(Getty Images).

A complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

A fired school superintendent and an interim leader without proper state certification.

Two government audits, and a shortage of school buses and bus drivers.

The start of the 2024-2025 school year has been anything but routine for the St. Louis Public School District.

Two months into the school year, questions continue to swirl around the district.

Concerns about the district’s finances, including an operating budget with a $17 million surplus and a projected $35 million deficit, prompted public calls for a state audit, which began in August.

Around the same time — as test scores continued to show a disproportionate number of Black students in metro St. Louis unable to read at grade level — the St. Louis City NAACP filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights against 34 public and charter schools in St. Louis city and county, the St. Louis Special District and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“Low reading proficiency rates for St. Louis Black students underscore the urgent need for targeted interventions in the region’s schools,” the local NAACP chapter said in a news release.

Meanwhile, after placing Superintendent Keisha Scarlett on paid administrative leave in the summer of 2024 and hiring an outside firm to review hiring, spending and other practices, the SLPS board fired Scarlett in September and named Millicent Borishade as the interim superintendent.

Borishade, who was deputy superintendent, does not hold Missouri superintendent credentials. And Scarlett told St. Louis Public Radio she plans to contest the board’s decision to terminate her contract and will request a hearing before the board.

This week, two more district administrators resigned.

The St. Louis school district, which enrolls about 18,000 students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,  employs nearly 2,000 teachers,  according to Byron Clemens, spokesperson for the American Federation of Teachers St. Louis Local 420, the union representing local teachers.

Clemens said the teacher’s union continues to have confidence in the elected school board to “make any corrections and see that the administration will follow board policy and procedures.”

Scarlett, Clemens said, “is entitled to due process.”

In addition to a review of the district’s operations by the Missouri Auditor’s Office, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office will also oversee a local audit.

Conner Kerrigan, Jones’ spokesman, said public concerns about the district “have forced us to increase the scope of the audit to include SLPS contracting practices, conflicts of interest and whistleblower claims, as well as the Board of Education’s oversight and approval of practices pertaining to the hiring and firing of district employees.”

E-mails and calls to the St. Louis Public School District and school board seeking comment were not returned.

Literacy rates

For the St. Louis NAACP, a major concern long term is the wide gap in reading achievement between white and Black students.

Education experts say third-grade reading proficiency is a bellwether for future academic success as students proceed through elementary and secondary grades.

Data for Missouri schools suggest about 42% of  Missouri third-graders are proficient readers, with the rate dropping to 21% for Black third-graders. In the St. Louis Public Schools, about 14% of Black third-graders are proficient readers, compared to 61% of White students.

“The St. Louis City NAACP was brave in filing the complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and Civil Rights,” said Ayanna Shivers, education committee chair for the Missouri NAACP. “There is a literary crisis in our country, and being able to read is a civil right.”

There’s no single solution to helping students become skilled readers, but “research indicates that more than 90% of all students could become proficient readers if they were taught by teachers employing scientifically-based reading instruction,” according to a study conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Evidence-based reading instruction, reading assessments, individualized reading plans for students struggling with reading and money to help pay for teacher training in evidence-based instruction were included in recent literacy legislation approved by the Missouri General Assembly.

“The most significant impact is the implementation of a statewide foundational reading assessment administered at the beginning and end of each school year for students in grades K-3 and for any newly enrolled students in grades 1-5,” a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said in an email to The Independent.

These assessments, the department spokesperson said, “are not standardized assessments. They are adaptive diagnostic assessments that provide detailed information on students’ skills in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Previously, there was no available state-wide data that provided a consistent measure of these foundational reading skills.”

Reading assessments for the 2023-2024 school year are expected to be announced at an Oct. 22 meeting of the State Board of Education.

In January, the St. Louis Public School District launched “Literacy in the Lou,” which found the district providing new books to students to read at school and home. Missouri state appellate judges gathered at a St. Louis Head Start school in September to read to the preschoolers, color pictures, and mold clay letters.

Literacy is a civil right, crucial to democracy, employment and success in life, said Jane Brady, a retired Delaware judge and former attorney general who researches public policy, including efforts across the nation to improve literacy.

Brady says she and the president of the St. Louis NAACP, Adolphus Pruitt, have discussed approaches to teaching reading and improving literacy in Missouri.

“You have to have goal-setting and accountability,” Brady said, citing Mississippi as an example of a state with high poverty levels that saw reading test scores dramatically jump after modernizing curriculum to include science-based reading instruction and provide consequences.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have widely divergent views on education. In this photo, students are shown in a classroom (Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images).

As former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris sprint to the November finish line, one sprawling policy area has largely fallen out of the spotlight — education.

Though the respective GOP and Democratic presidential candidates have spent comparatively more time campaigning on issues such as immigration, foreign policy and the economy, their ideas surrounding K-12 and higher education vastly differ.

Trump’s education platform vows to “save American education,” with a focus on parental rights, universal school choice and a fight for “patriotic education” in schools.

“By increasing access to school choice, empowering parents to have a voice in their child’s education, and supporting good teachers, President Trump will improve academic excellence for all students,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, said in a statement to States Newsroom.

Trump “believes students should be taught reading, writing, and math in the classroom — not gender, sex and race like the Biden Administration is pushing on our public school system,” Leavitt added.

Meanwhile, the Harris campaign has largely focused on the education investments brought by the Biden-Harris administration and building on those efforts if she is elected.

“Over the past four years, the Administration has made unprecedented investments in education, including the single-largest investment in K-12 education in history, which Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass,” Mia Ehrenberg, a campaign spokesperson, told States Newsroom.

Ehrenberg said that while Harris and her running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “will build on those investments and continue fighting until every student has the support and the resources they need to thrive, Republicans led by Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda want to cut billions from local K-12 schools and eliminate the Department of Education, undermining America’s students and schools.”

Harris has repeatedly knocked the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — a sweeping conservative agenda that includes education policy proposals like eliminating Head Start, ending time-based and occupation-based student loan forgiveness and barring teachers from using a student’s preferred pronouns different from their “biological sex” without written permission from a parent or guardian.

Trump has fiercely disavowed Project 2025, although some former members of his administration crafted the blueprint.

Closing the U.S. Department of Education

Trump has called for shutting down the U.S. Department of Education and said he wants to “move education back to the states.” The department is not the main funding source for K-12 schools, as state and local governments allocate much of those dollars.

In contrast, Harris said at the Democratic National Convention in August that “we are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools.”

Living wage for school staff; parental bill of rights

Trump’s education plan calls for creating a “new credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values, and understand that their job is not to indoctrinate children, but to educate them.”

He also wants to implement funding boosts for schools that “abolish teacher tenure” for grades K-12 and adopt “merit pay,” establish the direct election of school principals by parents and “drastically cut” the number of school administrators.

In contrast, the Democratic Party’s 2024 platform calls for recruiting “more new teachers, paraprofessionals and school related personnel, and education support professionals, with the option for some to even start training in high school.”

The platform also aims to help “school-support staff to advance in their own careers with a living wage” and improve working conditions for teachers.

Trump also wants to give funding boosts to schools that adopt a “Parental Bill of Rights that includes complete curriculum transparency, and a form of universal school choice.”

He’s threatening to cut federal funding for schools that teach the primarily collegiate academic subject known as “critical race theory,” gender ideology or “other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”

The Democrats’ platform opposes “the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education,” adding that “public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate.”

Title IX 

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration released a final rule for Title IX extending federal protections for LGBTQ+ students.

The updated regulations took effect Aug. 1, but a slew of GOP-led states challenged the measure. The legal battles have created a policy patchwork and weakened the administration’s vision for the final rule.

The updated regulations roll back Title IX changes made under the Trump administration and then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Trump vowed to terminate the updated regulations on his first day back in office if reelected.

Student debt and higher education 

Harris has repeatedly touted the administration’s record on student loan forgiveness, including nearly $170 billion in student debt relief for almost 5 million borrowers.

The administration’s most recent student loan repayment initiative came to a grinding halt in August after the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan.

Although little is mentioned about education in Harris’ extensive economic plan, the proposal makes clear that the veep will “continue working to end the unreasonable burden of student loan debt and fight to make higher education more affordable, so that college can be a ticket to the middle class.”

She also plans to cut four-year degree requirements for half a million federal jobs.

Trump — who dubbed the Biden-Harris administration’s student loan forgiveness efforts as “not even legal” — sought to repeal the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program during his administration.

His education platform also calls for endowing the “American Academy,” a free, online university.

Trump said he will endow the new institution through the “billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments.”

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (photo submitted).

The Biden administration was hit with the latest blow to its student debt relief efforts on Thursday after a federal judge in Missouri temporarily blocked the administration from putting in place a plan that would provide student debt relief to millions of borrowers.

The ruling further hinders the administration’s efforts to promote its work on student loans ahead of the November election and comes amid persistent Republican challenges to President Joe Biden’s student debt relief initiatives.

The administration, which unveiled the plans in April, said these efforts would provide student debt relief to more than 30 million borrowers. The proposals were never finalized.

In a September lawsuit, Missouri led Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota and Ohio in challenging the administration over the plan.

Their suit, filed in a Georgia federal court, came just days after a separate student debt relief effort — the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan — continued to be put on pause after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift a block on the plan in late August.

Following the September filing of the suit, U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall of Georgia paused the plan through a temporary restraining order on Sept. 5 and extended that order on Sept. 19 while the case could be reviewed.

But on Wednesday, Hall let that order expire, dismissed Georgia from the suit and moved the case to a Missouri federal court.

Once the suit moved to Missouri and the restraining order was not extended, the remaining six states in the case quickly sought a preliminary injunction.

U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp granted the states’ request on Thursday, writing that the administration is barred from “mass canceling student loans, forgiving any principal or interest, not charging borrowers accrued interest, or further implementing any other actions under the (debt relief plans) or instructing federal contractors to take such actions.”

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey praised Schelp’s decision, saying in a Thursday post on X that it’s a “huge win for transparency, the rule of law, and for every American who won’t have to foot the bill for someone else’s Ivy League debt.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said the agency is “extremely disappointed by this ruling on our proposed debt relief rules, which have not yet even been finalized,” per a statement.

“This lawsuit was brought by Republican elected officials who made clear they will stop at nothing to prevent millions of their own constituents from getting breathing room on their student loans,” the spokesperson said.

The department will “continue to vigorously defend these proposals in court” and “will not stop fighting to fix the broken student loan system and provide support and relief to borrowers across the country,” they added.

The Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group, also lambasted the Missouri decision.

“With this case, the Missouri Attorney General continues to put naked political interest and corporate greed ahead of student loan borrowers in Missouri and across the country,” Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel for the advocacy group, said in a Thursday statement.

“This is a shameful attack on tens of millions of student loan borrowers and our judicial system as a whole,” Yu said. “We will not stop fighting to expose these abuses and ensure borrowers get the relief they deserve.”

A sign reminding people to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — better known as FAFSA — appears on a bus near Union Station in Washington, D.C. (Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education is launching the first testing period for its phased rollout of the 2025-26 form to apply for federal financial student aid on Tuesday, with more students set to partake in this beginning testing stage than initially expected.

The department announced in August it would be using a staggered approach to launch the 2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid — or FAFSA — in order to address any issues that might arise before the form opens up to everyone by Dec. 1. The number of students able to complete the form will gradually increase throughout four separate testing stages, with the first one beginning Oct. 1.

The phased rollout makes the form fully available two months later than usual and comes as the 2024-25 form — which got a makeover after Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in late 2020 — faced a series of highly publicized hiccups that the department has worked to fix.

Earlier in September, the department announced six community-based organizations chosen to participate in the first testing period: Alabama Possible; Bridge 2 Life, in Florida; College AIM, in Georgia; Education is Freedom, in Texas; the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, in California; and the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria, in Virginia.

“Thanks to the wonderful organizations, we expect closer to 1,000 students in Beta 1 as opposed to the 100 we initially thought,” FAFSA executive adviser Jeremy Singer said on a call with reporters Monday regarding the 2025-26 form.

During this first testing stage, U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said the department will process students’ FAFSAs, “give students an opportunity to make corrections, if needed, and send the records to colleges and state agencies.”

“Colleges will be able to use these same records when it’s time for them to make financial aid offers,” said Kvaal, who oversees higher education and financial aid, including the Office of Federal Student Aid.

Three more testing periods

The department on Monday also named 78 community-based organizations, governmental entities, high schools, school districts and institutions of higher education to participate in its three subsequent testing periods for the 2025-26 form.

Three of the community-based organizations chosen to take part in the first testing period — Florida’s Bridge 2 Life; Texas’ Education is Freedom; and Virginia’s  Scholarship Fund of Alexandria — will also participate in subsequent testing stages.

To help students and families prepare for the 2025-26 application cycle, the department said this week it’s releasing a revised Federal Student Aid Estimator, updated resources for creating a StudentAid.Gov account, including a “parent wizard,” as well as an updated prototype of the 2025-26 FAFSA.

Last week, the department released a report outlining 10 steps it’s taking to improve the FAFSA application process. Part of those efforts include the department strengthening its leadership team and working to address issues for families without Social Security numbers when completing the form, in addition to vendors adding more than 700 new call center agents.

Flowers, plush toys and wooden crosses are placed at a memorial dedicated to the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on June 3, 2022. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022, after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire inside the school. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The devastating effects of school shootings continue well after shootings occur, according to survivors, experts and educators who spoke at a roundtable U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee Democrats held Monday.

Democrats scheduled the discussion after the recent school shooting in Georgia, where two students and two teachers were killed. Witnesses told the panel the psychological trauma of a school shooting lingers long beyond the events themselves.

“In the months and years after a mass shooting, young people injured or wounded in the attack experience continuing fear, pain, trauma and disorientation, and struggle to hang on to what is left of their lives,” the top Democrat on the committee, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, said.

The roundtable came just after the one-year anniversary of the White House establishing its Office of Gun Violence Prevention. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to speak about gun violence at the White House Thursday.

There have been 404 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a group that studies gun violence in the U.S.

Several educators at the roundtable advocated for Congress to provide more funding for schools to address the long-lasting effects of a school shooting.

“There’s not a time period when the trauma is going to disappear,” Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal of Columbine High School during the 1999 mass shooting in Colorado, said.

DeAngelis is also a founding member of the National Association of Secondary School Principals Principal Recovery Network, which is a network to help educators in the aftermath of a school shooting.

Greg Johnson, a principal at West Liberty-Salem High School in West Liberty, Ohio, said that even though no student died at his school’s shooting in 2017, students and faculty had lasting trauma.

“Hundreds of students heard the piercing shotgun blasts, and those same hundreds barricaded the doors of their classrooms before they evacuated and in random ditches and across fields in search of safety,” he said. “Many were traumatized, though almost all tried their very best to hide it by putting on a mask of strength and normalcy. Our students suffered in silence.”

Sarah Burd-Sharps, the senior director of research at Everytown for Gun Safety, added that the economic cost of gun violence is estimated at more than $550 billion a year.

Mental health funding

Patricia Greer, principal at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky, said that while the bipartisan gun safety bill that Congress passed in 2022 provided substantial funding for mental health, Congress should consider increasing such funding to help students and staff recover from trauma.

“Schools are uniquely positioned to provide mental health support, but they need our help to meet the growing demand,” Greer said.

She pushed for Congress to consider increasing funding for Title II and Title IV to support professional development for educators and expand school-based mental health services. Those titles refer to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provides federal grants to schools.

“Recovery requires sustained support and resources,” she said. “By increasing funding for … Title II to $2.4 billion, and Title IV to $1.48 billion, we can provide schools with the resources they need to prevent tragedies and support students through trauma.”

Melissa Alexander, whose son survived the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, said “a mass shooting is not something you get over.”

She said her then 9-year-old son called her during the shooting, begging for her to save him.

“He prepared to die,” she said.

Alexander, who is now a firearm safety advocate, said that even though she is in a deep-red state, nearly 75% of residents support some type of red flag laws. Such laws allow courts to order the temporary removal of a firearm from people at risk of harming themselves or others.

Despite the widespread support, state lawmakers have not taken action, she said.

“It’s not translating up to the (state) Legislature,” she said.

Students eat lunch at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in South Salt Lake, Utah, on March 12 (Spenser Heaps/Utah News Dispatch).

WASHINGTON — Amid persistent child hunger and food insecurity in the United States, lawmakers and advocates on Wednesday stressed the importance of school meal programs during a U.S. Senate Agriculture subcommittee hearing.

Hunger severely impacts kids’ emotional and physical well-being and can lead to negative outcomes in school, research has shown. Last year, 47.4 million people lived in food-insecure households, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Federally funded efforts, such as the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, provide free and reduced-cost meals to students across the country.

Advocates say these programs play a crucial role in helping to reduce child hunger and urged the panel to expand them.

“School lunch should always be free and definitely free of judgment,” said Sen. John Fetterman, who chairs the Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research.

Missouri set to start distributing new summer food aid for children

“Honestly, it shouldn’t be a conversation — it would be like asking the kids to pay for the school bus every morning or to pay for their own textbooks at school,” Fetterman said.

Fetterman and fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. Bob Casey introduced two bills in June aiming to expand free or reduced-price meals access for kids. Part of the initiatives also call for amending the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools and school districts in low-income areas to offer free meal options to all students.

Fetterman also sponsored the Universal School Meals Program Act, an effort introduced by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders last May, which would “provide free breakfast, lunch, and dinner to every student — without demanding they prove they are poor enough to deserve help getting three meals a day,” according to Sanders’ summary of the bill. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, introduced a companion bill.

Subcommittee ranking member Mike Braun of Indiana said he introduced the American Food for American Schools Act last July with Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown in an effort “to better prioritize and support the use of American food in school meal programs.”

That bipartisan bill would increase requirements for school meals to include U.S. products.

States a model

Crystal FitzSimons, interim president of the Food Research & Action Center, pointed out that eight states have implemented policies that offer school meals to all students, regardless of one’s household income. Those states are California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico and Vermont.

The national nonprofit aims to reduce poverty-related hunger in the U.S. through research, advocacy and policy solutions.

“While those eight states are showing us what is possible, there are critical steps the subcommittee and Congress should take to enhance the reach and impact of school meals nationwide,” FitzSimons said.

As one piece of the puzzle, FitzSimons said Congress can “ensure that all children nationwide are hunger-free and ready to learn while they are at school by allowing all schools to offer meals to all their students at no charge” and the Universal School Meals Program Act “creates that path.”

