Katherine Whitaker used a single word for the seven members of the Springfield school board: “Unite.”
A leadership and development director with Missouri School Boards Association, Whitaker said she watched the Springfield Board of Education’s April 9 meeting twice in its entirety. She said she heard the word “unite” spoken 22 times in the process of the board choosing its leaders for the upcoming year.
“I wanted to count how many times every single one of you said it,” Whitaker said. “This was the word that all of you said you wanted. So that’s what I want to focus on tonight.”
The board met in a retreat meeting for a self-evaluation session. In a meeting where board members displayed some vulnerability, they worked through a handful of tense moments and ended with suggestions on how they would help to improve meetings and work at resolving disagreements.
Dynamics favor 4-3 split votes
The Springfield Board of Education has struggled over the past few years with division. Meetings have featured moments of in-fighting, disrespect and prolonged discussions filled with excessive motions, and previous elections were strongly partisan.
Over the last year, the board has made progress on getting past its political and philosophical divisions. Meetings have fewer disagreements on display. April’s reorganization and selection of leaders was much less complicated than the same meeting from 2023.
Still, board members are working to smooth persisting wrinkles, such as the procedure to place items for discussion on a meeting agenda and mitigating the micromanagement of school district operations.
During April’s reorganizational meeting, “unite” was spoken in the context of electing a president and vice president with unanimous votes. That didn’t happen: President Danielle Kincaid and Vice President Judy Brunner were elected with 4-3 split votes, with those two, Susan Provance and Shurita Thomas-Tate on one side and Kelly Byrne, Steve Makoski and Maryam Mohammadkhani on the other.
Picking up from previous retreat
The April 30 session continued a conversation started during a similar meeting on Feb. 20. That meeting revealed disagreements over what type of authority the school board has, and whether questions from elected board members to appointed administrators could be considered micromanagement.
Whitaker and Missouri School Boards Association attorney Susan Goldammer guided the session.
The MSBA is a nonprofit group that assists public school boards with advocacy, training and other services. While it makes recommendations about policy and procedures, it has no legal authority.
It also got off to a rough start. A change to the presentation and agenda was not properly updated to the board’s online meeting platform, and an introductory exercise where board members shared challenges they endured as children didn’t get full participation.
Analyzing authority, driving in one lane
A significant portion of the session included a review of the collective authority that the board has, as detailed in several parts of Missouri Revised Statutes. Goldammer said the Legislature put nothing in the law that allows an individual board member to make an official decision for the entire board.
That type of leadership can be frustrating and slow for people who run for school boards because they have assertive methods of working and making progress — they are “can do” people, Goldammer said.
A common problem she sees across Missouri are people who got done running in an election talking about what they want to do, then they learn that they are only one vote on a board. Missouri’s system of school board governance mirrors other U.S. laws and systems with built-in checks and balances.
“That is why the system is set up this way,” Goldammer said. “It’s also why the system is really frustrating … to new board members and veteran board members. It takes work from individuals, it takes diplomacy, it takes thought and it takes the ability to apologize and correct.”
Micromanagement and the concept of “staying in your lane” came up when the presenters gave examples of how individual directives to school administrators complicated their jobs. They also talked about how not taking the recommendations of staff members could weaken trust in the school board.
An example of a colorful running track drew deeper discussion and clarification. Whitaker shared a story of a school district that built a track with a darker-colored running surface, even though the track and field coach and other school staff recommended a lighter color.
Kelly Byrne says he’s no rubber-stamper
“For the track coaches, that was obviously upsetting, because they are the ones out there every day with those kids, and this was their recommendation,” Whitaker said. “This is what they felt was best for students, and the board went against that idea.”
Byrne asked for clarification — he said he felt that it is his job as a board member to listen to recommendations and vote his conscience as a responsibility to voters, instead of rubber-stamping every recommendation administrators make.
“I have voted against our recommendations on numerous occasions, but I don’t think that’s getting out of my lane,” Byrne said. “My responsibility is to voters and stakeholders.”
Goldammer clarified that the point was developed from experiences with other boards that have members who continually refuse to listen to staff members. That is a deeper symptom of not trusting the staff.
“You’re correct, we can ask questions of the staff,” Goldammer said to Byrne.” “The concern is when (board members) try to replace the staff, try and do the job for staff, or blatantly disrespect the staff. That’s when it becomes more of a problem.”
Working on unity in 2024-2025
After a discussion about proper governance-level questions and clarifying how issues are brought to administration members, school board members ended with what they could do to increase unity over the next year.
Thomas-Tate said she has learned it’s not helpful to go back and forth with rebuttals, so she plans to give her opinion once, and then move on without repetition.
Kincaid said she can do a better job respecting other board members’ opinions, being more open to criticism and taking suggestions on how the board should be run.
Brunner apologized for the change to the agenda noted at the beginning of the meeting, and said she would be more attentive of that process as part of her new vice president role.
“I have to take responsibility for not notifying people … I should have sent an email and said, ‘Hey, make sure you noticed this change,’” Brunner said. “I think that almost derailed this meeting at the beginning, and I would have hated that.”
Provance, sitting in her third meeting as a newly elected board member, said she would focus on votes meant to instill a greater good.
Makoski said he plans to watch previous board meetings to see how he interacted, and whether or not he was helpful in achieving goals.
Mohammadkhani said that because she appreciates evaluating data and patterns, she would focus on determining if there was a way to have separate discussions for actionable items and discussion items. That way, the board could have smaller, retreat-style meetings without asking administration members to do a lot of extra work.
Byrne noted that “unity” did not mean unanimous votes, because board members having discussions was healthy. He said he planned to continue meeting one-on-one with board members as a way to buy into board leadership.
