Many of these consultants have presented to the board in subsequent meetings including Insight Educational Group, Wright & Associates, EduSolve, and 4MATIV (begins on Slide 21).
SLPS transportation has clearly been an on-going challenge for years. In an effort to improve service, the district entered into a $200,000 single source contract with 4MATIV in January 2024. The single source form indicates that emergency circumstances prevented it from following the RFP process. For certain, the district must improve transportation to better serve students and families. However, going out to bid for a transportation consultant using the standard RFP process would allow the administration to compare vendors not only on price, but also on the scope of services.
4MATIV’s website states they are “a technology and service platform to reimagine school transportation.” In their presentation to the BOE, they proposed a multitude of possible changes including the use of vehicles other than yellow buses, expanding the walk zone, shifting nearly 5,000 students to public transportation, and paying parents to transport their children. In justifying these solutions, 4MATIV relied heavily on the language of efficiency — dollars saved and trips optimized — and at one point posed the question, “How do you maximize and get best use out of scarce yellow bus assets and scarce CDL drivers?”
Although consultants and administrators often default to the language of efficiency to make their case, it can be problematic. In this instance, an over-reliance on efficiency obscures the specific St. Louis context. Traffic safety is a top-of-mind problem for City residents as evidenced by street calming and street design being a top vote getter in Rams Settlement Funds public polling. This is no surprise given the number of people injured or killed by traffic violence here each year. We also know that some neighborhoods and, therefore, routes to school in St. Louis are safer than others. An approach that focuses only on maximizing dollars saved and time spent can never be equitable for it can never fully account for the lived experience of those affected by the policies who target them.
(Eve L. Ewing’s masterpiece book “Ghosts in the Schoolyard” is excellent reading about the problems of efficiency language in policy making.)
Ultimately, the BOE voted to spend $40 million on transportation for the 2024-25 school year to be spread across 19 potential vendors including “mini-vans, vans, sedans, etc.”
On the other hand, ignoring efficiency can be equally problematic. Prop S passed with overwhelming support in August 2022; however, lack of a facilities master plan has prevented strategic spending of the $160 million dollar bond. For example, the BOE recently approved a $25 million contract with Weatherproofing Technologies, Inc. for roof repair/replacement and tuck pointing. These types of repairs are unsurprising considering the average age of SLPS schools is 87 years and old buildings require significant financial investment to maintain. While it is true the district is obligated to maintain all of its buildings, it should also maximize how those funds are spent to ensure the most positive impact on students.
Of particular interest in the Weatherproofing Technologies contract is the $4 million for what appears to be a complete replacement of Beaumont’s roof. Beaumont, a former comprehensive high school, is now Beaumont Technical Center and home to cosmetology, culinary, and other career-oriented programs. In 2021 and 2023, district administration recommended that these programs be moved to other schools. I was a member of the BOE when that recommendation was not approved in 2021. At that time, board members felt that any move should be part of a larger strategy around Career and Technical (CTE) programming in the district. It is not clear what planning, if any, has taken place since then. It is also not clear how many students are enrolled at Beaumont. The 2023 presentation indicates only 52 students were part of the program, however, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) reports about 250. Either way, I wonder if this is the best use of $4 million for a district with so many facilities needs, especially given the multiple recommendations to move these programs to other schools.
Other Prop S contracts were also approved, including approximately $5 million for bathroom renovations at Blewett, Long, AESM, Central VPA/Collegiate, and Gateway STEM. Another $1.7 million from the General Operating Budget (GOB) will be used for bathroom repairs at Dewey, Bertha Gilkey Pamoja, Lyon, Woerner, and Yeatman. Additionally, HazMat services to support these projects will cost around $1 million to be funded by Prop S.
Anyone who has ever stepped foot in an SLPS building knows that the bathrooms are in dire need of repair and renovation. These projects have the very best of intentions. However, the $160 million from Prop S is only a fraction of the funds necessary to address all of the district’s facilities needs. There is a facilities master plan in progress, but I fear most of the Prop S funds will have been allocated before it is finished. This makes it unlikely these dollars will be spent in the most strategic, or dare I say it, efficient, way possible.
We will never achieve the long-lasting, systemic change we desire if consultants are hired to address inefficiencies in one area while the district reinforces inefficiencies in others. Instead, we must push our district to address the two root causes underlying this haphazard approach:
SLPS has far too many buildings for the number of students it currently serves.
The buildings it has are far too old to adequately serve students and teachers in 2024.
Even if every single charter school closed tomorrow and SLPS welcomed another 10,000 to 20,000 students back into the district, many schools would still be underenrolled and the buildings in need of millions in facilities improvements.
We need a real strategic plan for the school district. We need fewer school buildings and we need them to be in the right geographic locations. We need newer, more modern buildings that support the technology, safety, and wellness needs of our present day. These conversations will be emotional and we will be forced to confront our City’s injustices, but the children and staff of SLPS deserve high quality learning environments.
Other May 14 Board Meeting Updates:
In a previous post, I identified a number of items anticipated for the May 14 consent agenda that would benefit from public scrutiny. Here are updates on a few of those items.
The SLPS Operations Department team made a presentation to the BOE which included safety and security. There were a few references to the SLMPD contract that appeared in the April 23 work session materials. Some board members did ask questions about the partnership. However, that contract did not appear on the May 14 consent agenda and there was no vote on the item, possibly because its $49,500 cost was under the threshold required for a vote by the Board.
In addition, the $5 million contract with Zspace, the virtual and augmented reality 3D devices intended to “support the mastery of state standards and inspire a love for science” passed by a vote of 4 (Toni, Matt, Donna, Tracy) to 2 (Emily, Sadie) with one board member (Natalie) absent.
The board also unanimously approved an amendment to the consulting contract with Wright & Associates. The initial proposal from this consulting firm was approved by the board in December. It was a $450,000 sole source contract intended to address “several challenges with stakeholders’ experience with procurement from the Request for Proposal (RFP) process to vendor payment.” The single source request form indicates the need for these services was “emergency.” The contract extension that was just approved adds another $150,000 to the contract in order “to assist the district through a challenging period of transitions: partner alignment, project management, partner alignment, onboarding, and executive coaching over the next 3.5 months.”
Administrative Updates:
In the previously mentioned Return on Investment presentation there was a slide with the Superintendent’s Cabinet. At the time, there were three vacancies. Since then, Dr. Banks has also announced her retirement.
Many of these positions have been filled recently. Inexplicably, however, the announcements have been made almost exclusively on LinkedIn even though that platform is unlikely to reach the majority of district families.
All screenshots below were taken Friday evening from the Saint Louis Public Schools LinkedIn profile.
Chief Financial Officer - Dr. Matthias Greywoode
Chief Academic Officer - Dr. Lucretia Brown
Chief of Schools - Dr. Allison Deno
Deputy Superintendent - Dr. Millicent Borishade
If a Chief Talent & Strategy Officer, a Chief Information Officer, and/or a Chief Communications Officer has been hired they have not yet been announced publicly, at least not that I have seen.
Let’s end on a positive note: The district has updated publicly posted minutes to include business meetings through October 2023 and work sessions through June 2023. While they are still many months behind on minutes, this update represents a step in the right direction. Hopefully, the board will return to approving minutes on a regular basis (none were approved at the May meeting) so that they may be posted and available to the public in a timely manner.
Thanks for reading!