Meg Bruening, professor and department head at Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Nutritional Sciences, said “the school meal programs in the U.S. provide a critical safety net for almost 30 million children with meals each year” — comprising 60% of children in the country.

Bruening said these school meal programs align closely with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, “ensuring a variety of healthy foods are offered to children while at school, where children spend most of their waking and eating hours.”

The guidelines, developed by the USDA and the Health and Human Services Department, are updated every five years.

Summer EBT 

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock underscored how child hunger increases in the summer months when kids lack access to regular meals at school.

Thirty-seven states, the District of Columbia and multiple territories and tribal nations opted in this year to a new effort, known as Summer EBT, to feed kids during the long summer months.

Also called Sun Bucks, the USDA initiative provides low-income families with school-aged children a grocery-buying benefit of $120 per child for the summer.

But 13 states, including Georgia, chose not to participate in the program in 2024. The USDA said states have until Jan. 1 to submit a notice of intent if they plan to participate in the program next year.

Warnock said he hopes state leaders reverse their position on Summer EBT.

“Unfortunately, my home state — the state of Georgia — has not opted in to Sun Bucks, with some officials saying it does not result in higher nutritional outcomes for students, and that existing programs are ‘effective,’” he said.

“I heard our state leadership say: ‘We don’t need it,’” he added. “I’m still trying to figure out who this ‘we’ is — for whom are you speaking when you say: ‘We don’t need it?’”

A spokesperson for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has said the governor has concerns about the program’s dietary standards and cost.

Parents and families who speak a language other than English are frequently denied access to communication from their child’s school in their primary language, often turning to Google translate, their own kid or a bilingual staff member who isn’t a trained interpreter for issues as simple as their child being absent for a day or as complex and intimidating as a special education meeting or a school disciplinary hearing (Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The 74).

For months, Wendy Rodas felt disempowered and silenced whenever she tried to reach out to her daughter’s Missouri elementary school. 

The El Salvadorian mother of three, who primarily speaks Spanish, struggled to communicate with teachers, administrators and district leaders. She made repeated requests for the interpretation services that she — and all public school parents who don’t speak English fluently — are legally entitled to.

In most of her exchanges with the school, Rodas said she wasn’t even offered access to a phone translation service. If she ever needed to inform them of something like an absence or a kid running late, she had to rely on her older son to translate. 

This reached a fever pitch in the fall of 2022, when Rodas’s daughter, then a 5th grader in South Kansas City, told her mom that two kids at school “were touching her inappropriately in her private parts.” When Rodas contacted the school to report this, they initially provided her with a phone interpreter, she said, but as the situation escalated over the next few months, communication dwindled.

At a meeting with district leaders to discuss the assault allegation and the attacks on her daughter that Rodas said took place afterward, the mom said she was denied any school-provided interpretation services.

“I felt powerless, not being able to say what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, in the manner and moment that I wanted to say it,” Rodas said in a translated interview with The 74. “And it also made me feel bad. There were a lot of times that I felt … if I was not like them — because I can’t speak the language — that I didn’t belong there. I felt ignored.”

Rodas’s experiences are not unique, according to interviews with over a dozen parents, advocates, lawyers and academic experts, along with a review of national data.

Parents and families who speak a language other than English are frequently denied access to communication from their child’s school in their primary language, often turning to Google translate, their own kid or a bilingual staff member who isn’t a trained interpreter for issues as simple as their child being absent for a day or as complex and intimidating as a special education meeting or a school disciplinary hearing.

All of this can lead to a breakdown in trust between families and schools and harmful consequences for students — and it’s happening all the time in districts across the country, advocates say.

“It’s such a prevalent issue that everybody knows about it,” said Nancy Leon, director of the D.C.-based immigration advocacy organization MLOV — Many Languages, One Voice.  “It’s unspoken. It’s expected. So sometimes it’s something parents don’t even bring up to us because it just happens so frequently.”

It’s challenging to pin down just how widespread the problem is because a number of parents don’t know that they’re legally entitled to these services,  advocates say, and those who do know their rights are often afraid to report violations or unaware of how to tackle that process. Others still may feel embarrassed to request the services, viewing their status as shameful or a burden.

Another Missouri mom told The 74 that she marked on enrollment papers that she needed an interpreter, but then when her son got hurt at school one day, was put on the phone with someone whose Spanish was so poor that she just told them to speak to her in English.

One measure of the extent of the problem is the number of times children are called on to  interpret for their parents at school. Tricia McGhee, director of communications at Midwest-based Revolución Educativa, said they put that question to kids when the advocacy group is doing programming with Spanish-speaking families.

When they ask, “‘Have you ever been [an] interpreter for your mom?’ They all raise their hand,” she said. “Every last one of them.”

Countless examples

This year marks the 60th anniversary of The Civil Rights Act, which granted families the legal right to interpretation and translation services from public K-12 schools under Title VI.

Unlike for legal and medical interpreters, there is no national certification for education interpreters, though one is in the works, according to Ana Soler, chairperson at the National Association of Educational Translators and Interpreters of Spoken Languages. This leaves those in education largely unregulated, which means that even when parents do get an interpreter, they might not have sufficient training or expertise. And, they’re frequently accessed through a phone service, described by some as “check-off-the-box” language access.

In 2023,  the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights received about 3,500 complaint allegations raising Title VI issues. Of those, only 54 were related to communication with parents who don’t speak English fluently. They ranged from a child in Colorado denied access to free and reduced-price lunch — and later fined — because of miscommunication to a Rhode Island district’s widespread use of untrained interpreters and translators. The previous year, there were even fewer communication-based complaints filed: just 34.

But experts, advocates and parents assert that these numbers represent a sliver of the problem.

“We have seen countless examples of schools not providing interpretation at meetings, of parents going to schools and being told that there isn’t anybody there who speaks their language and so they should come back at another time,” said Rita Rodriguez-Engberg, director of the Immigrant Students’ Rights Project at Advocates for Children of New York.

“Whenever we hear about an example in a school, we know that there are probably dozens of parents who have gone through the same thing at that school because we’re lucky enough to get the one parent to tell us about it,” she added. 

The legal standard: ‘A very tricky balance’

In 2021, just over 10% of K-12 students nationally were English learners. In some states the percentage of children whose parents are not fluent in English can be even higher, ranging from 33% in California to nearly none in Montana, according to Education Week research. And in 2021, about one-fifth of school-age children spoke a language other than English at home and about 4% also lived in “limited-English-speaking households.”

The 2023 Family Needs Assessment, which surveyed 980 families, the vast majority of whom identified as Latino with kids who are English learners, reported almost 60% of parents being at least somewhat concerned about the lack of access to translation or interpretation services at school.

In January 2015, the departments of Justice and Education released joint guidance outlining what these services should look like: Schools must communicate with parents in a language they understand and are prohibited from asking “the child, other students or untrained school staff to translate or interpret.”

Interpreters and translators must have knowledge of specialized terms in both languages and must be trained in the role, including the ethics of interpreting and translating. The document clearly establishes, “it is not sufficient for the staff merely to be bilingual.” 

It’s important that families understand “this is not a favor they’re doing for you,” said Soler. “They need to provide you with language access that is quality language access — not just anybody that speaks a little bit of one language so that they can fulfill their requirements.”  

Despite their legal heft, these provisions are often misunderstood or flagrantly violated, experts and parents told The 74. And some argue the guidance doesn’t go far enough.

“Quite frankly, the verbiage is left up to interpretation,” said Revolución Educativa’s McGhee. “So if I were passing laws, I would be much more specific about the requirements.”

The standard is not completely clear when it comes to school staff who are multilingual serving as interpreters, said Paige Duggins-Clay, chief legal analyst at the Texas-based Intercultural Development Research Association, so “it’s a very tricky balance.” 

And when these rights are not sufficiently met — and parents are hobbled in their efforts to advocate for their children — the consequences can be deeply harmful to both students and families. 

“Having a really engaged caregiver is critically important to the success of any young person,” said Duggins-Clay, “but especially a young person who might be new to the school community or might be learning to speak English and integrating into the broader school community.”

Often schools and districts claim interpretation and translation services are expensive and budgets are tight or they don’t have access to certain languages locally, said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, a fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank based in New York City. 

But, she said, these are all barriers that can be overcome. 

Schools have also increasingly struggled to recruit and retain bilingual educators, though Vázquez Baur, who is bilingual and a former teacher, again emphasized that merely speaking another language is not enough.

When she taught in Florida’s Miami-Dade County between 2017-19, she said she was frequently relied on to translate and interpret for families. 

At the time, Vázquez Baur said, “I did not realize that them calling me down for parent-teacher conferences for other teachers and calling parents for all the different things was against their right.”

Superintendents and school leaders across the country want to fulfill their legal obligation and communicate effectively with their parents, but are often thwarted by an “implementation gap,” according to John Malloy, the assistant executive director for the Learning Network at The School Superintendents Association and a former superintendent in California.

The challenge comes from both pipeline and funding issues, he said: “There’s a lack of professionals to fulfill that [legal] obligation, and then there’s a lack of dollars to pay those professionals.”

The problem is endemic, he added, noting, “I think you’d be hard pressed to find a district — even in the face of our legal obligations — who isn’t struggling [with this].”

In order to combat it, Malloy said, schools will require increased state and federal funding. 

“Too often in my experience — whether we’re talking special education, whether we’re talking Title IX, whether we’re talking this important and legal requirement related to access — we’re stretching dollars in multiple ways,” the former superintendent of 15 years said. “And at the end of the day, we are expected to do something that we might not actually have the resources to provide no matter how hard we try.” 

Until then, school leaders will continue to rely on other strategies, such as family members or untrained bilingual staff, according to Malloy.

The school principal of a rural, low-income district in Eastern North Carolina told The 74 that he was able to hire a front office secretary who is both bilingual and a trained interpreter.

“But most people aren’t that lucky,” said Patrick Greene, who is in his 12th year as principal in Greene County Schools,  a district of 2,700 students. 

Finding a trained, bilingual staff member was important to him because his student population is now about a third Latino, with only one designated interpreter for the entire district. Greene said he was forced to schedule “more official” meetings, such as disciplinary hearings, around that lone staffer’s schedule.

“He stays very busy,” he said.

All of the great details are just gone

Alejandra, who moved from Mexico to Missouri two decades ago, gave birth to her son Danny three years after that. Described by his mother as a bright, hyperactive kid, Danny was in third grade when he was badly injured on the monkey bars at school. 

Alejandra requested only her first name and her son’s nickname be used because she feared retaliation from her son’s school district.

After Danny walked himself to the nurse’s office that day — and after the initial interpreter spoke such poor Spanish that Alejandra told her to switch to English — it was the little boy himself who had to explain the fraught situation to his mom.

“It was very frustrating,” she added, “because they ended up using my child as the interpreter.” 

This experience was not new, nor has it changed in the years since. Alejandra said that in general, when her kids were in elementary school, the school would make an interpreter available, but only if she scheduled an appointment ahead of time. 

“In middle school, there are no interpreters. You have to bring your own person that will help you. And for high school? Definitely not.”

In general, even when interpretation has been provided, she described it as subpar and largely unhelpful, marked by translators who cross boundaries, interjecting their views into conversations in ways that she said were inappropriate and ultimately hurt her son.

“Oftentimes, what I’ve experienced is that when they’re part of the district, they insert themselves in the situation,” she said. “Their own bias comes in, they give their own opinions, and then they get in the way of the proper communication that should just be a bridge between one party and the other.”

It’s often in the face of these deficiencies that the student gets called on to translate. Not only is this a violation of the law, but also makes families feel disconnected from their schools and leads to an adultification of children, said Daysi Ximena Diaz-Strong, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Work.

“It creates a kind of interesting family dynamic of parents wanting to support their kids, but having these sort of structural constraints, which then forces the kids to take on more responsibility within the home.”

She said as someone who grew up as an immigrant and took on these responsibilities herself, “It stays with you all the way through adulthood. You just know that you … are responsible for your family’s well-being and that you must take on that burden at any expense — including your own.”

Sometimes, students are even pulled to be translators for their peers, according to Hannah Liu, a policy analyst at the The Center for Law and Social Policy in D.C.

It’s not just an individual school issue, she said, “it’s a very widespread issue. And I think that’s something that’s been normalized in the immigrant child experience … We need to denormalize and say, ‘OK, actually, we are not supporting our kids enough.’”

McGhee, of Revolución Educativa, said unless translation is requested in advance, it’s typically not available and even when established advocacy groups like hers make the ask, often it’s still not provided. What happens then, she said, is administrators will pull in someone like a bilingual secretary to fill the gap.

“If the student is a middle schooler or above, they are doing all their own interpretation,” she said.

McGhee said she once sat in on an emotionally charged disciplinary hearing for an English learner facing expulsion. His mom didn’t speak English, so the school ultimately brought in a young, bilingual staff member who worked in the front office but had no training in interpretation. 

As the meeting intensified, the staff member grew increasingly emotional and began to cry. McGhee said she turned to her and offered to take over.

McGhee said she’s also witnessed meetings where bilingual staff members are burned out and frustrated after being repeatedly asked to do this work and therefore do the bare minimum. 

Christy Moreno, community advocacy and impact officer at Revolución Educativa and a trained language access provider, emphasized the harm that is done when this happens.   Moreno interpreted the parent interviews for this article.

“Oftentimes what I see and what I experience and what I hear about is meetings where when the information is translated into their language of preference, it’s summarized,” she said. “So all of the great detail, all of the very important things that need to be taken into consideration when families are making decisions about the educational experience of their children, are just gone. And so they’re disenfranchised. Someone else is making decisions for them without their true input and ultimately that impacts their student, the child.”

She’s even seen cases in which legal documents, such as Individualized Education Programs, are translated using Google: “I’ve seen it many times, literally printed on the IEP where the top corner says ‘Translated by Google Translate.’”

“It’s not really a system that’s working,” said Rodriguez-Engberg, from Advocates for Children. “The problem is that there are resources and there is guidance and there’s definitely a little bit of oversight, it’s just that I’m not sure the schools are actually being held accountable.” 

Unlike federal laws that protect students with disabilities, she added, the enforcement mechanisms just aren’t very robust.

“I want people to know my story”

Wendy Rodas said her daughter was hospitalized in December 2022 as a result of being victimized in her Missouri school, and that her son was forced to translate a challenging conversation between his mother and the school principal about his younger sister’s traumatizing experiences.

Eventually, frustrated by the school’s lack of response, Rodas involved Child Protective Services and requested a meeting with the principal, superintendent and director of student services. She also requested an interpreter be present.

At this point, a skeptical Rodas also elicited outside help from Revolución Educativa. On the morning of the meeting, the interpreter she had requested from the school wasn’t there, she said. A staff member in the session tried unsuccessfully to access one on the phone. Finally, the Revolución Educativa advocate, a trained interpreter, stepped in.

For the first time, Rodas said, “I felt like I was finally able to say everything I wanted to say.” 

Rodas said she never saw the outcome of the investigation into what happened to her daughter. But in the year and a half since, the young girl has been healing through therapy and has transferred to another public school in the district, one that consistently offers translation through a phone interpreter, her mother said. This is better than nothing, but still feeling disconnected, Rodas continues to rely on outside services and volunteers. 

Rodas is hoping for change — ideally a bilingual staffer is assigned at each school to facilitate communication between educators and families. And while reliving her daughter’s story is painful, she said she shares it to encourage other non-English-speaking parents to fight and advocate for their kids.

“I want people to know my story so that they can know that if they have the courage … they can make change. I want people to have that courage so that they can speak up, so that they can go and find answers and say what they want to say. And I want them to know that it is possible to get effective communication — we just need to push and ask for it.”

This report was first published by the 74, a non-profit national education newsroom. It can be republished in print or online.

(Catherine Lane/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — As private student loan companies take heat over accusations of predatory behavior and deception, members of a U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs panel and student advocates voiced concerns over the industry at a hearing Tuesday.

The Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection hearing came as the broader student debt crisis impacts millions, with more than $1.74 trillion in outstanding student loans as of the second quarter of 2024, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Subcommittee Chairman Raphael Warnock said he and his staff analyzed some of the myriad complaints the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received related to private student loans and federal student loan servicing in roughly the last year and were “struck by the sheer scope and magnitude of the problem.”

“Private lenders and servicers routinely misled or deceived borrowers, and the stories are frustrating and heartbreaking,” the Georgia Democrat said.

Some borrowers have found loans offered by private lenders to be extraordinary burdens, Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director at the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group, told the panel.

“Student loans were supposed to grant all families — regardless of race and economic status — the chance to unlock the promise of a higher education,” she said.

“But for too many, student debt has become a life sentence, holding borrowers back from buying a home, starting a small business and even starting or growing a family,” Canchola Bañez said.

Canchola Bañez said “the absence of comprehensive data in the private student loan space has too often left borrowers, policymakers and advocates in the dark” and that “this has allowed for significant gaps in protections for the millions of Americans forced to take on private student loan debt and has made it harder for policymakers and law enforcement officials to protect borrowers.”

Dalié Jiménez, a law professor and director of the Student Loan Law Initiative at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, said the private student loan industry had transformed in the last decade.

“New financial products have emerged, offering alternatives to traditional loans, but they’ve come with added risks that we’re only beginning to understand,” Jiménez said, adding that “many are offered by schools that provide dubious value in return for costly credit.”

Troubled industry

Major student loan servicers, such as Navient, have been at the center of legal issues and scrutiny in recent years. Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a $120 million settlement with Navient that bans the company from federal student loan servicing.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and member of the subcommittee, has led investigations into Navient for nearly a decade.

Warren said Tuesday that “Republican extremists want to return to the days where borrowers were just at the mercy of predatory servicers like Navient” and that “the Biden-Harris administration has a different vision.”

Warren added that it’s “long past time for Navient to do the right thing by their countless defrauded borrowers and cancel out these loans for the private student loan borrowers as well.”

On the other side of the aisle, GOP Sen. Cynthia Lummis defended the industry’s basic mission.

“While individual cases of malfeasance certainly exist in the private loan market — as they do in any market — private lenders fill a crucial gap in higher education financing and equip borrowers with the tools to meet the barriers to education in place today,” Lummis said.

Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, also noted that the private student loan market only accounts for 8% of outstanding loans and that the vast majority of loans are federal loans.

