JEFFERSON CITY — Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D-University City) expressed outrage today regarding the governor’s State Board of Education’s decision to secretly alter the accreditation status of the Normandy Schools Collaborative. The board met in closed session earlier last week and voted secretly to accredit Normandy, even though none of the district’s assessment data supports the decision to grant the district accredited status. To make matters worse, the board then amended the minutes from a meeting last month to make it appear the action was taken then.
“I want to know where the accountability is regarding these decisions made on the backs of our state’s students,” Chappelle-Nadal stated. “The governor has been M.I.A. in his role on behalf of those students who rely on this state to support their educational needs. There’s no leadership, no opinion coming from this executive office. The only points the governor makes are platitudes about the troubled Normandy school district.”
The Missouri State Board of Education is arguing in public and in a lawsuit that state statute 161.210 (RSMo), allowing DESE to waive its own rules or policies, also allows them to waive 161.092, which requires DESE to classify schools with public notice and discourse.
“Sadly, these board members are now showing their true colors, going behind closed doors and choosing politics over the needs of our state’s most needy children,” Chappelle-Nadal explained. “The State Board of Education, along with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education—another state entity run by the governor—are using a rule to waive state statute and undermine extremely important groundwork laid by the General Assembly. I am not a lawyer, unlike our state’s governor, who served as attorney general for several years. He should know this rule does not trump state law.”
The result of the board’s recent accreditation decision means that student transfers out of the Normandy Schools Collaborative will effectively cease, as current law requires local school districts that do not maintain an accredited school to pay the tuition and transportation costs for resident pupils who want to attend an accredited school in another district of the same or adjoining county.
The State Board is tasked with assigning accreditation classifications for each school district in the state. When classifying a district, the State Board considers at a variety of factors: test scores, attendance, and graduation rates, among other measures. Normandy lost its accreditation status due to incredibly poor performance on a variety of measures, yet the State Board assigned the district an accredited classification designation despite the fact that there is no quantifiable evidence of any improvement whatsoever in any academic measures of the district.
Chappelle-Nadal continued, “Instead of offering real, legal, transparent solutions, the governor and his officials time after time let down our state’s children with their lack of leadership and answers to a problem that will persistently rear its ugly head until an actual result that works for everyone comes to fruition. This is yet another sad day for all of the children trapped in failing school districts within our state. The recent decision by the governor’s State Board of Education makes a complete mockery of our state’s school classification system, as well as the Sunshine Law. To hide behind closed doors and grant full accreditation status to a district that is by all measures failing is reprehensible. And to do so just to stop those students trapped in failing schools from transferring to a better school, that is simply unconscionable.”
In late June, the governor vetoed Senate Bill 493, a bi-partisan measure that sought to instill order to the chaotic transfer law. Senator Chappelle-Nadal described the bipartisan bill as a measure that offered hope to the thousands of Missouri students trapped in failing schools.
“Now, the governor and his Board of Education have yet again failed the poor black children to which he and his state public education officials have repeatedly showed nothing but complete disregard,” Chappelle-Nadal asserted.
Timeline:
- January 1, 2013 - Normandy is classified as unaccredited.
- August, 2013 - Transfers from Normandy begin.
- May 20, 2014 - Normandy School District is lapsed (effective June 30, 2014). Normandy Schools Collaborative voted to be established (effective July 1, 2014).
- June 16, 2014 - State Board of Education voted to give Normandy School Collaborative a new school status as a 'state oversight district', and as such have no accreditation status whatsoever (effective July 1, 2014).
- June 18, 2014 - DESE sends notification to school districts that Normandy School Collaborative will operate with no accreditation status for up to 3 years, claiming the school transfer statute does not apply.
- Last Week - State Board of Education holds secret meeting and re-accredits Normandy Schools Collaborative, again claiming the school transfer statute does not apply.
- Unknown date - June 16/17, 2014 meeting minutes amended to reflect new decision.
(Note this issue is separate from the State Board's decision to restrict transfers who did not attend Normandy in 2012-13 school year, and subsequent reversal to allow transfers regardless of prior attendance.)
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