About STL City Schools

I have a lot of personal feelings about what’s happened in St. Louis schools. There are things I’ve typed, erased, re-typed and felt bad about posting. Ultimately I’ve kept quiet about with the belief that public scrutiny could be perceived as a lack of support for the district, its educators and its students.

There are many of us in a similar position. We’ve been told that speaking without position means we’re just “armchair experts” and therefore do not deserve our voices to be heard. We are discounted as entire people if we speak up. We’re also discounted if we’re the “wrong color” of person when we do.

St. Louis, we’re told to choose “sides” — but there will be no “sides” left to choose from when all the families leave while the adults in power are busy preserving cherished kingdoms and positions. Clearly this is not working. In our surveys of parents who left St. Louis City with school-aged kids, ~70% said they left was because the school system was too tough to navigate.

St. Louis children do not get a better system if we are just sit by, nor will it get better by strong-arming our personal agendas into what we can affect change on. The school system cannot self-heal from all the challenges by letting time simply pass. We’ve had multiple chances for change and we keep getting stuck in the same cycles of despair and wall-building. If we continue the same patterns, there will be a fraction of CHILDREN LEFT in St. Louis to educate anyway.

Adults in the room — we should be practicing the same values we teach our kids — to be open, to hear new ideas, to respect our peers and to do our best. I’m hoping for a 2025 where we boldly talk about school consolidations with a long-term view of joy and bold re-investment in our communities, the sharing of resources and efficiencies so kids and families are excited to be here. Are’t you tired of this too? That’s it. That’s all.