Beth Akers, senior fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, pointed out that while “private student loan origination and servicing, both for federal and private loans, hasn’t been perfect” and “lending institutions and those that service loans are fallible,” these private entities supporting student lending “don’t deserve the ire of lawmakers looking for a quick fix or even a scapegoat for what is happening more broadly in student lending.”

The U.S. Education Department will open up the phased rollout of the new federal financial aid form to high schools, districts and other organizations (Catherine Lane/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education named the first six organizations to participate in the phased rollout of the 2025-26 form to apply for federal financial student aid Wednesday, and opened up the interest form for high schools, school districts and other entities to get involved in its next three testing periods.

In August, the department said it would take a staggered approach to launching the application period for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — better known as FAFSA — in an effort to address any problems prior to the updated form opening up to everyone by Dec. 1.

The phased rollout will make the application fully available two months later than usual.

The first testing period beginning Oct. 1 will include six community-based organizations. The department on Wednesday said it selected Alabama Possible; Bridge 2 Life, in Florida; College AIM, in Georgia; Education is Freedom, in Texas; the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, in California; and the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria, in Virginia; to participate.

The six organizations will provide access to the new form to hundreds of participants in the first testing period. The form will gradually open up to tens of thousands of students in the subsequent testing stages.

“Each of these orgs have committed to recruit 100-plus students and contributors, which will allow us to test the FAFSA system end-to-end from the submissions process, to processing, to ingestion of the (Institutional Student Information Records) by colleges and possibly even state agencies,” FAFSA executive adviser Jeremy Singer said on a call with reporters Wednesday.

Singer said each of the community-based organizations will host an in-person FAFSA event over the first few days of October.

“We will send some of our team members to these sites to observe and learn from our experienced partners, seeing how students and families are interacting with the application, what’s working for them, what’s challenging, what’s clear, what’s less clear,” said Singer, who heads FAFSA strategy within the department’s Office of Federal Student Aid.

Next phases

Singer said the second testing period would launch in mid-October, with the third debuting in early November and the fourth period beginning in mid-November.

Community-based organizations, high schools, school districts and institutions of higher education have from Wednesday until Sept. 20 to submit an interest form to be part of the next three testing periods.

The department said it plans to notify those selected to participate in the second testing period by Sept. 24 and inform those chosen to take part in the third and fourth testing periods shortly afterward.

The department has also worked to close the gap in FAFSA submissions compared to the prior cycle. In March, the department said it received roughly 40% fewer FAFSA applications than the same time last year.

But as of this week, the gap had fallen to approximately 2.3%, the department said.

The department also said that as of early September, roughly 500,000 more FAFSA applicants are eligible for Pell Grants compared to the same time in 2023.

The updates to the rollout of the 2025-26 form come as the department has worked to resolve the 2024-25 form’s multiple glitches and errors, which advocates voiced concerns over. The application got a makeover following the December 2020 passage of the FAFSA Simplification Act.

State Rep. Raychel Proudie, a Democrat from Ferguson, questions officials from the state education department about emails that show early knowledge of widespread problems with the child care subsidy program (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

The Missouri House Budget Committee grilled state education officials  for over two hours Wednesday morning over the backlog of payments in the child care subsidy program.

House Budget Chair Cody Smith, a Republican from Carthage, pressed subsidy administrators about how the backlog may affect the state budget.

Officials were not able during the meeting to say how much money they owed providers for subsidized child care for the previous fiscal year, which ended June 30. The department had $84.3 million left in appropriations for fiscal year 2024 it can no longer spend.

This money must come out of appropriations for the current fiscal year, which may lead to a supplemental request, Smith noted with concern. Kari Monsees, commissioner of financial and administrative services for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said any additional appropriations could be pulled from remaining federal funding for the program that the legislature has not yet authorized the department to use.

And now, with discretionary funds expiring at the end of the month, DESE is writing checks to child-care providers as a one-time grant to use up the funds and try to keep struggling preschools open. The grants will vary from $5,000 to $55,000 based on the size of the facility.

“We wanted the stipend to be substantial. We thought it needed to be substantial, given the nature of the situation we are in,” Monsees told the committee.

It was the second day in a row that department leaders faced tough questions from lawmakers. On Tuesday, a parade of child-care providers testified to the House Education Committee about the massive backlog and how it is impacting their ability to keep their doors open. 

DESE took over the administration of the child care subsidy program from the Department of Social Services in December and hired a new service provider to cover the technology.

Since then, providers have been missing payments for many months, and families are waiting for long periods to get into the system. Some day care centers have closed their doors, and many have taken out loans to survive.

“I have people who are at the brink of going out of business. I have individuals who told families, ‘Unless you can come up with the full amount even though you’ve been approved for the subsidy, you cannot have your child here at our center,’” State Rep. Darin Chappell, a Rogersville Republican, said. “These people are trying to be cared for. 

“They are working poor, working middle class. We are not talking about people with our greatest amount of money. They wouldn’t have qualified if they were. These are the people in our communities that are the most at risk,” he continued

He wished the department would have paid, at the minimum, part of their obligation to providers by the end of June. Then, they wouldn’t have as much owed now.

Rep. Raychel Proudie, a Democrat from Ferguson, held printed copies of emails between DESE officials and contractors. Concerns about the system were known months before addressing it publicly.

“The assistant commissioner let them know that there was an issue over and over and over and over again before we ran out of the trial period,” Proudie said. “It was well known that this was a disaster, that she felt that the contractors weren’t taking it seriously.”

Pam Thomas, assistant commissioner for Missouri’s Office of Childhood, said she knew it was a “system wide” problem by the end of January.

“There were some hot fixes put in place immediately,” she said. “At that point in time, there were over 2,000 provider accounts and over 22,000 children. We had duplicates in the system because of missing data, and the volume by the end of January was very large.”

The department has a goal to fix the backlog by the end of October, but lawmakers expressed skepticism.

Rep. Kathy Steinhoff, a Democrat from Columbia, asked for weekly updates, preferably on a public platform.

Monsees said the department would “address that.”

This article has been updated at 2:43 p.m. to correct the status of fiscal year 2024 appropriations and officials’ knowledge of the amount owed to borrowers.

State Rep. Brad Pollitt, a Sedalia Republican, leads the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee hearing Tuesday afternoon (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Julita Harris has worked in child care for 47 years and has refused to shut down her business, Peter Rabbit Learning and Development Center in St. Joseph, despite mounting financial concerns.

The preschool has become a family affair, with her son Edwin helping with administrative tasks. Lately, that’s meant watching for payments from the state’s child subsidy grant program, which is a federal grant administered by the state to help low-income families afford child care.

But even he can’t understand the software, which doesn’t recognize all the subsidized children correctly. 

And the money from the state has gotten sparse since this past winter.

While she waits for the money she’s owed, her family is  nearly $70,000 in debt. The utilities to their home are shut off — anything to keep the lights on at the day care.

“We borrowed a lot of money, tied our (trucking business) up, used our social security and using other funding we had set aside that’s not there now,” Julita Harris said. “I don’t regret that, but it’s wrong.”

Payment backlog leaves Missouri child care providers desperate, on the brink of closing

She attributes the financial hardship to a change in the child care subsidy program, a federal grant administered by the state. The Department of Social Services administered the subsidy until December, when the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education took over and contracted with a new software provider to manage the program.

Since then, payments have been sparse, with providers around the state closing their doors and others taking out loans to stay in business. The Missouri House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee, back in Jefferson City for veto session this week, called for an informational hearing about the problem.

Officials with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of Childhood told committee members Tuesday that the backlog of payments to providers should be resolved by mid-October. The backlog of subsidy applications will be completed by the end of this month.

But the meeting’s attendees, which were largely child care providers, weren’t so sure. 

“The current plan talked about today is just not working,” said Lyndsey Elliott, director of Missouri S&T’s child development center. “I’ve been waiting for more than 60 days for payment resolution requests to even make it to a human.”

The center was missing more than $50,000 in subsidy payments from the state between the months of January and July, she said. Other providers had as much as $148,000 owed to them, they told the committee.

Kari Monsees, DESE’s commissioner of financial and administrative services, said there were “startup challenges” beginning the new system. The new system developed by World Wide Technology in St. Louis must interact with a preexisting attendance-tracking software, KinderConnect.

The interaction between the two software systems has caused duplication errors and created manual labor, Monsees said. The program by World Wide Technology hasn’t been meeting contractual obligations, he said, but it is past the 90-day warranty period.

The errors have created a backlog where providers are waiting months to receive payment, and parents’ applications are taking over a month to get approved.

Pam Thomas, assistant commissioner for Missouri’s Office of Childhood, said some records are taking “months” to be accepted and entered into the system when it should be instantaneous.

The department has hired 22 staff members to oversee eligibility, 10 to process payment and 14 hourly technicians to fix system issues at a combined cost of $4.8 million, Monsees said.

State Rep. Marlene Terry, a Democrat from St. Louis, said the state needs to “find a way to get these people their money.”

Rep. Crystal Quade, House Minority Leader and Democratic candidate for governor, asked why checks can’t be sent today.

“That is the kind of question that all of us were asking,” Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger said. “Let’s just get the money out the door. Let’s do it. But I have been learning on this job that those kinds of things are not that easy.”

Quade said the state legislature has already appropriated funds, so repeat providers should receive their checks without having to revalidate currently.

Monsees said he believes that fixing the issues with the system is a “more productive” use of staff time.

State Rep. Ed Lewis, a Republican from Moberly, suggested temporarily implementing an enrollment-based system instead of using attendance and paying the providers at the beginning of the month. These are goals of the department, as well as federal suggestions. He also said the department could pay based on average attendance to expedite payment.

Child care providers said an enrollment-based system would alleviate some of the pressure.

Rachel Wilfley, a program director at Kindercare, said parents fill out attendance using tablets. Some have technology problems, and attendance registers lower than kids’ actual turnout.

Others complained that the department had removed incentives for providers to take on a large amount of subsidy-funded children.

Diane Coleman, who owns Nanny’s Early Learning Center in Columbia, said she previously received a 30% bonus for having an enrollment with over 50% subsidy-funded kids and an additional 20% bonus for an accreditation program. Now, she said, she must choose one or the other.

This change alone is costing her $148,000. “We relied on that money,” she said.

Lacey Allen, owner of Learning and Fun Preschool in Kansas City, said losing the bonus has cost her $107,000.

“I have not received a correct payment since DESE took over,” she said.

Discussion of the problems plaguing the subsidy program isn’t over. The House Budget Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday morning to look into the issue as well.

Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger speaks during a State Board of Education meeting (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is asking for over $174 million in supplemental funding for this school year after receiving $1 billion less in appropriations compared to the previous year.

When the State Board of Education reviewed the budget bill approved by lawmakers in May, Board Chair Charlie Shields predicted that “the mother of all supplemental budgets” would come, possibly in a special session.

In its meeting Tuesday, the board approved a supplemental budget with a high request from the state in general revenue and a budget for next year with increasing costs associated with an education bill that was recently signed into law.

“We can’t assume that this is all going to be able to be funded. There’s going to be some really hard decisions and prioritization that has to happen throughout the process,” Kari Monsees, DESE’s commissioner of financial and administrative services, told the State Board of Education Tuesday. “That might be the understatement of the year,” he added.

The supplemental request includes over $100 million from the state’s general revenue fund. Last year, the department asked for under $2 million in state funding.

Nearly half of the general-revenue request — $48 million — is from changes to the formula that funds school districts and charter schools. The board did not discuss what changes drove the supplemental, but multiple additions to the formula will boost funding in its fiscal year 2026 request.

Other drivers of the expense is an increase in the early childhood special education caseload, which the department requests $20.8 million to manage.

“The last three or four years, we’ve been fairly flat in (early childhood special education enrollment) because of the covid impact,” Monsees said. “We had fewer students entering those programs for a few years, and so we didn’t need much in the way of additional funding. Well, that kind of came home to roost last year, and the numbers are up.”

The department is also requesting $15 million for a grant program it provides to schools with under 350 students. The education package passed by the legislature this year increased the size of the program, so the supplemental request is to meet that demand, Monsees said.

He noted that budget instructions for fiscal year 2026 direct the department to specify mandatory new decision items. For that, the department requests an increase of $810 million from this year’s appropriation of $8.73 billion, of which $719 million would come from the state’s general fund.

A sizable portion of the request is powered by expenses in the education package passed by lawmakers this year, which had a $230 million fiscal note for next year.

Requests from state agencies are due to the Missouri Office of Administration by Oct. 1.

A teenager speaks during a Senate hearing during the 2023 legislative session, donning a vest with a transgender flag (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent)

It has been a year since a state law required Missouri schools to have athletes compete according to their sex as assigned at birth, and few student manuals and school-board policies reflect the change.

Enforcement, which was murky last year, remains unprescribed with many districts stating that they will follow the law without describing how.

The law, which bars transgender athletes from competing according to their gender identity, penalizes noncompliant schools by revoking their state funding. It calls for state education officials to create any rules necessary for enforcement.

But the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education “is not involved in school athletics and activities,” its spokeswoman Mallory McGowin told The Independent. 

The Missouri High School Activities Association (MSHSAA), which is not a state entity, oversees eligibility for extracurricular events.

The association has eligibility standards that schools statewide require their athletes to adhere to in order to compete in MSHSAA-sanctioned events. One such requirement is a semiannual physical, in which doctors clear athletes to compete.

The paperwork provided by MSHSAA for the sports physical asks the student’s sex as assigned at birth and gender identity for the medical history provided to the doctor. The form submitted to schools only includes sex as assigned at birth.

But MSHSAA is not the enforcer of the law, said Andrew Kauffman, the association’s spokesman. Individual schools are.

When asked if MSHSAA has provided guidance to schools, he said it “has advised its (member) schools to follow the law.”

According to the Movement Advancement Project, which maps policies affecting LGBTQ people in the U.S., 25 states ban transgender athletes from participating according to their gender identity.

When a Missouri Senate committee was hearing the bill in 2023, a swath of advocates warned lawmakers that the legislation would harm transgender youth.

“Bills, such as (this one), communicate not just to the LGBTQ community but to all people that our very existence can and should be rejected and devalued,” said Shira Berkowitz, senior director of public policy and advocacy of PROMO, Missouri’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group.

School had brief answers to questions about their policies, with most unwilling to grant requests for an interview.

“We follow the state statute with regard to what gender is listed on a birth certificate and MSHSAA guidelines in terms of student participation in sports based on gender. We have worked effectively with families and student athletes to comply with the state law and we will continue to do so,” Rockwood School District’s spokesperson said.

In a review by The Independent of Missouri’s 10 largest school districts’ student manuals, Rockwood was one of two to cite state law in policies around athletic eligibility.

“The district complies with all relevant state law regarding participation in athletic competitions,” the policy says, citing the section that restricts participation based on sex at birth.

Wentzville School District based its policy on the law, copying phrases out of state statute and noting a loss of funding if the district does not comply.

The other districts lacked mention of the statute, or gender identity, in their athletics eligibility policies.

The policy in North Kansas City High School says: “Participation… can be granted to those who meet the eligibility standards of the school and the state of Missouri.”

MSHSAA is widely pointed to in eligibility policies.

Fort Zumwalt School District, in O’Fallon, determines eligibility “in accordance with the MSHSAA regulations and school district policies and regulations.”

Prior to the state law, there were only five transgender athletes eligible to compete in MSHSAA events.

State Rep. Jeff Farnan, a Republican from Stanberry, speaks in the Missouri House during the 2024 legislative session. A well-funded group sought to oust him from his seat with attack ads during the primary election (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications).

The mailers started showing up in Rep. Jeff Farnan’s district months before the Aug. 6 primary, labeling the Republican from Stanberry a tool of teacher’s unions with an agenda of “open borders” and “higher taxes.”

By the time voters went to the polls, the Missouri chapter of the American Federation for Children had spent $90,000 trying to unseat Farnan, who was first elected to the Missouri House in 2022. The reason for the group’s ire: He’d publicly opposed a bill that would expand the state’s tax-credit scholarship program, MOScholars, which moves state funds to private schools.

“They just kind of hinted around the fact that I didn’t believe in school choice,” he said of the mailers. “That is what some of the ads alluded to.”

In the end, the spending had little effect on the primary, and Farnan prevailed with 77% of the vote.

Other GOP incumbents who had opposed the MOScholars bill weren’t so lucky. AFC also prioritized bringing down Reps. Kyle Marquart and Gary Bonacker, who lost their primaries.

In all, American Federation for Children and other groups that support public funds for private education spent a combined $560,000 in legislative primaries this year, bolstering candidates that affirm charter schools and state-funded private-school scholarships and sending out negative ads against opponents statewide.

Quality Schools Coalition, a Kansas City-based nonprofit that advocates for charter schools and other educational options, invested in Republican primaries with no incumbents and two Democratic races with candidates currently in the state legislature. In all, the group spent over $100,000 in campaign ads during the primary.

That compares to $23,400 in ads from the Missouri chapter of the National Education Association, the state’s largest teacher union. Missouri NEA also spent nearly $76,000 in contributions to campaigns.

Mark Jones, communications director for Missouri NEA, called the ads from opposing groups an attempt to “demonize” teachers.

“It is certainly not a surprise that those who want to privatize education first want to attack educators because educators are the most trusted people most parents know in their community,” he said.

The organization puts together an annual resolution with policy positions. There isn’t a mention of “open borders,” but Missouri NEA does advocate for education access regardless of immigration status.

A board elected by Missouri NEA members directs its campaign efforts, he said. Candidates are chosen through a screening process, including voting history — such as the MOScholars bill.

“What you will see during the course of the entire election is that educators are going to hold folks who do not support public education accountable, and we’re going to continue to do that,” Jones said.

Jean Evans, the Missouri lead for the American Federation for Children, said her organization stopped its spending in opposition to Farnan a couple weeks before Election Day after polling made it clear he was going to win easily.

The American Federation for Children’s Missouri political action committee spent about $460,000 during the primary. Evans said there will be continued investment as the general election approaches.

“When you find a good candidate, and there’s a clear contrast from the incumbent, which was what we saw in those races… that’s really what it was about, and letting the voters know,” Evans said.

Bonacker, a House Springs Republican who lost his race after facing AFC’s attack ads, felt like voters lost sight of who he is seeing ads with “open borders” and “higher taxes” in bold.

“I was warned (about the ads). I thought I could weather it,” Bonacker said. “I can’t believe people who know me could fall prey to the constant barrage of misinformation that convinces them otherwise.”

