ST. LOUIS COUNTY • As top-ranking state education officials looked on, some parents and teachers in the Riverview Gardens School District expressed frustration Wednesday night with their struggling schools, while others lambasted the transfer law that has drained the district of students and cash.
“I work in a building where one-third of lockers don’t have doors,” said Justin Dixon, an eighth-grade English teacher at Central Middle School. “But we can pay students to go learn in Kirkwood.”
He was speaking into a microphone as several hundred school district residents and staff listened from the pews inside the Family & Community Resource Center, a former church building on St. Cyr Road. Some held signs that said “More Time!” and “Support Our Students!”
State educators organized the public hearing to help craft a long-range plan for this unaccredited district just north of St. Louis, as well as other failing systems such as Normandy and Kansas City. The issue has become more urgent in wake of a state Supreme Court ruling that upheld the school transfer law and led to 2,200 students from Riverview Gardens and Normandy schools leaving for higher performing districts in the area.
“We are here tonight to listen,” said Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro, who served as superintendent here from 1995 to 2002. “We want to hear from the community. We want to hear from staff. We want to hear parents. We want to hear from students about what’s going on in your district .”
She took notes from the third row as Superintendent Scott Spurgeon laid out what his staff is doing to accelerate learning for the 4,900 students. At the start of the school year, shortly after he arrived in the district, too many students didn’t have books, he said. That has changed, he added. The district is also removing obstacles that often keep children in low-income communities out of school, such as partnering with a health provider to give shots to kids who need them.
The tuition and transportation expenses of the student transfers are costing Riverview Gardens about $15.1 million this school year. District officials are slashing programs and freezing unfilled positions to offset part of that expense. If the transfer law doesn’t change, the district could go bankrupt in the 2014-15 school year.
While most who spoke at the hearing criticized the school transfer law, one parent said she’s grateful for the chance to get her children out of Riverview Gardens.
“No child should ever have to go to school in fear of their lives,” the parent said. “Until Riverview Gardens can provide a safe learning environment it would be criminal to discontinue the transfer program.”
The possibility that the transfer law will be eliminated is unlikely, Nicastro said after the hearing. But lawmakers are debating ways to alter it. Superintendents have offered some administrative suggestions to the education department that would send support to struggling schools sooner, as well as eliminate the status of “unaccredited.” That change alone would stop future transfers.
Nicastro said it’s more likely that the tuition calculations will be altered to reduce the amount unaccredited districts must pay to other systems.
“I am confident that whatever we come up with isn’t going to be popular with somebody,” Nicastro said after the hearing. “As long as we stay focused on kids, that’s the best we can do.”
Riverview Gardens lost accreditation in 2007.
For the 80 percent of students who didn’t leave, the past few months have been tough as friends have left for other schools. For Isaiah Smith, a senior at Riverview Gardens High School, it’s provided incentive to prove everyone wrong.
He loves his school, he said to applause. “You may shut us down,” Smith told state educators. “But you will not shut us up.”
The next hearing in Riverview Gardens is set for 6:30 to 8 p.m. Dec. 16 at the center.
