A special task force charged with mapping a new direction for the struggling Normandy School District is recommending that the state hit the reset button by forming a new school district entirely.
The recommendations call for a Joint Executive Governing Board to replace the elected school board. A new local education authority would be established within the current footprint of the Normandy School District. And all current contracts for teachers and administrators would lapse.
The new school district would have direct accountability to the State Board of Education — essentially restarting the accreditation process.
As a new school district with no accreditation status, new transfers for students would not be allowed.
But the task force also said it would like the more than 1,000 Normandy students who have already transferred to better schools to be able to remain there under some type of grandfather clause.
People are also reading…
“There needs to be a way of figuring out how to do that,” said Carole Basile, chairwoman of the committee and dean of the College of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. By preserving current transfers but stopping future ones, the panel was attempting to be both morally and fiscally responsible, she added.
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the report late Friday afternoon. The State Board is scheduled to vote on the recommendations at a meeting Tuesday in Columbia, Mo.
The nine-member panel comprises educators, Normandy alumni, former lawmakers and business leaders. It has been wrestling since March with how to find a way forward for Normandy, a 3,000-student district in north St. Louis County that lost accreditation in 2012.
The district has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy in recent months because of the financial strain of complying with the state’s school transfer law. It allows children in unaccredited districts to transfer into higher performing schools, with their home districts responsible for tuition and transportation.
The Legislature made changing the transfer law a priority this session, and passed a measure this week that would reduce the number of children eligible to transfer and lessen the financial burden on unaccredited districts.
The panel had to move forward without knowing what the Legislature would do. It also had to produce recommendations it knew might ultimately might face a legal challenge.
“We had to come to the conclusion we couldn’t worry about that,” Basile said. “From the beginning we knew whatever we did someone could legally challenge it, whether it’s Normandy, whether it’s a parent. But we couldn’t go there. We’re not going to make everybody happy.”
The task force met with numerous Normandy district officials when developing its recommendations.
“I hope that they see a lot of themselves in this plan, quite frankly,” Basile said.
Normandy officials were still reviewing the report Friday, school district spokeswoman Daphne Dorsey said.
According to the report, the task force wants the Joint Executive Governing Board to be state-appointed, with one or two members of the current elected school board to be included. It also wants the school district to examine options for school choice, including year-round school options and charter schools.
The report’s recommendations include early childhood education, partnerships and setting up transitional classrooms to serve the high number of children who are moving from school to school. The task force also discussed hiring improving teacher quality and establishing a clear evaluation system for all educators.
The state board’s potential actions on Normandy would make the district the first in the state to be remade under the education department’s new plan for struggling schools.
“The Department appreciates the hard work and attention to detail shown by the Task Force,” Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro said in a news release. “We will use the Task Force Report in framing recommendations for the future of Normandy. We are committed to ensuring that Normandy children and families have access to high-quality schools in their community.”
In addition to Normandy, Riverview Gardens is paying tuition and transportation for about 1,100 students. But Riverview Gardens had a larger savings account than Normandy and will be able to shoulder transfer expenses into the next school year.
After the education department asked the Legislature for $5 million to keep Normandy running until the end of the year, the Senate reduced the amount to $1.5 million. The amount would keep schools open this spring but eliminate any reserve fund, putting the district in direct line of bankruptcy this summer.