He voted against the MOScholars bill, feeling like the legislation would only hurt his local school district, in which he serves on the board of education. He also didn’t think the state could fund the bill, which will cost nearly $470 million when fully implemented.

On Aug. 6, he lost to newcomer Cecelie Williams, who garnered 59.2% of the vote. Williams ran with messaging that she supported “school choice” in a brief list of issues displayed in her social media posts.

She told The Independent that, while campaigning door to door, about a quarter of people knew about the issue.

“School choice did play a good portion in my election, especially with my opponent being against school choice,” she said. “Once the word got out that he didn’t support school choice, I think that had an influence on it.”

Bonacker also voted against bills in the 2023 legislative session that, now law, place restrictions on transgender athletes and bar transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care.

He said the votes weren’t a sign of supporting transgender youth but instead rooted in his views of limited government.

“The government doesn’t need to be in that business, in family medical decisions, doesn’t matter what the subject matter is,” he said.

Williams said his voting history seemed like he was “voting like a liberal.” Bonacker’s voting record shows him voting in line with fellow Republicans more than double the amount he shares with Democratic representatives.

Both AFC and Quality Schools Coalition, which generally spent on different races, pumped money into the Democratic primary in Senate District 13 in St. Louis County. 

State Rep. Chantelle Nickson-Clark, who voted for the bill expanding MoScholars, challenged incumbent Sen. Angela Mosley, who voted against the bill. In total, the groups spent almost $32,000 supporting Nickson-Clark and almost $27,000 opposing Mosley.

Missouri NEA spent nearly $17,000 opposing Nickson-Clark.

Mosley won the primary, with 56.7% of the vote.

Quality Schools Coalition spent about $28,000 supporting state Rep. Marlene Terry, a Democrat from St. Louis, who said she changed her mind and voted in favor of the MOScholars expansion and explained her decision-making process in an op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

In July, Missouri NEA spent about $7,000 on mailers opposing Terry. She won her primary with 64.4% of the vote.

Quality Schools Coalition President and CEO Dean Johnson, who was unavailable for an interview, said in a statement that he would like to see additional “education reform.”

“Quality Schools Coalition was proud to support candidates in the August elections who we believe share these values,” he said. “Depending on outcomes in the general election, it appears that the Missouri House will have a larger number of education reformers than ever before, while support for education reform in the Missouri Senate will remain largely unchanged.”

Students pick up laptops and other school supplies during orientation for Brookside Virtual Academy on Aug. 20 in Kansas City. Brian Wilson (left) said he and his wife like giving individual attention to their kids’ education at home (Vaughn Wheat/The Beacon).

Bridget Bolder sent her daughter, Mia, to kindergarten at a neighborhood public school. After all, it seemed the “normal, regular thing to do.”

But Bolder started to worry that some of her daughter’s classmates were exposing her to inappropriate topics. Early in the school year, Mia had to tell a teacher about a boy groping some of the other girls.

“I’m like, she’s a baby,” Bolder said. “Bring her home a little while longer before I throw her to the wolves.”

Brian Wilson and his wife homeschooled three of their children last year. They struggled to juggle home life, both parents’ jobs and teaching the kids.

The family briefly switched to in-person school, but Wilson said it only validated the parents’ theory that the individual attention the kids got at home had been working.

“They seemed like head and shoulders above all the other kids when it comes to learning,” he said. “My son, Aaron — he’s the youngest — he was actually helping kids in his class.”

Both families have turned to the new Brookside Virtual Academy so they could keep their kids at home and still rely on professional teachers to lead their schooling.

The academy is attached to Brookside Charter School and bills itself as Kansas City’s only virtual program where teaching happens on live, interactive video calls.

Online school isn’t widely popular. It’s been blamed for some of the learning loss that set kids back during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kansas City Public Schools closed its virtual academy for kindergarten through fifth grade this year because of shrinking enrollment, district spokesperson Shain Bergan said in an email.

But for a girl with severe social anxiety? A boy with leukemia? A young athlete with a rigorous training and travel schedule?

Leslie Correa, who helped design the KCPS program, said certain students and families need the option. So she found a home for the program at Brookside, where she’s now the virtual academy principal.

“The students that virtual works for, it works really well for,” she said. “We cannot close the door to them for having a great education.”

Who succeeds in virtual education?

For some students, the computer screen provides a layer of distance that makes them braver, Correa said. Learning from home can also reduce distracting sensory overload for some kids with autism.

For example, loud or persistent background noise, visually busy environments or other students bumping into them could overwhelm some children.

Other students might need virtual school for logistical reasons.

That could include students who are barred from in-person school for disciplinary issues, traveling athletes, kids going through intensive medical treatment like dialysis or chemotherapy, or parents who struggle with transportation.

Some families identify as homeschoolers but want professional help teaching reading and math, Correa said. Since virtual school is more concise, it leaves more flexibility in the day.

Parents’ fears can also push them toward keeping kids at home.

“Anytime that there has been a violent occurrence in one of our schools in Kansas City, I get a big uptick in enrollment,” Correa said. “They feel scared and they’re looking for an alternative.”

When virtual learning doesn’t work

To figure out if it’s a good fit, Correa starts by asking parents why they’re interested in virtual school.

“If it’s, you know, ‘I don’t have day care and I need my 12-year-old to be home to watch my kid,’ it’s kind of an alarm,” she said. “I’m not the one to judge what their decision is, but I am the one to help arm them with information.”

The virtual academy serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Because Kansas City-area charter schools can only operate within the boundaries of KCPS, its students have to be from that area.

The virtual academy doesn’t turn students away based on their reason to enroll, Correa said, but it monitors their progress. If a student isn’t thriving, she meets with a parent to make a plan, like tutoring or switching the child to in-person school.

Schools can deny virtual education if they document that it’s not in the student’s best interest.

“My goal before getting to that point is always to have the parent make that decision for themselves through very hard conversation,” Correa said. “But it does happen.”

Problems can arise when the virtual school doesn’t think it can fulfill an individualized education program, or IEP, often used to support students with disabilities.

“The parent has the option to return to in-person learning or waive the IEP, and then their student does not get that support,” Correa said. “They almost never waive the IEP.”

Students can also get removed from virtual school, and referred for truancy, if they stop signing in or engaging at all for too many days.

Correa said she’s also attentive to offering ways for virtual students to get more comfortable with in-person interaction.

Virtual school students can attend optional in-person events and participate in Brookside clubs and sports.

“If they want to kind of test the water, the opportunity is there,” she said. “If a student is saying to me, ‘I am ready to go in a building,’ then OK. But then also, if a student is saying to me, ‘I need out of the building,’ OK, I’m here. I just don’t want to disrupt their education.”

How virtual learning works 

Right before the school year started, Brookside Charter School’s STEAM lab was set up for virtual academy orientation.

Teachers and school leaders passed out laptops, hot spots for internet access and school supplies.

The supply bags include books, basics like pencils and glue, whiteboards and dry erase markers (extra for younger kids, who tend to leave the caps off), and individually packaged science kits for lessons on the solar system, geology or density.

But first, families settled in for a presentation to learn the basics.

Brookside Virtual Academy starts at 9 a.m. with a lesson on leadership.

Most days, students then launch into reading class, followed by math. Wednesdays are for science.

Students spend about two and a half hours in live virtual lessons each day, and another 90 minutes online working through a task list that includes social studies and science.

Live classes use video calls and technology that lets teachers monitor what students are looking at and control their screens.

Parents aren’t responsible for teaching their kids, but they’re expected to keep in touch and generally make sure the students are online and on task.

Connecting with families

For some parents, being extra involved in part of the draw.

Wilson, the parent of three kids in the program, said he appreciates that it cuts the school day down to essentials, allowing parents to be more strategic about where they put time into their kids’ education.

Bolder, the parent of a first grader, said she’s looking forward to more easily monitoring what her daughter is learning so she can help supplement that.

Virtual education makes it easier to connect with families, said Tina Duvall, a reading and math interventionist for kindergarten through fourth grade.

“I get to be in their home with them. It takes away a whole lot of anxiety for kids,” she said. “I thought in my years past teaching that I knew — really, really knew — my students’ families, but not like this.”

Duvall will be working with breakout groups of students, grouped by grade or ability level.

With about 100 students as of Aug. 20, two or three grades are combined under each of four virtual academy teachers. But staggered schedules and help from interventionists like Duvall will allow each grade to learn separately.

The biggest challenge, Duvall said, is not being able to sit by a student to point things out or hand them what they need.

“You just want to reach through the screen and help,” she said.

Bolder and Wilson said they have their kids in in-person activities so they can socialize. But they’re not sure if they’ll ever go to in-person school.

“There shouldn’t be such a thing as a bad school,” Wilson said. “But because there is, until we’re able to put our kids in a good school … then we feel like we’re more suited to teach our kids at home.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The U.S. Department of Education said it would use a phased rollout to launch the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — more commonly known as FAFSA — in an attempt to address any issues before the form is available to everyone (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — With the U.S. Department of Education using a staggered approach in opening up the 2025-26 application period for federal financial student aid, the agency said Tuesday it will partner with a small number of community-based organizations to participate in the first testing period beginning Oct. 1.

Earlier in August, the department said it would use a phased rollout to launch the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — more commonly known as FAFSA — in an attempt to address any issues before the form is available to everyone.

The form will be open to hundreds of students and contributors during the first beta testing period this fall, increasing to tens of thousands by the final testing stage and available to everyone by Dec. 1.

Community-based organizations interested in participating in the initial testing can fill out an interest form from Tuesday until Sept. 5.

The department said it will select two to six of those groups and notify them by Sept. 9.

“In our prep, just to give some confidence, we’ve hit every milestone so far on time,” Jeremy Singer, FAFSA executive adviser, said on a call with reporters regarding the framework for the 2025-26 FAFSA testing period. “That bodes well for us being able to meet the beta testing period and a solid path to actually open it up to real users on October 1.”

Singer, who leads FAFSA strategy within the department’s Office of Federal Student Aid, said “each (community-based organization) will recruit students to participate in the beta, and then they’ll host FAFSA night in very early October.”

He said these organizations will also identify a partner college that will receive Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) and that the goal is to “test the system end-to-end.”

Singer said that in later beta tests, the department will also partner with high schools and higher education institutions.

In March, the department said it received roughly 40% fewer FAFSA applications than the same time period in 2023, but as of Tuesday, the gap is now under 3%.

The 2024-25 FAFSA form witnessed its share of hiccups, both when the form soft launched last December and officially debuted this past January. The 2024-25 form got a makeover after the FAFSA Simplification Act passed in December 2020.

The department has worked to fix a series of glitches and errors, including concerns from advocates over the form’s failure to adjust for inflation, its formula miscalculation and its tax data errors.

Child care providers have been struggling to keep their doors open, and in some cases forced to shutter, due to technical issues with the education department’s disbursal of federal funds (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

Missouri legislative leaders are demanding answers from state education officials about a monthslong backlog in a child care subsidy program.

Two House committees — the budget committee and the education committee — have scheduled hearings into the matter next month, and a Republican Senate leader has called for her chamber to launch a similar inquiry.

“I think it is safe to say The Office of Childhood is a massive disaster,” Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican from Shelbina, wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday, referring to the office within the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that is responsible for administration of the subsidy.

“… instead of creating more child care,” she wrote, “this office is running day cares out of business.”

Child care providers have been struggling to keep their doors open, and in some cases forced to shutter, due to technical issues with the education department’s disbursal of federal funds.

State education officials have largely blamed a contracted vendor for the monthslong backlogs. The system launched in December after the program shifted from the Department of Social Services to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Payment backlog leaves Missouri child care providers desperate, on the brink of closing

The subsidy, part of a federal block grant program that is state-administered, helps cover the cost for day care owners serving low-income and foster children. Some day cares rely on the program to pay their staff.

O’Laughlin said due to the “incompetence” of the office, she is requesting that Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden appoint an interim committee to look into the issues. 

The technology vendor, along with leadership of the Office of Childhood, parents and child care providers would be asked to testify, she wrote.

The vendor contracted to develop and implement the new system for the subsidy program is World Wide Technology, a large technology services provider headquartered in St. Louis.

In addition to O’Laughlin, House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat running for governor, demanded that her chamber’s leadership create an interim committee to look into the issues surrounding the subsidy. 

The problems administering the program have “escalated to the point of crisis, with families losing access to care,” Quade wrote in a letter last week to House Speaker Dean Plocher, “as some facilities have been forced to close, due in large part to the department’s failure to remit the payments owed in a timely manner.”

The education department has been “less than forthcoming” in communication, she wrote. 

“Since members of the House Democratic Caucus are being inundated with pleas for help from desperate families and struggling providers,” Quade wrote, “I’m certain our Republican colleagues are as well. 

“If the department is unable or unwilling to provide answers, it is our duty to demand them.”

Wednesday, Plocher announced the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee will hold a hearing Sept. 10 to “investigate the causes and impacts of delays” in the state issuing child care payments.

A House Budget Committee hearing was already scheduled for Sept. 11 to discuss child care with the education agency.

“At any hearing that is scheduled with lawmakers,” the education department’s spokesperson, Mallory McGowin, said in an email to The Independent, “DESE plans to be transparent about the challenges that exist, and the work being done to address the issues.”

McGowin said there are currently backlogs in family applications for subsidy assistance, provider contract applications, and in providers’ requests to resolve outstanding payment issues.

And there are ongoing issues getting providers their full payment: “Payments are being processed daily and providers are getting paid,” she said, “though some are not receiving full payment due to ongoing technical issues.”

Regarding the backlog of family applications, McGowin said the department has contracted with a staffing agency and expects it to be cleared by “mid to late September.” The department has also cross-trained additional staff to clear the backlog of provider contract applications. That backlog is expected to be cleared “by early to mid-September.”

Regarding outstanding payment issues, she said the current contractors have doubled their staff working on “issues preventing or delaying provider payments.” DESE has also contracted with an agency to clear the backlog of subsidy payment corrections and hired part-time workers to help process requests for missing payments. McGowin didn’t provide a timeline for the department overcoming the backlog of payment corrections.

“DESE recognizes the importance of subsidy payments to the child care industry and the value the program provides to Missouri’s workforce, in particular for families who provide care to children in foster care,” McGowin said.

McGowin encouraged parents and providers with questions to call the subsidy hotline at 573-415-8605.

“DESE and its contractors, World Wide Technology and MTX, are working hard to address these issues and sincerely apologizes to the child care providers and families affected by this transition,” she said.

UPDATE: This story was updated at 10:20 AM on Aug. 28 to add news of the House education committee’s hearing. It was updated at 12:45 PM to add comment from DESE and clarify the timing of Rep. Quade’s letter.

Kansas City Public Schools won't won’t finalize its bonding plan until November. Until then, members of the public can weigh in (Getty Images).

Superintendent Jennifer Collier understands why families weren’t inspired by the last Kansas City Public Schools building plan.

“It really just felt like … trying to convince people why they should be OK with us taking away their school,” she said.

A new plan to build at least two new schools and renovate others, reshuffle students and close some older buildings has more to offer, she said.

“Any school where the students would be moving, they would typically be moving into new sites, new buildings or highly renovated spaces,” Collier said. “We’re able to actually give our students and our staff and our families something.”

But the district is also asking more of the community — higher property taxes.

KCPS needs to persuade at least four out of every seven voters to approve a general obligation bond in April. The bond allows the district to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars, with the promise that it can raise taxes to pay back the debt.

In many districts, bonds are a routine way to build and update schools. KCPS hasn’t convinced voters to pass a bond in nearly 60 years, though it did receive an influx of money in the 1980s and ‘90s as a result of court-ordered taxing and spending related to a desegregation case. Some of its newer schools were built in that time period.

The lack of a bond has left the district behind on repairs and upgrades. KCPS says it needs $1.25 billion — about $650 million to fix deferred maintenance problems and another $600 million for upgrades. It’s seeking about half of that amount over the next 10 years.

Collier said students notice the difference when they visit other schools.

“All of that impacts the way a child views themselves,” she said. “We want our kids to know they’re important, that they’re worthy, and they have the same kind of spaces and learning environments as other children.”

The initial bond proposal was presented to the school board Aug. 14, but it won’t be finalized until November. Between now and then, residents can weigh in. Here’s what you need to know.

What is a bond? 

A bond is a way for a school district to borrow money for big building projects, ones it wouldn’t be able to afford as part of its normal yearly budget.

KCPS would pursue two types of bonds under the current proposal.

A general obligation bond requires voter approval and would result in higher property taxes.

A certificate of participation bond doesn’t require a vote and doesn’t raise taxes, but it would cover a smaller amount of money.

How much money is the district seeking? 

Overall, KCPS wants to raise $680 million for its 10-year building plan.

In the first stage of the plan, it would borrow $100 million, and ask voters to approve another $424 million bond in April 2025.

Charter schools, which can’t borrow against the ability to raise taxes on their own, might also participate. Eight of the 20 local charter schools are interested and have building needs totaling more than $168 million.

They’ll prioritize those needs, include up to $50 million worth in the bond and finalize agreements with KCPS by October. That could push the bond total to $474 million.

During the second half of the plan, KCPS would seek the remaining $156 million, including through another bond.

How much would my taxes go up? 

KCPS predicts that for a $474 million bond, someone with a home valued at $200,000 would pay an additional $231.80 per year in additional property taxes. A commercial property with the same value would pay an additional $390.40 per year.

The median home value in the district is $180,000, Deputy Superintendent Derald Davis said.

How will the money be used? 

Funds will be used in three main areas:

• Deferred maintenance, such as roof repair, electrical, HVAC and plumbing.
• Making buildings more suitable for teaching and learning.
• Moving sixth graders out of elementary schools and into middle schools.

During Phase I of the plan, the district plans to spend:

• $64.2 million on deferred maintenance and improvements in 18 schools.
• $136 million building two new schools.
• $104.8 to 135.4 million for major renovations at up to four schools.
• $48.9 million to combine four school sites into two.
• $62.4 million to relocate students to five existing school buildings.

KCPS also expects savings as some buildings close.

Some plans are still unsettled.

The proposal includes a new South Middle School to create enough space for sixth graders. KCPS is considering whether it should renovate the closed Southwest High School into a middle school or build a new school at one of two proposed sites.

The district is also considering merging two Montessori schools and making Border Star Montessori into a neighborhood school instead of expanding Hale Cook Elementary School.

Can I influence the bond plan? 

