More St. Louis public-school leaders leaving after audit requests, low test scores, transportation woes

Financial shortcomings, dwindling test scores, and transportation challenges in St. Louis (Missouri) Public Schools are affecting future generations the most, educational advocates say.

“Adults can leave. The children can’t,” Chester Asher from Coalition STL Kids told First Alert 4 after the district’s transportation and security directors announced they would not return next year. “The children are trapped and held hostage in a failing school district.”

Asher described the situation as “the biggest debacle in recent educational history” after the district went from a $17 million surplus to a $35 million deficit, prompting calls for an audit from the city’s mayor.

State Rep. Donna Baringer, D-St. Louis, had also requested an audit, saying she helped secure $110 million in federal assistance: “It was literally a check written to the St. Louis Public Schools. … I need to know, where did all that money go?”

‘Weak educational system for our entire region’ 

As reported by The Lion in July, SLPS admitted to incurring “a significant economic cost to having a weak educational system for our entire region” for years. 

The city’s website also acknowledges its failing educational system “produces less resilient and economically competitive residents,” noting this hinders overall capacity “to attract new residents and families (or) new companies and employers.” 

Most students are failing basic literacy and math proficiency tests, according to an online petition from Asher’s group: “79% of children in SLPS CANNOT read on grade level. 84% of children in SLPS CANNOT do math on grade level. The numbers are far worse when you remove the gifted and magnet schools from the statistics.” 

In addition to low test scores, the district has struggled to provide adequate transportation to its students after several vendors failed to provide the needed number of buses. 

“Multiple media outlets reported students waiting on street corners long past the time buses were scheduled to arrive,” The Center Square noted in August. “They also reported parents took off work to transport their children to school.” 

Baringer is calling for change at the school board, which has faced internal challenges and arguments among its members. 

“After at least a full school year of our current illegitimate structure of ‘board leadership,’ our board is not aligned, does not have a shared moral objective, and the district is embarrassed and in disarray with an unknown (to me at least) number of district leadership changes,” wrote board member Emily Hubbard in an Aug. 3 Facebook post. 

“For the sake of the children of this city, I am calling on President Antionette ‘Toni’ Cousins and Vice President Matt Davis to resign not just their executive positions but their seats on the board. Their illegitimate, reactionary, over-reaching ‘leadership’ of the district must end. The lies and coercion must end.” 

For Baringer, however, the biggest issue revolves around financial accountability. 

“My whole goal is to not point fingers,” she said. “My goal is to find out where the taxpayers’ money has gone. Was it spent wisely, and has it been accounted for?”