Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick called on the State Board of Education and legislators to consider a new governance structure for St. Louis Public Schools on Thursday after he released the second part of an audit of the district's operations.
Public school districts are typically governed by locally elected school boards, unless a district loses its accreditation. Then, a state-appointed board is put in charge. A locally elected Board of Education regained control of the district in 2019 after a 12-year stint under state oversight.
"I believe this report highlights the need to have a serious conversation about the long-term governance structure of the district, and I'm encouraging the [Missouri] Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and if necessary the legislature, to explore options to ensure effective leadership for the district and the thousands of young people who attend these schools in the years to come," Fitzpatrick said during a press conference.
"This is a district that's in the midst of massive operational distress," he said. "It's crucial that the more than 16,000 kids who rely on these schools for their education have effective leadership in place to guide them through these turbulent times."
Fitzpatrick, a Republican, is running for reelection in November. He helped launch the MO Scholars program in 2022, a voucher program that provides taxpayer dollars for families wishing to enroll their students in private schools. Proponents of public education have heavily criticized the program.
The State Board of Education voted in January to lower SLPS' accreditation to provisional status. Fitzpatrick alluded to the fact that the district may lose its accreditation completely next year, which would put it on the path for some sort of state intervention.
He stopped shy of calling for a state takeover of the district and said he supports local and state elected officials weighing on what the oversight of SLPS could be, but said it was unsustainable for the district to move back and forth between state and local control as it has in the past.
Superintendent Myra Berry defended the Board of Education's governance over the district. The board is charged with hiring and monitoring the superintendent along with overseeing the school district's finances.
"I really encourage anyone that's thinking about that [alternate governance] structure to reconsider that idea because there's the dire need to have the governance be in the hands of the community and in the hands of the Board of Education," Berry said.
School Board President Karen Collins-Adams dismissed Fitzpatrick's suggestion that the district needed a different structure and said the scope of the audit — which focused on the district's operations in the 2023-24 school year — didn't reflect the work of the current iteration of the board.
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer attended the press conference and spoke in support of the school district. Her son attends the district's Metro High School, one of the top-performing schools in the state.
"I think it's critically important that the governance structure be answerable to the public by way of the ballot box," Spencer said.
When asked if about possible mayoral control of the school district, which exists in places like New York City, Cleveland and Washington, D.C., she said she hadn't given it much thought because this was the first time it had been suggested to her.
"I have confidence," Spencer said. "I think we can all work together to improve our school district, certainly recognizing that SLPS, like any school district, has room to improve, but we need SLPS to succeed."
What a different oversight could mean for SLPS
Fitzpatrick's two-part audit, the first being released last summer, primarily focused on operations and finances when former Superintendent Keisha Scarlett was in charge. The audits found that poor oversight led to the spending of millions of public funds and violation of dozens of school board policies. She was later fired by the school board. Scarlett has filed a lawsuit contesting her firing.
Since then, the school board has four new members including Collins-Adams – many of whom ran on platforms to help stabilize the school district's finances and leadership turnover. Emily Hubbard, Donna Jones and Tracy Hykes – who are all current board members – were on the board when Scarlett was hired and later fired.
Both Collins-Adams and Berry confirmed that the district has revised many of its school board policies and installed more internal controls after the first audit was released.
Dorothy Rohde-Collins served as SLPS school board president when state officials returned the district to local control in 2019. She attended the press conference on Thursday and called Fitzpatrick's suggestion "a punch to the gut."
"It was a lot of work to get back to a democratically elected school board," Rohde-Collins said. "So to hear someone in the high levels of state government calling for something different is really scary, and the board needs to address that concern urgently."
State education officials took over SLPS in 2007 after the district lost its accreditation and was dealing with financial instability. A three-member special administrative board with appointees from the mayor, governor and Board of Aldermen president was installed. A seven-member locally elected board was also in place but had minimal oversight of the district.
Rohde-Collins contended that the special administrative board that was in place from 2007 to 2019 did important work and helped stabilize the district's finances while a pitfall of the appointed board was that it created a sense of distance between the school district and the community.
"Under appointed or nondemocratic forms of governance, I think people lose their sense of what it means to be in control of their school district and to have a school district that is accountable to them," Rohde-Collins said.
In an effort to rebuild trust locally and with state officials, she hopes the school board will start regularly discussing the district's budget and a detailed plan to remedy a projected $41 million deficit for this school year.
"The deficit, in my opinion, is the biggest issue facing the district right now," Rohde-Collins said. "So, directing resources and attention to that is really important to signal to the powers-that-be that [the school board] knows what their job is and what their role is as a school board."
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