KCPS is seeking feedback on the bond plan before the board approves it in November.

“Much of this won’t be a surprise,” Collier said, but “sometimes there are things that maybe we just didn’t think of. Maybe there’s some brilliant ideas out there in our community.”

Would any schools close? 

Yes. Phillis Wheatley Elementary School, built in 1955, would close.

Its students would be split between J.A. Rogers and Wendell Phillips Elementary Schools, both built in the 1990s. The district would spend extra money renovating those schools.

That’s the only example of students being scattered to other buildings as a school completely closes — a notable difference from an earlier school closure plan.

But other buildings will close as students move into brand new or renovated buildings, special programs relocate or schools merge into shared sites.

What happens to the building when a school closes? 

KCPS can keep a school for future use, demolish it or try to sell it.

While the district has struggled to find buyers for several schools, KCPS has been recognized for its overall success at finding ways to reuse schools and involving the community in school repurposing decisions.

Some schools that closed in the past — like Satchel Paige Elementary School and Southwest High School — could get new life as part of the plan.

What new schools would be built? 

KCPS would build two new campuses centered around elementary schools.

One $68 million project at the former King/Weeks site is called the King Empowerment Campus. It would house a new K-5 King Elementary School, a family empowerment center, Richardson Early Learning Center and the Wheatley special education program.

A family empowerment center will include services such as a food pantry, clothing closet, mini laundromat, dental clinic and a site for students to receive physicals, Collier said. The King project is a top priority because the district promised a new school at that location years ago.

The district would spend the same dollar amount on a Woodland Empowerment Campus on the current Woodland site.

It would house a new K-5 Elementary School for Whittier Elementary School students, Woodland Early Learning Center, a family empowerment center and the Global Academy for students new to the U.S.

What schools would move? 

King Elementary School would move into a brand new building, vacating the former Kansas City Middle School of the Arts building on the Paseo Academy campus.

George Washington Carver Dual Language Academy would move into that building. The move would allow the program to expand and strengthen its connection to the Paseo dual language program.

Melcher Elementary School would move into the former Carver building, which is newer and in better condition. The school grew dramatically during the 2023-24 school year.

The African-Centered College Preparatory Academy would move out of its current building, which is oversized and built in the 1960s, into the former Satchel Paige Elementary School, built in 1991.

What schools would get major renovations? 

Renovations and a new addition at Central High School would allow the school to house career and technical education programs, which could also serve other districts and charter schools.

The district could then close Manual Career and Technical Center instead of doing $100 million worth of work to update the building.

KCPS’ two alternative schools, Success Academy at Knotts and Success Academy at Anderson, would merge at the Knotts location. The district would renovate the building to maintain separation between elementary and secondary students.

Northeast and Central Middle Schools would get renovations aimed at moving sixth graders in from elementary schools. Southwest High School could become a new middle school.

If funding is available, East, Southeast and Lincoln College Preparatory High Schools could also see major renovations, such as a new competition gym or a relocated cafeteria.

What if I’m not moving or getting a new school? 

KCPS is suggesting districtwide updates to keep schools “warm, safe and dry” and improve learning environments.

The district would spend between $1.3 million and $6 million on each elementary school in Phase I of the plan. Throughout the 10-year plan, they could receive between $4.5 million and $12.5 million each.

KCPS would also spend between $2.9 million and $6.1 million on each middle and high school in Phase 1. They could eventually receive between $4.8 million and $25.3 million each.

That’s not counting schools reopening, changing buildings or expecting major renovations.

Can buildings improve academics? 

Physical spaces are an integral part of how students learn, said Jordan Gordon, the school district’s chief operating officer.

Research shows a connection between certain building improvements — especially fixing infrastructure like heating and air conditioning, roofs, plumbing and furnaces — and higher achievement.

”They have (a) real impact on our students’ ability to learn and process information,” Gordon said.

What happens if the bond doesn’t pass? 

If the bond doesn’t pass, KCPS will evaluate what went wrong and prioritize projects that keep schools safe and clean, Gordon said, but will be limited by how much money it can set aside.

“We’ll continue to find ways to do the best we can,” he said. “But candidly speaking, that is not a sustainable way, a proper way, to support kids’ education.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger speaks during a State Board of Education meeting Tuesday (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Missouri students are showing progress on standardized tests administered by the state, with results in some categories approaching — and even exceeding — pre-pandemic levels.

But in other areas — most notably English language arts — students continue to struggle.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education revealed preliminary scores in the Missouri Assessment Program, or MAP, to the State Board of Education in its board meeting Tuesday.

Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge, a board member from Pasadena Hills, said she was “a little deflated that we didn’t see more growth and progress.”

DESE is implementing programs to address low levels of literacy, an issue throughout the United States, with interventions based on the science of reading and increased teacher training.

Westbrooks-Hodge said the intervention has worked like triage care; it “stopped the bleed” and scores are static.

“We made lots of great investments in the last two years, and I think we’re going to see the fruit of that as our score starts to increase,” she said. “All of these interventions are working. They’re stabilizing our educational system, and now we can start layering growth on top of that.”

English language arts scores remain below pre-pandemic levels, according to data presented Tuesday, with 56% of students scoring in the “basic” or “below basic” range. This percentage has held steady since 2022.

Lisa Sireno, assistant commissioner of quality schools, said it takes “continuous, sustained focused implementation with fidelity at the local level, up to five years, before we start to see results on large-scale measures.”

She noted that teacher shortages could be impacting the scores, as a battle of the 2023-24 school year.

When looking at scores across all subjects and grades, there is an observable improvement since 2021’s tests. That year, 24% of scores were in the “below basic” range. That’s fallen to 22% this year, still higher than the 19% below basic in the  last pre-pandemic tests in 2019. The number of scores in proficient and advanced ranges are one-percent less than 2019’s achievement.

Math scores are exceeding pre-pandemic levels, with a one-percent boost in the advanced category compared to 2019 when looking at grades 3-8. Sireno noted that middle-school math has exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

Sireno expects additional analysis, especially as educators look at local-level data.

(Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education said Wednesday it will use a phased rollout to launch the 2025-26 form to apply for federal financial student aid, which will make the application fully available two months later than usual.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid — better known as FAFSA — will be available to hundreds of students on Oct. 1, gradually ramping up to be available to all by Dec. 1. The staggered approach is an attempt to fix any issues before the form is open to everyone.

The phased rollout came after the 2024-25 form, which got a makeover following Congress passing the FAFSA Simplification Act in late 2020, witnessed its share of hiccups and glitches during the soft launch in December and past the official debut in January.

Though advocates expressed concerns regarding the form’s failure to adjust for inflation, its formula miscalculation and its tax data errors, which prompted processing delays, the department has worked to fix these issues.

“As we rolled out the 2024-2025 FAFSA cycle, we met various challenges in its first year,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said during a call with reporters Wednesday.

Cardona said “these challenges — rooted in a federal student aid department that was also in desperate need of modernization — resulted in frustration for many students, families, education leaders and policy makers from the Hill.”

The Education secretary added that over the last 10 months, the department has “spent lots of time with these stakeholders to ensure their experience and their input influences our work moving forward,” noting that the new rollout process reflects the extensive feedback the department has received.

Jeremy Singer, who leads FAFSA strategy within the department’s Office of Federal Student Aid, said hundreds of students will participate in the testing period beginning Oct. 1.

Singer said that availability will expand to thousands of students in mid-October and then to tens of thousands of students in early November, all prior to the form opening up to all students and families by Dec. 1.

Hearing from many students, families, schools and organizations, Singer said some of the most common demands included a concrete launch timeline and ability to track progress on that timeline, the launch of a form that’s fully functioning and assurance that there will be no major defects once the form is launched.

Senior department officials said states and schools have told them that no determination of financial aid will be made before the system opens for all students in December.

U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal, who oversees higher education and financial aid, including the  Office of Federal Student Aid, said that in March, the department received nearly 40% fewer FAFSAs than they had on the same date a year prior.

But now that gap is under 4% and they “continue to close it every week,” Kvaal said.

The department is inviting volunteers to take part in the testing period and said it will release more information in the coming weeks on how students and other partners can get involved in this initial process.

Technical issues with the education department's disbursal of federal funds has left many daycare providers struggling to keep their doors open as they wait on payment from the state (Getty Images).

Missouri’s education department hopes to resolve a backlog of payments to daycares across the state in the next two months, agency staff told the State Board of Education on Tuesday.

The department previously predicted the backlog — which has left many daycares on the brink of closure — would be overcome by the end of July.

Everyone involved in the process “is frustrated, is exhausted, is at the end of their rope, myself included,” said Pam Thomas, assistant commissioner for Missouri’s Office of Childhood. “And I think that the only thing that you can say is you recognize it. We sincerely apologize.”

Technical issues with the education department’s disbursal of federal funds has left many daycare providers struggling to keep their doors open as they wait on payment from the state. 

“We understand this program is vital, not only to the providers and the families, but to the employers, to those that are going to school,” Thomas said. “We understand that and we are doing the best we can to get this cleaned up within the next month and get back on track.”

The subsidy, part of a federal block grant program that is state-administered, helps cover the cost for daycare owners serving low-income and foster children. 

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which oversees the program, has largely blamed a contracted vendor for the months-long backlogs. The system, which launched in December, is still not fully operational. 

Payment backlog leaves Missouri child care providers desperate, on the brink of closing

The vendor contracted to develop and implement the new system for the subsidy program is World Wide Technology, a large technology services provider headquartered in St. Louis.

“The first time the vendor put more resources and came on site and took us seriously was May 1,” she said. “We are not experts in an information technology system in the department.”

She said World Wide Technology has doubled their staffing on the project and brought in experts, but until it did that, the agency was “treading water” because it didn’t have the expertise to fix various issues.

The state now has three vendors working on the program and “it takes all three of them to come together and get on the same page with what we need,” Thomas said.

Thomas said they are bringing in outside staff to help work through the backlog, because they have enough staff to process new requests as they come in but “do not have the capacity for the backlog on top of that.”

Those other vendors are MTX Support, to help with the data system, and KinderSystems for administering the system that tracks children’s attendance for payments, said Mallory McGowin, a spokeswoman for the education department, in an email to The Independent.

McGowin said it took “longer than expected” to contract with and onboard the vendors. There are now around 1,800 providers’ accounts that will be reviewed by the contractors, she said, a process that is currently underway.

Thomas estimated it would take 45 working days to clear the backlog, but that is “dependent upon the vendor getting those system glitches fixed.”

Board member Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge raised concern at the meeting for struggling daycare providers.

“I am keenly aware,” Westbrooks-Hodge said, “…of the challenges we’ve heard from providers who literally are going out of business because they’re not being paid.”

Providers, she added, “don’t have the margins to tolerate our issues.” 

Karla Eslinger, who has been commissioner of education since July 1, said her agency is doing all it can, and urged providers “just keep working with us.”

She said the problems should’ve been addressed earlier.

“We should have addressed it this way three months ago,” Eslinger told the board. 

Eslinger added that she has “no patience when it comes to this. We will get these folks paid. We will take care of these children.

“I’m hoping that next month we’re going to have a very, very different story.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona speaks with families at the Mattie Rhodes Center in Kansas City (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

WASHINGTON — Though the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX extending federal protections for LGBTQ students went into effect nationwide Thursday, a slew of legal challenges has temporarily blocked over half of all states from enforcing the updated regulations.

After the Department of Education released the final rule in April, 26 states — all with GOP attorneys general — rushed to challenge the measure. Given the myriad legal challenges, the updated regulations only went into effect Thursday in 24 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, celebrated the final rule on Thursday during a briefing.

Cardona said the updated regulations “are the culmination of a lengthy and thorough process that included unprecedented public input from students, parents, educators, administrators, experts and other stakeholders.”

“These regulations make crystal clear that everyone has the right to schools that respect their rights and offer safe, welcoming learning environments,” he added.

Lhamon said it’s “a very fluid legal environment” and the department continues “to defend the rule we believe in in these cases, with the Department of Justice as our counsel in the courts.”

“We anticipated this moment when we were finalizing the 2024 regulations, and we know they are legally sound,” she said, noting that the department has appealed the injunctions that have so far been issued and sought clarification of their application.

“While the appeals of these rulings are pending, we have asked the United States Supreme Court to allow the unchallenged provisions — which are the bulk of the final rule —  to take effect in the enjoined states as scheduled,” Lhamon said.

But the Supreme Court has yet to decide on that emergency request, which came in a pair of filings from U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar last week.

Discrimination protection

The final rule “protects against discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” per the department. The updated regulations are also aimed at “restoring and strengthening full protection from sexual violence and other sex-based harassment.”

The administration initially scored a legal win Tuesday when an Alabama federal judge rejected an attempt by Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to halt enforcement of the final rule. But a federal appeals court granted the states’ request for an administrative injunction Wednesday, which temporarily blocked the final rule from taking effect in those Southern states.

Judge Jodi W. Dishman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma also halted the final rule from taking effect in the state on Wednesday after the state individually sued the administration back in May.

The final rule is temporarily blocked in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Challenges affect more schools 

But the challenges to Title IX span beyond the 26 states that initially sued the administration — affecting schools across the country.

Judge John Broomes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas expanded the temporary blockage to also include “the schools attended by the members of Young America’s Foundation or Female Athletes United, as well as the schools attended by the children of the members of Moms for Liberty.”

These groups sued alongside Kansas, Alaska, Utah and Wyoming earlier this year.

House GOP tries to stop rule

Congressional Republicans have fiercely opposed the final rule.

In July, the GOP-controlled House passed a measure to reverse the updated regulations under the Congressional Review Act — a procedural tool Congress can use to overturn certain actions from federal agencies.

But the measure is unlikely to find success in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Joe Biden has vowed to veto the legislation should it land on his desk.

LGBTQ students

LGBTQ advocacy groups have pushed back against GOP-led efforts to block the final rule from taking effect.

“Every student in this country deserves access to an education without fear of bullying and discrimination,” Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said in an emailed statement to States Newsroom.

“But MAGA politicians, promoting blatant discrimination, have fueled eight preliminary injunctions blocking enforcement of the Biden administration’s new Title IX rules in 26 states.”

Wolf added that “we must continue to fight for LGBTQ+ students across the country because everyone deserves a safe educational experience — full stop.”

Meanwhile, the department has yet to decide on a separate rule establishing new criteria regarding transgender athletes.

University of Missouri System President Mun Choi discusses plans to reorganize diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by ending a separate campus division during a Friday briefing with reporters. He was joined by Vice Chancellor Maurice Gipson, who headed the division and is leaving for a new post in Arkansas. (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent)

The University of Missouri will eliminate its division focused on diversity, social equity and inclusion on the Columbia campus, completing the dismantling of administrative structures put in place after protests in 2015 brought national attention to issues of racial equality.

The move coincides with the departure of division Vice Chancellor Maurice Gipson. It is designed to appease Republicans who are showing hostility towards efforts designed to attract and retain students from historically underrepresented groups, Mun Choi, University of Missouri System president and Columbia campus chancellor, said at a briefing with reporters last week.

There have been 13 bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion filed in the legislature over the past two years Choi noted. During debate on the state budget during 2023, Republicans in the Missouri House added language banning any diversity efforts across state government, language that was deleted before the final budget passed.

One of the leading Republican candidates for governor, state Sen. Bill Eigel, has said he will fire every state employee who works to promote diversity and equity in state agencies, including universities.

“We realize the political situations that have occurred in other universities across the United States, including Texas, and Florida, Utah, and now Alabama, as well as many others,” Choi said.

Choi said the university has lobbied heavily against legislative action.

“We do believe that our proactive approaches in the past have really played an important role when diverting these bills from passing and I will be sharing our plans with elected leaders beginning this week,” he said.

The top goal is to protect the university’s operating and capital appropriations, Choi said.

“As a university we see about $500 million per year in appropriations and $200 million in capital one-time projects,” Choi said. “If we don’t see the $700 million dollars per year, we would have to eliminate every single position at all of the colleges that we have at universities. That is not a risk that I want to take.”

Gipson, hired as vice chancellor in 2020, is leaving to become interim president at Philander Smith University, an historically Black college in Arkansas. The four units of the division will be moved into other offices, which Choi said will make their mission part of the overall mission in each office.

No employees will lose their jobs, Choi said.

Gipson, who joined Choi in the briefing, said he’s confident that the work begun in the division will continue.

“We’ve been inspired and impressed that our colleagues here say, ‘this is going to work, we don’t have to all be underneath, necessarily the same place to get this work done,’” Gipson said.

The division’s units were moved out of the offices where they will return as part of a university commitment following the events of the fall of 2015, when long-simmering grievances about racial issues on campus led to a protest movement called Concerned Student 1950. 

The student group chose a name that reflected the year the first Black student was admitted to the school, which was founded in 1839. It sought to bring attention to overlooked school history that the campus was founded on the wealth of slaveholders and partially built with the labor of enslaved people.

A large group of students created a tent city, a graduate student started a hunger strike and the protests grabbed international attention when the Missouri Tiger football team joined the protest, stating they would not participate in sports until administrators showed they were meeting the demands that included the resignation of then-system President Tim Wolfe.

Other demands included more Black faculty, a plan to increase the retention rates for marginalized students and increased funding and personnel for the student support centers.

Wolfe resigned in November 2015 and the protest ended. In the year between his removal and the announcement that Choi would become the new permanent president, the university established both a campus division and a system vice-presidency focused on DEI efforts.

Choi, who was born in Korea, is the the third non-white permanent president of the university, following Manuel Pacheco, president from 1997 to 2002 and Elson Floyd, who was Black, holding the post from 2003 to 2007.

Choi became campus chancellor in 2020, becoming the first president since the university system was established in the 1960s to hold both jobs.

“This reporting structure in the chancellor’s office is important to cementing the level of support for this work,” Kevin McDonald, then-chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer for the UM System and vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity on the MU campus told the Columbia Daily Tribune in 2016. “I would hope it elevates the level of visibility of the work they have been doing.”

Despite those efforts, Black enrollment on the Columbia campus has fallen from 7.3% of the student body in fall 2015 to 5.3% last fall. The share of Hispanic students has increased to 5.5% from 3.5% in fall 2015 and the share of Asian students has increased from 3% from 2.2%.

The share of white students has remained virtually unchanged at about 77%.

The university anticipates an 11% increase in Black students and a 14% increase in Hispanic students on campus this fall, Choi said.

