After 11 months of consideration, the Springfield Board of Education decided not to issue a statement in support of LGBTQ students and staff members.
During the June 27 regular meeting, board member Shurita Thomas-Tate made a motion for President Danielle Kincaid and Scott Crise to draft such a statement for the board to consider during a future meeting. No other board member seconded the motion, however, leading to its failure without a vote.
“For 11 months, we have had constituents on both sides come to us with lots of information, and we have been silent,” Thomas-Tate said before making her motion. “In an effort to increase our engagement with the public, or at least discuss this in a public forum, whether we vote on anything or not, I think we owe it to our community to have a discussion about it.”
The Springfield City Council earlier in June approved with an 8-1 vote a resolution that linked the LGBTQ community to its Five Pillars of Change, denounced discrimination and acknowledged their contributions to the community. Thomas-Tate sought a similar resolution Tuesday night.
Instead, board members appeared nearly aligned against it.
Each of the board members took a chance to speak briefly about it. In their comments, many said they felt a recently passed strategic plan, that is tasked with ensuring a good education and safe environment for all students, covered the point of a resolution. And several said they felt drafting a statement in support of LGBTQ students excluded others.
Board member Steve Makoski likened the resolution to political activism, and said there was no need for such a statement.
“As adopted through our strategic plan, the board has demonstrated that students are first and foremost our top priority, and we are unified in this effort,” Makoski said. “Anyone who implies different is being intellectually dishonest, and it serves no other purpose than to drive a hidden agenda.”
Judy Brunner said that a clear policy or direction for teachers and building administrators would be more helpful than a resolution of support.
“In terms of protecting everyone, what is missing is a training piece,” Brunner said. “In the end, what administrators will rely on will be policy, and practices that accompany that policy … A resolution won’t provide the guidance that administrators need to carry out the mission of educating everyone.”
Possible discussion on removing Pride flags, ‘safe space’ stickers
During discussion of the issue, some board members sought to distance the district even further from such a statement.
Board member Kelly Byrne recommended that the district have Pride flags and “safe space” stickers removed from classrooms, suggesting that they are a signal of “safe spaces” where students can share anything related to sex or gender issues with the teacher in that classroom.
“We do have professionals that these conversations can be directed to, and parents or guardians should be included in those,” Byrne said. “I think it’s dangerous when we have teachers promote themselves as a person or a place to have these conversations without others around.”
Recalling an August instance here the principal of Kickapoo High School asked several teachers to remove Pride flags before the beginning of the school year, board member Maryam Mohammadkhani said she would like a look into how such a policy is enforced inconsistently across the district.
“I’m puzzled by the inconsistency of enforcement, when we tour those buildings,” Mohammadkhani said. “With all that happened at Kickapoo, how can one principal interpret the policy one way, and others interpret a different way? We need to step this up.”
Brunner sought to clarify the use of the flags and stickers, saying that in her experience, they were never used by teachers as a signal for private communication about such things, and that such a comparison was “troublesome.”
“In all my years in education, never in my mind or experience did I consider that Pride flags were an open statement for kids to go in and talk,” Brunner said. “I saw it as more of a student recognition that this person maybe understands me … I think it would be a misrepresentation to imply that, if the flag is displayed, it’s an open invite for anyone to bare their soul about their sexual identity.”
A conversation about the removal could happen at a future board meeting. Mohammadkhani attempted to make two motions about enforcement of such policies, but neither drew a second. Kincaid also noted the board’s commitment to following Robert’s Rules of Order, and recommended that board members communicate their desire to have such discussions placed on a meeting agenda.
Board approves budget with money for teacher raises
In other meeting business, the board approved a budget for its next fiscal year that provides money for hiring additional teachers and staff members, as well as granting salary increases.
With a 6-1 vote, board members approved the budget, which plans for revenues of $363,991,996 and expenditures of $363,708,686.
Before the budget vote, board members approved with a 7-0 vote a compensation plan that placed the district as one of the best-paying in Southwest Missouri for first-year teachers, with a base salary of $43,200 for a year 1 teacher with a bachelor’s degree.
“That puts us even with Joplin (Schools), and there is only one district in the state higher, and it’s in the eastern part of the state,” said John Mulford, deputy superintendent of operations. “One of our goals was to be a leader in the area for both ends of the salary schedule.”
Overall, teachers and staff members will receive an increase of $12.1 million in salaries and benefits. Mulford said nutrition service positions and paraprofessionals also received increases in their salaries.
The budget calls for the hiring of 35 additional educators at a cost of $2,249,500, as well as $927,700 for the creation of 10 full-time positions in organizational departments.
Mohammadkhani voted against approving the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, saying it did not go far enough at transformational changes hinted at in the strategic plan board members approved in December.
“I see it as mostly geared toward expanding the same system already in place,” Mohammadkhani said. “I realize change is incremental. I’m hoping to see a little more commitment to change in next year’s budget.”
Local tax revenue accounts for about 45 percent of the budget’s operating revenue. The projected $149,266,272 represents an increase of more than $6.2 million from the previous year. State funding is planned to account for $72,299,445 of revenues.
This will be the final year that the district can apply for money from the American Recovery Plan Act, for which $61,575,647 is budgeted.
Board member clarifies visit to Nixa meeting, defends invitations to Springfield’s
Near the end of the meeting in a section assigned for board member comments, Mohammadkhani defended her appearance at a special meeting on June 20 of the Nixa Board of Education. During that meeting, the Nixa board discussed the possible removal of materials from its high school library.
Saying that she was inspired by a recent meeting held by the Missouri School Boards Association, she attended that meeting in the interest of learning from other boards, she said. But her visit drew a complaint from “a Springfield educator,” she said, who called her appearance, and subsequent invitation of members of the group Moms for Liberty to the upcoming Springfield board meeting, as unprofessional.
She pointed out how Moms for Liberty has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an extremist group that has opposed LGBTQ issues and racially inclusive curriculum under the banner of a modern parental rights movement. She then defended it by pointing out how the group bills itself as a group fighting for the survival of America, reading from the group’s “About us” page.
She said that her appearance at the Nixa meeting was unfairly targeted by the educator she mentioned. While she didn’t know about the group before that June 20 meeting, she said she invited two people from the group to Tuesday’s meeting.
“This is a symptom of the elephant in the room, the presence of activists in our midst who have gone for so long unchecked can denigrate others based on their perception of what is wrong,” Mohammadkhani said. “Just like Nixa, our board meetings are open to the public, and they are welcome to attend. I’d like to assume that any of us would have done the same thing.”