One specific demand was to increase Black representation among faculty to 10%. Black academics made up 3.5% of tenured and tenure-track faculty on the Columbia campus in the fall of 2023, down from 4.2% in 2018, the target year for the 10% goal.

While the share of Black students and faculty has declined, graduation rates for underrepresented ethnic groups on campus have increased, Choi said. The Columbia campus has the highest six-year graduation rate for Black students among public universities in Missouri, he said, and is near the median of flagship universities in nearby states for Black faculty.

The university began removing the structures put in place following the protests last year after a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled race-based admission policies were unconstitutional.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey ordered universities to “immediately cease their practice of using race-based standards to make decisions about things like admission, scholarships, programs and employment.”

The university responded by ending preferences in a number of scholarships and persuading donors to remove any racial or ethnic criteria from endowed programs. It also stopped requiring applicants for system administration jobs to include diversity statements in their job submissions.

Choi said the university has used those actions as part of its lobbying strategy.

“We do believe that our proactive approaches in the past have really played an important role when diverting these bills from passing,” Choi said, “and I will be sharing our plans with elected leaders.”

There were issues identified with a separate structure that the reorganization will address, Choi said.

“Because the ID division that works on student success programs were operating in an organization that was outside of the rest of the student success organization that’s in the Provost Office, there’s less opportunity to be inclusive, and less opportunities to be collaborative in that process,” he said.

The goal of the reorganization, Choi said, is to preserve the jobs and programs but to make them less visible.

“When you read the headlines that are out there, nationally, DEI is seen as an ideology, and it may be viewed by some as being exclusionary in the name of inclusion,” Choi said. “That is not what we do at the University of Missouri.”

This article has been updated to correct that Mun Choi is the third non-white president of the University of Missouri System.

Students are still in class in late July at Ingels Elementary School in Kansas City, part of the Hickman Mills School District. For the second year in a row, Ingels students attend school year-round, including for most of the summer (Vaughn Wheat/The Beacon).

When Natalie Brooks moved her daughters into North Kansas City Schools, she didn’t realize her neighborhood school was one of two in the district that put kids in class an extra 31 days.

She became an advocate of the program, believing it helped to skip long summer breaks where her daughters might forget what they’d learned at Crestview Elementary.

“I bragged about it for years,” she said, to “every single parent that crossed my path.”

So Brooks was “completely livid and upset” when she got a surprise email saying that Crestview would take summers off after the 2024-25 school year.

The theory of year-round school had seemed sound, and initial results were positive.

Other schools saw it, too.

In the Hickman Mills School District, test scores rose after the district moved an elementary school to year-round classes.

Charter school Gordon Parks Elementary credits its two years on an extended calendar with helping it catch up after the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the model also comes with pitfalls. For starters, it costs more. It also added to teacher burnout and faced attendance problems.

And after an encouraging start, NKC Schools saw achievement plunge at its year-round schools, accompanied by high teacher and student turnover.

In October, the school board voted to phase out the program. NKC declined an interview with The Beacon.

Parent Kyle Dennis said he’s not set on keeping the extended school year — though he originally moved to the district because of it — if someone could show him a better alternative.

But he’s not convinced the other ideas the district has floated, including teacher retention strategies, summer school and more coaching for teachers, will fix the “cratering” achievement the district described.

Some of the ideas aren’t specific yet. Others, like summer school, are similar to extending the school year but with less consistency and lower enrollment.

“I just want there to be a better option,” Dennis said. “How are you going to abandon year-round (school) and then go, ‘Oh, we’re going to do July summer school.’? It’s the same thing, except worse.”

The plan for year-round school

The idea was simple.

Students who spent more time in school would learn more and avoid the “summer slide” followed by time rehashing what they’d forgotten over break.

Parents would appreciate the extra education for their kids and the free summer child care.

Teachers would pursue the opportunity to earn a higher salary. Experienced teachers, in particular, would eye bigger pay bumps and the boost a raise would give to their retirement.

The district had tested a longer school year for students who didn’t speak English at home, said Kent Yocum, at the time instructional coach in the North Kansas City district. He was involved with that program and wrote his doctoral thesis about its success.

In mid-2015, NKC Schools expanded the program to all students at two of its lowest-performing elementary schools, Crestview and Winnwood.

The reality of year-round school

At first, that expanded program seemed to succeed, too.

A 2019 report found mixed results, said Donna Ginther, a professor of economics and director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas, who worked on the report.

Compared to similar NKC students, her research found, the year-round kids saw gains in math scores for some grades and improved English scores for one group of students.

“It wasn’t a silver bullet,” Ginther said. “The program helped, but I don’t think it was ever going to close the achievement gap.”

Ginther said she’d like to see students go through the program for a longer period, and without the interruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, to truly study its success.

The district continued the program. But academic achievement started to sink back below state averages, Deputy Superintendent Chad Sutton said during an October 2023 presentation to the school board.

Other signs hinted that the program hadn’t gone as planned.

District leaders had anticipated students who attended year-round school for six years getting the equivalent of an extra year of education. But many students didn’t experience that.

In spring 2023, a little more than three dozen Winnwood and Crestview fifth graders had attended the same school since kindergarten.

Winnwood was about to be merged with another elementary school.

More families moved to other schools. Attendance was lower in the summer, partly because Missouri didn’t legally require summer attendance.

Teachers were also leaving, with a five-year average turnover rate of 24% in one school, district spokesperson Susan Hiland said. The longer school year may have contributed to burnout.

Ginther, the researcher, said high teacher turnover could undermine the positive impact of a longer school year.

Community response

NKC Schools should have spent less time looking at numbers and more time talking to families, Brooks said.

She didn’t know the district had discussed ending the schedule until the decision was announced.

Dennis, at the time Parent Teacher Association vice president for Crestview, said he got a few days’ notice at a sparsely attended PTA meeting. He got the impression that it was too late to influence the recommendation.

The board presentation implied the district had consulted parents more than it actually had, Dennis said. He said surveys he received weren’t specifically about the school calendar.

While year-round school has been in place, parents have had the chance to give feedback through various surveys, Hiland wrote. She didn’t name any specific outreach to Crestview before the decision was announced.

After the decision, administrators collected feedback through parent and staff meetings.

A Jan. 9 parent meeting at Crestview went forward even though school was snowed out that day and the following day, Dennis said.

“We were literally there because we could be in four-wheel drive vehicles,” he said. “It was a small group of people, and that was one of our points of frustration.”

Brooks attended that meeting, hoping NKC Schools would backtrack, or at least give parents a chance to vote on year-round school.

She now believes that was never on the table, and said the district wasted her time and cost her money she would have earned for her family picking up Lyft fares.

“I feel like my voice (doesn’t) matter because it hasn’t changed for any of them to say, ‘I’m sorry. We apologize. We’re going to keep the extended school year,’” she said.

The future

A task force of NKC teachers, administrators and two parents met in March to discuss backup plans for helping students.

Hiland said the district plans for an expanded, more diverse task force, including more parents and staff from additional schools. The group will review feedback and finalize recommendations for the board to approve in the fall.

Without a convincing backup plan, Dennis sees the district withdrawing one form of support from a struggling school and replacing it with weaker alternatives.

District leaders have admitted summer school isn’t adequate, Dennis said, including in a meeting recording he shared with The Beacon.

Dennis said year-round school is different in that students have the same teachers and classmates, attendance is higher and it always takes place in the student’s normal school.

But he said that even with year-round school, the district pulled back on some support during the summer. Meals are worse, staffing is lower and new technology isn’t issued.

“That whole idea that there’s a distinction between summer school and year-round (school). Of course there is,” he said. But “they’ve been treating year-round like it’s summer school.”

Results at Hickman Mills

In southern Kansas City, Ingels Elementary in the Hickman Mills district is starting its second year of year-round school.

Superintendent Yaw Obeng said he needed a strategy to turn around lagging test scores.

He replaced the principal and hired teachers interested in the school’s schedule and philosophy.

The school now has a “World of Work” theme focusing on careers. Obeng said the longer school year allows more time for field trips and guest speakers.

Test scores are up, year-round students outperform their peers who arrived after the summer, and teacher retention has improved, Obeng said.

Year-round school costs more. Obeng hopes Missouri might change the funding model, but so far, the benefits are worth the money.

“We’ve just got to lead and show that this is the way to go in education,” he said. “Let’s demonstrate, bring the data forward, bring the feedback, and then that’s how change is made.”

An experiment at Gordon Parks

Several years ago, Yocum brought his experience in North Kansas City to his new role as principal at Gordon Parks Elementary School.

Worried about pandemic learning loss, he and other school leaders decided to extend the school year.

CEO Kirsten Lipari-Braman said the charter school, which also revamped its curriculum, saw “tremendous academic growth” during those years.

Teachers usually spend the first few months acclimating kids and building relationships, she said. If you’re “getting a lot of that kind of nuts and bolts out of the way” in June and July, “you can really hit the floor running in August.”

“(But) sometimes you have to step back, and you have to rethink,” Lipari-Braman said. “Maybe we try it again a different way.”

Money posed one problem. Even during Gordon Parks’ short break between school years, some families sent kids to other summer schools. Due to a quirk of state law, those schools got all the state funding for those children, though they attended Gordon Parks most of the summer.

Another source of money, pandemic relief funding, was about to end.

Families were divided, and mostly neutral, on whether to continue the schedule. But teachers were burning out.

Yocum said the school is especially sensitive to retaining teachers because it’s small. He was surprised how little teachers were motivated by the extra pay. Instead, they were worried they couldn’t keep up the pace.

So this summer, kids and teachers are out of school.

Yocum, who recently took a job as a school improvement consultant with the Kansas City Regional Professional Development Center, said he thinks year-round school is still worthwhile.

“It really serves a purpose,” he said. “But now, if I was talking to somebody, I have some additional information that’s important in that decision-making process.”

He’d suggest they think about how to build in adequate breaks for teachers and warn them that state funding might be trickier than it appears.

In North Kansas City, Brooks said when she looks back on her own education in the 1990s, she feels robbed. She wonders if an extended school year would have helped.

“If I had that when I was a kid, I might be more successful,” she said. “But I didn’t get that. So I have to kind of live vicariously through my children and make sure …every child gets the extended school year.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers’ 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. The American Federation of Teachers was the first labor union to endorse Harris for president since announcing her campaign (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images).

Vice President Kamala Harris — the likely 2024 Democratic presidential nominee — outlined on Thursday some of her “vision of the future” while touting the administration’s education record in her keynote address to the American Federation of Teachers national convention in Houston.

Harris has quickly drawn the support of major unions like the AFT in the fast-moving four days since President Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race and passed the torch to her. The unprecedented move could make the 59-year-old the first woman to serve as president if formally nominated and elected in the race against GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.

“Today, we face a choice between two very different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, and the other focused on the past, and we are fighting for the future,” Harris said to an enthusiastic crowd of teachers at the convention.

“In our vision of the future, we see a place where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead — a future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every senior can retire with dignity, and where every worker has the freedom to join a union,” she said.

Harris also took jabs at the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — a nearly 900-page proposal that sets forth a sweeping conservative agenda if Trump is elected — calling it a “plan to return America to a dark past.”

Despite Trump distancing himself from the platform, some former members of his administration helped write it.

Harris said Trump and his allies want to “cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants … They even want to eliminate the Department of Education and end Head Start.”

She also boasted about the administration’s student loan forgiveness, which has now provided almost $169 billion in debt relief to nearly 4.8 million borrowers, according to the Department of Education.

Harris also blasted “extremists,” saying to the teachers that while they “try to create safe and welcoming places where our children can learn, extremists attack our freedom to live safe from gun violence.”

“We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books,” she added.

The Trump campaign sent out a statement on Thursday reiterating his education platform, including civil rights investigations into any race-based discrimination, firing “radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education” and instituting funding boosts for schools that do things like implement the direct election of school principals by parents.

Union support 

Harris promised that she and Biden would sign the PRO Act into law, which would offer protections for workers when unionizing or collectively bargaining.

The AFT, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, threw its support behind Harris shortly after she declared her intent to earn the Democratic nomination.

Harris, who said she is a “proud product of public education,” thanked AFT’s 1.8 million members for their service to the country.

“From the public service workers and higher education faculty, to the school bus drivers and the custodians, to the school nurses and our teachers — you all do God’s work educating our children,” Harris said.

She’s also received the support of some of the country’s biggest labor unions, and the National Education Association, the largest labor union, endorsed Harris this week.

Some of those recent endorsements include the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, known as AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME and the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.

Meanwhile, the prominent union UAW has not endorsed Harris as of Thursday.

The Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri (MOHELA)'s Columbia operating center, as photographed Feb. 28 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A federal lawsuit filed Monday accuses a quasi-governmental organization based in Missouri of illegally overcharging and actively misleading student loan borrowers.

The American Federation of Teachers filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. against the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, better known as MOHELA. The lawsuit claims the student loan servicer illegally deducted payments from borrowers’ bank accounts without consent, misinformed borrowers about paperwork deadlines, failed to timely process application for loan relief and a litany of other allegedly unlawful activity. 

Similar accusations have been made against MOHELA in lawsuits filed in Missouri, as well as in a report released in February by the teacher’s union.

“MOHELA was hired by the federal government to help borrowers pay down debt, but instead it hung them out to dry to line its own pockets,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “Rather than fulfill its responsibilities, MOHELA has abdicated and deflected them — and it’s well past time it’s held to account.”

MOHELA faces accusations it mismanaged federal student loan forgiveness program

A spokesperson for the Chesterfield-based company said providing support to student loan borrowers is “the utmost priority to MOHELA, and any claims to the contrary are false. MOHELA will vigorously defend the allegations in the complaint.”

In May, a group of advocates and progressive Democratic lawmakers called on the U.S. Department of Education to end its contract with MOHELA, accusing it of being a predatory loan service and failing student borrowers.

Monday’s lawsuit claims that “individually, any one of MOHELA’s failings would be sufficient to cause financial, mental and emotional distress.”

“Collectively, they result in a Kafkaesque experience and make it practically impossible for borrowers to correct account errors, make important decisions to protect their economic well-being, or even confirm basic information about their student loans.”

A Missouri law adopted in 2022 requires that all public school elementary students get reading instruction that has proved “highly likely to be effective" (Getty Images).

If you drop into an elementary reading lesson, you might see kids learning about the long U sound, building their vocabulary or practicing how to read aloud without sounding like robots.

And if you visit Kansas City Public Schools this fall, you should see all students in the same grade learning the same thing.

After all, a push is underway in KCPS to standardize reading lessons and anchor them in evidence about how students learn best.

Around the state, schools are retraining thousands of teachers, replacing outdated reading lessons and identifying students who need extra help.

Missouri is the latest in a string of states to put money and the force of law behind an effort to teach more kids to read.

The strategy hinges on the idea that some teaching methods weren’t working very well. Kids struggled to read, though they were capable of learning. Research — often known as the “science of reading” — pointed to a better way, but wasn’t always heeded.

“Teachers that are coming into the profession just don’t have that science of reading background from universities,” said Connie Moore, director of elementary curriculum at KCPS. 

Evidence-based teacher training is “assisting those brand new teachers, even veteran teachers, that have students come with reading deficiencies or specific needs around reading,” she said. “We’re getting students to read on grade level, because that’s the ultimate goal.”

Missouri law changes

A Missouri law adopted in 2022 requires that all public school elementary students get reading instruction that has proved “highly likely to be effective.”

That means the teaching techniques must have been studied by looking at the outcome for large numbers of students, and that they include five key components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Previously, science of reading proponents say, many students weren’t getting enough phonics instruction. Most kids need to be explicitly taught about sounds, how they relate to letters and how to use that knowledge to decode words.

Meanwhile, students were learning strategies that many now see as damaging — things like using pictures and context to guess words rather than sounding them out.

What a student learned in class could be the luck of the draw, said Megan Mitchell, a K-5 English language arts curriculum coordinator at KCPS.

One teacher might spend most of their time on foundational phonics skills while another might focus on comprehension, she said. But students need systematic instruction in all five areas.

Teachers also need to know how to work with students who need extra help.

“Before, I may have heard the (student’s) error, but just didn’t really have a concrete way to understand where that was coming from,” Moore said. “What’s going on that is causing this student to make this error, and how can I work with them to correct it?”

The law is meant to push schools toward proven strategies.

Changes include standards for educating new teachers. The law also gives the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education power to recommend curriculum, offer more teacher training and closely track how well young students can read.

Students who don’t score well on reading tests are supposed to receive intensive help.

But putting new education laws into action can be harder than getting them passed, said Torree Pederson, the president and CEO of Aligned, a nonprofit coalition of business leaders pushing for education reform.

“You’re handing it off to an agency that’s already stretched and asking them to do more,” she said. “It’s not an easy task to retrain all the teachers in Missouri.”

Implementing the law

The state doesn’t have the power to mandate curriculum or teacher training, but it is nudging districts in a certain direction.

With $25 million in state dollars and $35 million in federal relief money, the state education department is willing to pay for specific intensive reading training for at least 15,000 teachers.

The training, called LETRS and pronounced “letters,” emphasizes the science of reading and the five reading components Missouri law supports. It can take up to 168 hours over the course of at least two years.

The state also offers grants to replace old curriculum with evidence-based materials. Schools that don’t qualify for the grants can use the state’s list of recommended materials as a guide.

About 11,000 teachers have at least started the training under the state’s current program. Heather Knight, the state’s literacy coordinator, said several thousand more have been trained since 2021 through other state or local programs.

The state originally targeted K-3 and preschool teachers, but opened the training up to fourth and fifth grade teachers as well.

More than 480 of the roughly 550 school districts and charter schools in Missouri are participating. But even districts that appreciate LETRS training aren’t embracing it at the same pace.

KCPS has required the training for early elementary teachers, reading specialists and others, seeing it as a way to comply with the law on evidence-based instruction, Moore said. Practically all teachers in those groups have at least started the training.

North Kansas City Public Schools took a slower, more cautious approach, said instructional coordinator Lisa Friesen.

The training is now encouraged but not required for most teachers, Friesen said. About a third of elementary teachers have registered.

Some of the lessons from LETRS have made their way into the district’s reading curriculum, which is designed in-house and updated yearly.

Momentum to change 

Mitchell, the KCPS curriculum coordinator, thinks it was about four years ago when she started to hear about the science of reading.

The news came through research for her job, but also from a science of reading Facebook group and from American Public Media podcast “Sold a Story,” which has helped influence public opinion and inform a wider audience about reading research.

Although much of the research on reading is old, there’s new momentum behind evidence-based teaching. But Missouri is far from the first to try it.

A 2013 law gets credit for the “Mississippi miracle,” where that state’s reading scores dramatically increased. All school districts saw improvement, though gains weren’t even. Several other Deep South states have seen notable gains as well. And Florida, whose 2002 reading legislation inspired Mississippi’s, has among the best reading scores.

In early 2024, Education Week reported that 37 states and the District of Columbia had passed reading legislation in the past decade, most within the past five years, and 17 of them within 2023 alone.

A January 2024 policy analysis from ExcelInEd, a nonprofit founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, shows nearly all states have adopted some reading policies. Missouri now checks most of the think tank’s boxes.

Those lists don’t include Kansas’ latest literacy law, which Gov. Laura Kelly signed in April.

New curriculum

Companies that produce curriculum and other classroom resources are taking note.

Education company Learning A-Z knew schools would be looking for materials based on the science of reading, in part because of state law changes, President Aaron Ingold said.

So the company, which had focused on supplemental resources, recently got into creating a comprehensive curriculum called Foundations A-Z. It’s on Missouri’s  list of recommended resources.

Learning A-Z has changed some of its thinking, Ingold said. It no longer includes “cueing,” an out-of-favor strategy that encourages children to look at context such as pictures and sentence structure to figure out words rather than sounding them out.

Instead, the program includes more phonics instruction and books known as “decodables” that contain words and spelling patterns students have learned.

Moore said the science of reading is an example of how research doesn’t always “trickle down to us in a timely manner.”

But with training and curriculum companies on board, and the expectation that teachers will see gains in the classroom, she thinks it’s more than a passing fad.

“I don’t think it’s something that’s going to come and go in education,” she said.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Missouri and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Advocates with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests speak in front of the Missouri Supreme Court Building Wednesday afternoon before delivering a letter to Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Survivors of abuse are asking Missouri’s attorney general to proceed with the trial of the co-owner of Circle of Hope Girls Ranch, a now-shuttered boarding school for troubled girls in Cedar County.

Stephanie Householder, who ran the school with her husband Boyd Householder, faces 21 charges of child abuse and neglect alleged by former Circle of Hope students. Her husband had nearly 80 charges, including allegations of sexual abuse. 

But he died of a “cardiac incident,” according to his attorney’s statement published by KCUR.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey offered Householder a plea deal in 2023 if she would testify against her husband. She rejected the offer.

David Clohessy, Missouri volunteer director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told reporters on Wednesday that he “suspects and fears the attorney general will offer her another plea deal.”

The attorney general’s office told The Independent it has “no pending offers of a plea deal.”

“For me, (a plea deal) is a huge slap in the face,” said Maggie Drew, who lived at Circle of Hope from 2007 to 2013. “That woman never showed mercy to any of us, and I don’t think it should be shown to her now.”

Drew said she broke bones while at Circle of Hope and was told to “walk it off” by Householder.

“I never thought I’d make it,” Drew said.

Survivors delivered a letter to Bailey Wednesday asking him not to extend additional deals. Householder is scheduled for a jury trial in October.

“While the trial will be emotionally very hard for many of us in the short term, in the long run, we are convinced that it will be a powerful deterrent to others who might commit or conceal crimes against children,” Householder’s daughter Amanda wrote in a letter on behalf of a group of survivors.

Clohessy said a trial is important for survivors to “speak their truth” and inform the public beyond what has already been reported.

Adria Keim, who worked at Circle of Hope at the age of 19, said the environment was “manipulative.” Within a month of working at the boarding school, she was left overnight with almost 20 teenage girls to manage, she alleged.

She said the school’s Christian affiliation did not align with the leaders’ actions.

“I know that God absolutely hates what was done at Circle of Hope in his name,” Keim said.

Clohessy wants Bailey to investigate other Christian boarding schools for troubled teens after such schools in Missouri have been forcibly shut down.

He asked Bailey in April to begin proactive investigations, saying the schools lack oversight.

Clohessy wasn’t sure what other state attorneys general have done about reports of abuse at boarding schools and camps, for the problem extends beyond Missouri. But he expects that some states are taking a better look.

“It would be hard to do worse than to do absolutely nothing,” he said.

Before delivering the letter to Bailey, the group packed letters to send to county sheriffs asking for local investigations as well.

“Our goal,” Clohessy said, “is to beg sheriffs and prosecutors to be proactive and investigate the facilities in their counties.”

In a statement, the attorney general’s office explained Bailey only steps into criminal cases when appointed by the governor or local authorities.

“As a former prosecutor, Attorney General Bailey takes crime very seriously,” a spokesperson said. “We have seen a 133% increase in requests from local law enforcement and prosecutors to prosecute cases since Bailey took office.”

This story has been updated to include comment from the office of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

(Getty Images)

Wages and benefits

Town hall attendees also shared frustrations about changes to worker wages and benefits.

Darrell Dillon, an electrician at MU, said benefits for employees have been chipped away over the 14 years he has worked at the university.

“I was promised retirement if I stayed with them long enough, I was promised a pension, I was promised insurance, I was promised vacation, sick leave and personal days,” Dillon said. “I was promised a standard raise across the board when I first started, then we get the merit raise system, which is no more than a popularity contest.”

Basi said the university’s merit-based raise system has been shown to best reward staff who are doing quality work and also encourages good employees.

Any individual who is hired while the university’s pension plan was active will receive their pension, Basi said.

“Anytime we do changes to benefits, we have had significant communications to faculty and staff, depending on who it is impacting,” Basi said. “It is something that we work very hard to do, is to make sure that we have a competitive wage, good benefits and access to affordable parking, to ensure folks that the university itself is trying to make the work environment as welcoming as possible.”

Commitment

An overall theme of attendees’ and organizers’ perspectives were the university’s commitment to and respect for its employees.

“There’s a lot of folks that received raises during COVID-19, because they were essential workers at the hospital, they received (critical) staffing pay,” Hutchinson said. “The university hospital says they can take it away at any time, and it has folks terrified because all of a sudden, in a couple of weeks, they could lose a massive part of their paycheck, and (workers) have no control over it.”

Eric Maze, public relations manager for MU Health Care, said 10 critical staffing pay plans are still in use at the hospital through September 14, 2024.

“Critical staffing plans are reviewed every 12 weeks to determine if staffing challenges continue, are forecasted to continue or new challenges have developed,” Maze said in an email. “Critical staffing plans will continue to be part of our compensation strategy.”

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

Ada Caldwell, 4, poses with free books she’s received from the Imagination Library. (Courtesy of Tara Caldwell via Columbia Missourian)

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson in June 2022 holds up a copy of a bill he had just signed to increase the Kansas City Police Department's budget during a ceremony at the department headquarters. (Photo courtesy of the Missouri Governor's Office).

Kansas City officials have another chance next month to fend off an attempt by Missouri lawmakers to force the city to spend more of its revenue on policing. 

But despite opposition from Kansas City leaders and activists, there’s no formal campaign against the ballot initiative, which was previously passed by Missouri voters but later tossed by the Missouri Supreme Court over deceptive ballot language.

Instead, opponents of the proposal will try to get the word out without “gigantic checks,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.

“But I don’t pretend to think that will necessarily win the day,” Lucas said.

At issue is a question that will appear on Missouri voters’ August 6 primary ballot as “Amendment 4.” It asks whether the Missouri Constitution should be amended to require Kansas City to spend at least one-quarter of its general revenue on policing, an increase of close to $39 million.

Missouri voters previously approved the spending hike with 63% of the vote in 2022. But the measure was unpopular with Kansas Citians. In the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, more than 61% of voters rejected the amendment. It passed in Platte and Clay counties, which include suburban parts of Kansas City.

Lucas sued the state’s auditor and secretary of state, saying a summary printed on voters’ ballots “materially misstated” the cost of the proposal. He prevailed, and the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the election results be tossed out and a new vote be held.

The police funding amendment is one of two questions on Missouri voters’ August primary ballots. The other, passed last year by the Missouri General Assembly and appearing on the ballot as Amendment 1, would exempt child care facilities from paying property taxes in an attempt to “make child care more available” to “support the well-being of children, families, the workforce, and society as a whole.”

“We obviously have a child care facility shortage in our state,” state Sen. Travis Fitzwater said during a hearing on the property tax amendment last year. “We need to provide opportunities for folks that get child care.”

A “yes” vote on Amendment 1 supports amending the Missouri Constitution to allow child care facilities to be exempted from paying property tax. 

On Amendment 4, a “yes” vote supports amending the Missouri Constitution to increase the minimum amount Kansas City must spend on policing from 20% to 25%. A “no” vote would leave Kansas City’s spending obligations at 20%, though city officials could voluntarily spend more.

Police funding campaign

The police funding dispute stems from the Kansas City City Council’s attempt in 2021 to impose some control over the Kansas City Police Department’s Budget.

For more than 80 years, the Kansas City Police Department has been controlled not by the City Council but by a board of commissioners appointed by Missouri’s governor. The only city in the state and one of few in the nation that doesn’t control its police, Kansas City simply provides the funds for the department.

While the city was obligated between 1958 and 2022 to provide the funding requested by the board — up to 20% of the city’s general revenue — it has little control over how it is spent. 

The city has often exceeded its 20% obligation.

But following racial justice protests that took place in Kansas City — and across the nation — in 2020, City Council members attempted to set aside $42 million in police funding above its obligatory spending for “community engagement, outreach, prevention, intervention and other public services.”

The move was criticized by Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly who voted to increase Kansas City’s obligation to 25% of its revenue. 

“Kansas City’s short-sighted move to defund the KCPD, if attempted again, will have lasting and dangerous consequences for our metro area,” state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer said in a committee hearing in 2022, when the amendment was approved by lawmakers.

Luetkemeyer, who lives in the suburbs of Kansas City, carried the legislation in 2022 to increase the city’s police spending obligations. He did not return a request for comment.

The 2022 legislation passed the Missouri General Assembly on a largely party-line vote with Republicans supporting the increased police spending and Democrats opposing it. 

Lucas said voting no was the “only common sense solution.”

Residents of Kansas City, he said, should be the ones to determine the policy direction of the city by electing local representatives. He said one year the council may need to increase police salaries and the next it may need to spend money on other needs, like firefighting. 

“Who should tell you that, ‘No, you can’t actually take care of your firefighters; you can’t take care of the nurses in your public hospital because you have to live by whatever Jefferson City is doing just for pure political pandering?’” Lucas said. 

Lora McDonald, executive director of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, or MORE2, called the attempt by state lawmakers to force Kansas City to spend 25% of its revenue on policing “a political ploy.”

“Why do you care what our police department has or doesn’t have?” McDonald said. “It’s not your business. It’s not your money.”

Lucas said there was “no organized campaign” to persuade voters to reject the amendment.

Last month, the Missouri Supreme Court allowed the issue to go on the August ballot rather than the November one, giving supporters and opponents just over two months to mobilize voters.

According to Missouri Ethics Commission records, no spending committees have been organized to advocate for or against Amendment 4, and no independent groups have spent money in the race.

Child care tax credit

Along with the Kansas City police question, Missouri voters in August will get to decide whether to amend the state constitution to offer a property tax exemption for child care facilities. 

The proposal, championed during the 2023 legislative session by Fitzwater, is one of several attempts by lawmakers in the last few years to ease the shortage of child care facilities in Missouri. 

This spring, Parson and lawmakers attempted to pass a package of child care tax credits, but the legislation stalled in the Senate because of ultra-conservative opposition to “welfare” or the attempt to “give away free child care.”

An investigation by The Independent and MuckRock found nearly one in five Missouri children lives in a “child care desert,” where there are more than three children under the age of 6 for every licensed child care slot — or no licensed slots at all.

“This is just one incentive to try to make that easier for the facilities,” Fitzwater said during a committee hearing on the property tax exemption last year. Fitzwater did not return a request for comment.

Fitzwater’s proposal was supported by an array of child care and economic development organizations and anti-abortion groups. 

Samuel Lee, a lobbyist for Campaign Life Missouri, said during discussion on the bill last year that the anti-abortion group supported the “pro-life, pro-family, pro-workforce development” legislation.

“The pro-life movement has generally not been involved in areas of childcare,” he said, “although for our maternity homes and pregnancy resource centers, the lack of available childcare, the lack of transportation, the lack of housing have always been the three major issues for their clients.” 

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry also supported the measure last year. Its lobbyist Heidi Geisbuhler Sutherland said business owners told the chamber that the lack of child care makes it difficult to find workers. 

“It’s going to take an all-of-the-above approach to tackling the child care crisis,” she said, “but I think this measure is a great way to start.”

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Thursday, March 14 (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Thursday passed a measure to reverse an Education Department rule seeking to extend federal discrimination protections for LGBTQ students, though President Joe Biden has vowed to veto the legislation should it land on his desk.

House passage of the resolution on a party-line vote, 210-205, is part of a barrage of GOP pushback at the state and federal levels to the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX since its April release. For all schools that receive federal funding, the rule protects against discrimination for students based on “sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”

Twenty-six states with GOP attorneys general have sued to block the rule, and courts have temporarily blocked it from going into effect in 14 states on August 1.

The 14 states with temporary blocks are: Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Illinois GOP Rep. Mary Miller introduced the legislation in early June. A week later, the Republican-controlled House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved it. Miller’s resolution seeks to reverse the rule through the Congressional Review Act, a procedural tool Congress can use to overturn certain actions from federal agencies.

In the Senate, Mississippi Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith also introduced legislation in June to try to block the final rule under the same tool. The Senate version has gathered over 30 Republican cosponsors.

Rep. Virginia Foxx — chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and a fierce opponent of the administration’s final rule — said during the floor debate Wednesday that she wanted to preserve Title IX, which helped equalize funding for women’s sports and education programs beginning in 1972.

“Title IX ushered in a golden era for women’s competition and education,” the North Carolina Republican said. “There is sanctity in the community and tradition of these memories, these spaces and these opportunities for young girls.”

Regardless of whether the attempt to roll back the measure is successful in the Democratic-controlled Senate, Biden’s veto threat leaves virtually no possibility it could be adopted this year.

Democrats, LGBTQ advocates in opposition 

Democrats and LGBTQ advocates have described the effort to overturn the rule as motivated by misinformation and fear.

“Unfortunately, this resolution has been clouded by misinformation, unfounded fears and with some, just hatred of transgender individuals,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, during the debate.

Oregon’s Rep. Suzanne Bonamici — ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education — said the resolution was “another attempt to undercut this administration’s efforts to empower survivors and protect all Americans from discrimination.”

“If Republicans truly cared about protecting women and children, they would stop this prejudiced rhetoric and take action on bills that would actually protect women from discrimination and harassment and defend women’s reproductive health care, make child care more affordable, preserve opportunities in workplaces for all parents, especially women,” Bonamici said.

Scott called on the House to “reject these narratives and focus on real issues of safety and equity.”

Final rule blocked in more states 

Meanwhile, challenges to the rule are playing out in a handful of federal courts.

Last week, Judge John Broomes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas temporarily blocked the measure from taking effect in the Sunflower State, along with Alaska, Utah and Wyoming.

Broomes also halted the rule from taking effect in “the schools attended by the members of Young America’s Foundation or Female Athletes United, as well as the schools attended by the children of the members of Moms for Liberty,” all groups that sued alongside the four states, per the order.

Under Broomes’ order, the rule is also halted in an Oklahoma public school attended by a minor who is one of the plaintiffs.

In June, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana issued a temporary injunction barring the final rule from taking effect there, along with Idaho, Mississippi and Montana.

In Kentucky federal court, Chief Judge Danny Reeves temporarily blocked the final rule in the Bluegrass State, plus Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia. Reeves rejected the department’s request for a partial stay of the injunction while its appeal plays out, per a Wednesday court filing.

The Education Department has confirmed it is appealing the other two rulings but did not have an update Wednesday on whether it is filing a notice of appeal on the most recent ruling in the Kansas federal court.

The spokesperson reiterated earlier this week that the agency has “asked the trial courts to allow the bulk of the final rule to take effect in these states as scheduled, on August 1, while the appeals are pending.”

LGBTQ advocacy groups push back on GOP effort

Allen Morris, policy director for the advocacy group National LGBTQ Task Force, said the vote was part of a pattern of anti-LGBTQ policy measures.

“When you look at the rise in hatred and the rise in violence and the rise of young LGBTQ individuals not having the support that they need, where suicide rates are high, it is disappointing to see our opposition go against us with such a high level of intention,” he said.

Morris told States Newsroom that “a lot of what is happening with this extremism is not founded in truth.”

“It is founded in ways to spew hate and to spew fear. It is a lot of fear mongering, and it’s anything to make people feel like their backs are up against the wall, or as if they don’t have the power,” he said.

Echoing a previous statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said it “does not comment on pending legislation” and emphasized that all schools receiving federal funding are obligated to comply with the new regulations as a condition of receiving those funds.

The department has yet to finalize a separate rule establishing new criteria for transgender athletes.

(Getty Images)

The largest donors to a tax credit program supporting private school tuition scholarships in Missouri are a Fortune 500 health care corporation, a cable company and the founding family of the Kansas City Chiefs.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. has given the most since 2023 to the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program, dubbed MOScholars, with a $2 million donation last year and $3.5 million pledged this year.

Lamar Hunt Jr. and his wife Rita Hunt, part of the family that owns the Kansas City Chiefs, reserved $800,000 in tax credits last year and $500,000 this year. Hunt Jr. is also the founder of the Kansas City Mavericks hockey team and a philanthropist tied to Catholic ministries.

MOScholars allows taxpayers to give to one of six educational assistance organizations to fund scholarships for private, parochial and homeschooled students. Donors use an application on the State Treasurer’s Office to register the amount they intend to donate with the state, reserving a tax credit in that amount up to half of their tax burden. 

Treasurer Vivek Malek told The Independent this year’s donations are off to a promising start, topping figures from this time last year.

So far, taxpayers have reserved $5 million of the tax credits available this year. Typically, donations are strongest at year-end. MOScholars donors can receive their donation amount back in a tax credit, up to half their tax burden, with the reservations. So donations come nearer to tax time.

Last year, donations looked sparser at this time, and the number of students recorded as a returning MOScholars student was low. This number grew, though, as donations came through at the end of last year with a total of $16.6 million by the end of 2023.

Among those who have given to MoScholars since lawmakers created the program in 2022 are political mega donors, national corporations and hundreds of individuals, according to the Missouri Accountability Portal.

Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield, major political donors in Missouri and advocates for private and charter schools, gave $1 million between two educational assistance organizations last year.

David Steward, founder and chairman of IT provider World Wide Technology, gave $500,000 to a St. Louis-based educational assistance organization.

Charter Communications, which serves customers as Spectrum, gave $334,000 to each educational assistance organization for a total of just over $2 million.

Hobby Lobby Stores gave $300,000.

Herzog Enterprises, a railway construction company once run by political donor Stanley Herzog, gave $250,000 to its nonprofit arm, the Herzog Tomorrow Foundation. Brad Lager, who once served in Missouri’s legislature and now leads Herzog Enterprises, reserved $200,000 in tax credits.

Also included in the list of donors in 2023 is former Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft and his wife Janet. Ashcroft served as governor from 1985 to 1993 before becoming a U.S. Senator and later U.S. attorney general.

Treasurer’s office staff told The Independent that fundraising has been focused on both individuals and corporations. More than half of the office’s expenditures in 2023 were spent on advertising its various programs.

State Rep. Phil Christofanelli, a Republican from St. Peters and sponsor of the bill that created MOScholars, said there has been outreach to corporations through accountant associations.

“We definitely want to work with the larger corporate entities so that they become aware of the program. Corporations are sometimes a little slower to adopt than individual donors and taxpayers,” he said.

There were 1,301 total approved applications for tax credits last year. There have been 161 applications approved in 2024.

This article has been updated to include the source of the donor information.

(Getty Images).

When Tanya Gillespie-Lambert goes to an event in a local park in Camden, New Jersey, she takes a handful of brochures about free preschool with her. She has no hesitation about approaching strangers — moms with kids especially — to plug the service in the local public school district, where she’s director of community and parent involvement.

Gillespie-Lambert and her team also hold door-knocking events several times a year to put the word out on free pre-K, dressing up in matching blue T-shirts and hats. That’s in addition to billboards, public service announcements and posters all over town.

“I still get a little shocked when they don’t know about it,” she said in an interview. “They always say, ‘I didn’t know they could start when they were 3 years old, and they don’t have to be potty trained. And it’s free?’”

Forty-four states offer some free preschool, and states from Colorado to Mississippi are expanding their programs. But even when states claim to have “universal” pre-K for 4-year-olds and sometimes 3-year-olds, some of the most comprehensive programs only serve a slice of the kids who are eligible.

There’s a host of reasons for that, beyond a lack of awareness. Some states only provide funding for 10 or 15 hours of preschool per week. Some parents can’t afford the cost of before- and after-care, or have transportation problems if there’s no bus. In some states, private pre-K providers, who often get state money for their pre-K programs, oppose shifting more state funds to public schools. And many states have a shortage of early education teachers and assistants, limiting the number of slots they can provide.

Studies show preschool is highly beneficial for young children, giving them a jump on reading and math skills and the socialization that are key to later school success. Preschool differs from child care, which has less emphasis on academics and often doesn’t employ certified teachers. But private preschool is costly, making it difficult for parents with lower incomes to afford pre-K unless it’s state-funded.

“Everybody doesn’t define ‘universal’ the same way,” said Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. “You can’t just wave a magic wand.”

Barnett said a state pre-K program should not be considered universal if there’s a cap on funding or a waitlist for slots. He advocates for states to treat pre-K like first grade — automatically available. But providing universal preschool is expensive for states.

Participation varies

More than 1.6 million 3- and 4-year-olds attended state-funded preschools in the 2022-2023 school year, with states serving 7% of 3-year-olds and 35% of 4-year-olds, according to Barnett’s institute.

But participation varies widely from state to state. The number of 4-year-olds enrolled in state-funded pre-K programs in the 2022-2023 school year ranged from a high of 67% in Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma and West Virginia to single digits in Alaska, Missouri, Nevada, Delaware, North Dakota, Arizona, Hawaii and Utah, according to the institute.

Six states have no state-funded preschool: Idaho, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Some states are starting pre-K programs or expanding them. Mississippi doubled the number of kids in preschool in 2022-23 from the previous year to more than 5,300, added another 3,000 seats in 2023-24 and committed to future expansion, according to the state.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, signed a universal preschool bill in April 2022, and classes started in the 2023-24 school year. But Colorado’s program provides only 15 hours of free preschool per week in the year before kindergarten.

Similarly, Vermont’s universal pre-K program, enacted in 2014, provides only 10 hours a week of free school.

In addition to being problematic for parents who work 40 hours a week, 10 hours a week of preschool is not enough to provide quality learning, Barnett said. “It has to be a big enough dosage … of truly high-quality education.”

Vermont state Sen. Ruth Hardy, a Democrat, called the program “technically universal” because all 4-year-olds are allowed to participate but acknowledged there are gaps. She filed a bill last year that would have expanded the pre-K program to include full school days but it died, amid other expansions to child care and educational priorities.

Hardy, a former educator and school board member, said in an interview that the legislature did enact a measure to study expanding pre-K to all 3- and 4-year-olds and report back by July 2026.

It was part of a larger law that focused on providing more child care subsidies, including for families with incomes up to “middle-class or close to upper-middle-class levels,” she said. To pay for it, the state instituted a new payroll tax of 0.44%. Employers may choose to pay all of it or deduct up to 0.11% of it from employees’ wages.

Concerns about access

Hardy said that in Vermont, as well as other states, a roadblock to expanding public pre-K programs is the “tension” between public and private schools. Many states take a “mixed delivery” approach to public preschool, under which pre-K is offered in settings ranging from public schools to community-based centers to private schools. But private providers sometimes see expanding the public preschools as competition.

Aly Richards, CEO of Let’s Grow Kids, a Vermont child care advocacy organization, said the group’s concern is equitable access to pre-K programs, especially when parents need kids in all-day instruction and public programs only operate on school-day hours, while private programs often last all workday.

“Working-class families can’t leave their job in the middle of the day if they have to move their kid,” she said.

She also said there is often not enough room in nearby public schools to accommodate all the children who want pre-K programs.

Similar tension is roiling efforts to expand public pre-K in Michigan. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic lawmakers want to make more children eligible, but private schools worry that legislative proposals would eliminate requirements that a percentage of slots go to private providers and thereby cut their state funding.

In Hawaii — which has one of the highest-quality public preschool programs, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research — the problem is getting enough educators into the classrooms.

Hawaii plans to open 44 more classrooms for 3- and 4-year-olds in the fall, bringing the state’s total to about 90, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, a Democrat, said in a statement. But more staffing is needed if the state is going to reach its goal of getting all 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool by 2032, The Associated Press reported.

California is in the third year of a four-year phase-in of a universal pre-K program launched in the 2021-22 state budget. A draft report from the Learning Policy Institute, a California educational research group, found that while most school districts in the state are on track toward getting all 4-year-olds and income-eligible 3-year-olds in pre-K, staffing is a problem and is expected to get worse as new teacher requirements go into effect.

Hanna Melnick, a senior policy adviser at the Learning Policy Institute and one of the co-authors of the report, said it’s unclear how many of the eligible kids are actually taking advantage of the pre-K program.

Some families can’t afford before- and after-care, she said. “Extended care is a really critical barrier. And some families want more of a familylike environment [for their preschoolers]. They might not feel comfortable using out-of-home care or care in a school setting.”

Back in New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy announced in March that an additional $11 million in state funding had been secured to bring preschool to 16 more school districts in the state.

But despite the effort, workers such as Gillespie-Lambert need to keep walking neighborhoods.

“People don’t read,” she said. “We found canvassing — not just flyers, but having a conversation with them — seems to work a lot better.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

A series of changes to Missouri's child care subsidy program have created a major headache for day care providers, who say they've been forced to make difficult budget decisions as they wait on money owed to them by the state (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

This spring, the state of Missouri owed Kimberly Luong Nichols $5,000 in backlogged payments for children at her Kansas City daycare who were part of a state subsidy program.

For four years, she’s operated a licensed daycare inside her home, where she currently serves 10 children. Luong Nichols stopped drawing a salary last summer to pay for improvements to her center and two new hires, expecting to draw down a salary again this year. 

When the full subsidy she was owed stopped arriving, she laid off those staff.

And as they’ve done for the past year, her family of six relies solely on her husband’s $53,000 salary. 

They’ve given up little luxuries like going out to dinner and buying fancier shampoo. And they’ve given up bigger luxuries, like vacations. 

When bill collectors started calling, her husband considered getting a second job. On several occasions, she considered doing away with the daycare entirely. But she didn’t, not wanting to leave the families — many of whom have children with developmental disabilities, or who are in the foster care system — with the stress of searching for a new day care. 

Luong Nichols is among thousands of child care providers across Missouri who rely on a state child care subsidy program to keep their daycares afloat.

The subsidy, part of a federal block grant program that is state-administered, helps cover the cost of serving low-income and foster children. 

But since late last year, a series of changes created a major headache for many providers and families, as parents were unable to register their children and providers in the most dire circumstances were left without money to pay their staff.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which oversees the program, has largely blamed a contracted vendor for the months-long backlogs. The system, which launched in December, is still not fully operational. 

“ … There have been a number of unforeseen challenges during the transition, which involves loading family and provider data from the existing state systems into the new (Child Care Data System),” Mallory McGowin, a spokesperson with the department of education said in a statement Wednesday. “The (Office of Childhood) is working hard to mitigate these issues and sincerely apologizes to the child care providers and families affected.”

But similar backlogs plagued the system three years ago, as parents struggled to enroll children and providers had to make serious budget cuts.

The latest problems have forced some daycares to close. Others have shifted from serving vulnerable children who qualify for the state subsidy to only admitting families who can afford to pay on their own. 

Many providers, like Luong Nichols, have weeks where they’re barely hanging on.  

Payment backlogs not new

In Missouri, child care providers can be registered to get a government stipend for every child on subsidy, meaning they receive a partial amount of tuition directly from families, and then the government covers the rest after care has been provided.  

The child care subsidy is a federal program administered by states through the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Families apply for the state to directly pay a child care provider for part of the cost of care.  

Only very low-income families qualify in Missouri, along with foster kids and children with special needs. The maximum income a family can make to qualify is 150% of the federal poverty line, or $46,800 for a family of four.

The average cost of full-time, center-based care for an infant in Missouri was $11,059 as of 2022, according to Child Care Aware. 

There were about 21,000 children receiving the state subsidy as of November, the last publicly available state data. The program shifted from being administered by Missouri’s Department of Social Services to the education department in December. McGowin said the current number is closer to 23,000 children.

Roughly 1,800 of Missouri’s 2,800 licensed and license-exempt providers, including school districts, are contracted to take children on subsidy, Pam Thomas, assistant commissioner for Missouri’s Office of Childhood, said at a State Board of Education meeting last month. 

“We do continue to struggle a bit with our vendor and meeting what our expectations are for an efficient and effective system and making clear what’s needed,” Thomas told the board. “And quite frankly the vendor is not delivering on those results to what I would say are our expectations as a department.” 

The vendor contracted to develop and implement the new system for the subsidy program is World Wide Technology, McGowin said, a large technology services provider headquartered in St. Louis.

Board members expressed concerns with how to move forward as Thomas reassured them that her department was working “around the clock” to urge the vendor to fix the bugs in the system, which spans about nine steps between a family’s application for subsidy and payment to the provider.

“We have to be cautious about how many more changes we add into the system right now,” she said. “ … We can bend it, but we certainly can’t break it, and I think we’re on the verge of that right now.”

Yet this isn’t the first time the state’s handling of the subsidy program has caused widespread problems for providers and families. 

Emails show months-long backlog of payments to Missouri child care providers

In 2021, the state blamed the COVID-19 pandemic and the rollout of a new system used to track attendance, called KinderConnect, for a backlog of thousands of payments. 

In spring 2023, parents reported waiting several months to be approved for the state assistance, leaving them struggling to juggle work and child care. 

State Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Democrat from Kansas City, said she was notified of the current spate of issues a few months ago by legislative staff who’d started hearing concerns from constituents. 

“It feels like way too much time has passed,” Arthur said. “I suspect that child care providers across the state have already closed as a result of these mistakes and it’s totally unacceptable when already providers are struggling. There are already not enough seats available for children who need them.”

Asked last month if she was looking at alternative vendors ahead of the current multi-million dollar contract running out in December, Thomas, with the education department, said she wasn’t opposed. 

However, on Wednesday, McGowin, said the department is not currently planning on finding a new vendor. The subsidy payment issues – 60% of which came from technical issues, according to the state – are expected to be resolved by the end of July. 

Missouri pays providers for services after they’re performed, rather than in advance. This, coupled with the fact that providers are paid based on attendance rather than enrollment for children in the subsidy program, makes budgeting nearly impossible for providers who take low-income and foster children.

“We’re really relying on the state and DESE to really prioritize solving these system challenges so providers can be paid quickly,” said Casey Hanson, director of outreach and engagement at the child advocacy nonprofit Kids Win Missouri. 

Hanson has spent hundreds of hours with child care providers over the past several years. She knows what’s at stake.

“They’re some of the most resilient people,” she said. “They care about children, they care about the future of our state more than almost anyone.”

‘Our own personal pandemic’

Tina Mosley was among the providers who made the difficult decision to stop taking children on subsidy. 

For 28 years, she has owned and operated Our Daycare and Learning Center in St. Louis, which is licensed for 10 children. It sits in the Normandy school district where the median household income is less than $39,000, and more than 56% of students in public school have SNAP benefits, according to 2021 data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Every other provider she knows in the area accepts children on subsidy. And they’re all in the same predicament.

“Every one of my colleagues and friends, the state is behind on paying them,” Mosley said. “To the right of me, to the left of me, across the street from me, behind me.”

By only taking private paying families, and by ceasing to collect a salary, Mosley said she’s been able to continue employing her two staff, both of whom are young mothers. And while they no longer take children on subsidy, they still service lower income families, she said. 

As a result, she’s not left waiting on payments from the state. A handful of home and center-based providers she knows in the St. Louis area already closed because of the lag.

Several months ago, when most of her children were from the subsidy program, she was helping parents sign up for state benefits as the system transitioned over. She recalls parents sharing screenshots of hold times on the phone with the state surpassing an hour before they had to hang up and return to work, unable to get the immediate help they needed.

“Early child care right now, we feel like we’re in our own personal pandemic,” Mosley said. 

But unlike during the COVID-19 pandemic, when government bodies and communities showed up in stride to keep child care providers in business, Mosley said it feels like most people have now turned their backs.

Luong Nichols, in Kansas City, has considered doing what Mosley has done: stop opening her services to families on subsidy.

In an April email to a staffer in Arthur’s office, she lamented her situation. The system had two of her kids on subsidy listed as private pay. A glitch wouldn’t let her submit attendance. She hadn’t heard back on her help ticket. 

“I am due to renew child care subsidy next month and really considering not doing it,” she wrote in an email she shared with The Independent. “Payments are still not correct, they owe me all of February and past corrections. Now we are about to end March and that will be added.”

After sending this email, Luong Nichols went on to interview at a local school district. She ultimately turned down the job offer, unable to part with the children in her care, including foster children, kids with behavioral difficulties and low-income children.

“I have single moms and foster children that have been kicked out of other daycares or gone through many placements before they landed on my door. And the kids that I take care of, they’re like family.”

Instead she continued to spend hours on the phone during nap time begging anyone to make her business whole again. She called the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the governor’s office. She even called the White House. 

“I’ve had to take on an extra load of work just to fight for something that I’m entitled to,” she said. 

As of Wednesday, she said her payments were caught up through May. She credited her persistence, and assistance from Arthur’s staff, for speeding up the payment.

At the same time, Luong Nichols has seen three area centers and four private daycares shutter. She directs most of the blame at the department of education.

“DESE has pushed the industry to the point of no return right now,” she said. ”We’re not going to have enough child care providers in the state of Missouri by the end of this year to take care of subsidy children.” She said it will move to private paying families only. 

Hanson, with Kids Win Missouri, said there isn’t currently enough data to know the reality of the child care landscape. 

In response to a Sunshine request submitted by The Independent last month, the education agency said they do not currently track the number of backlogged payment resolution requests. 

“The reality is, yeah, there are providers that will close,” Hanson said. “That’s why we continue to advocate that we need more state level funding in this space to really maintain a supply.”

DeLaSalle High School says its cell phone ban helped reclaim learning time, but it might heed student advocacy to relax the policy (Photo illustration by Vaughn Wheat/The Beacon).

Facetime calls. Blaring music. Video games.

“You name it, it was happening” during class at DeLaSalle High School, said Breona Ward, director of college and career progressions.

The difference Ward saw in her English classroom was “night and day” after a crackdown on cellphones midway through the 2022-23 school year. With students’ phones locked up, she saw fewer power struggles, disruptions and social media-fueled conflicts.

Even students’ downtime was different, Ward said. Instead of having their heads bowed, eyes fixed on phones, they talked with one another and played board games.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “You see kids who normally aren’t talking to each other, they’re not in the same friend group, but they are growing bonds, and they’re actually communicating.”

But 18 months after introducing a stricter cellphone policy, the Kansas City charter school is pondering how to ease up without reverting to the same old problems.

Students are advocating to use their phones in some circumstances, such as outside of class. Executive director Sean Stalling wants to encourage their initiative.

“While I might not agree 100% with every change” students have proposed, Stalling said, “I will agree 100% that having the policy that’s co-created with students and school … will be easier to enforce and easier to implement.”

How the policy worked

DeLaSalle launched its strict approach to cellphone use in early 2023.

The school — which specializes in working with students who were behind on credits or otherwise struggled at other high schools — urgently needed to get more out of classroom time. After all, they were still catching up from the pandemic.

Some research shows negative impacts on academic performance, mental health and exercise when students use cellphones in school.

Three-quarters of public schools nationally prohibited using cellphones for nonacademic reasons during the 2020-21 school year, but enforcement of those bans is wildly uneven. A 2023 study of about 200 children ages 11 to 17 found 97% of them used cellphones in school.

Rather than just putting a cellphone ban in writing, DeLaSalle used magnetically sealed pouches made by Yondr and marketed for schools, events and workplaces. Students can carry the pouches with them, but they only open with a special unlocking station.

At least, that’s how it was supposed to work.

Students quickly discovered that the pouches are fallible, Principal Erin Wilmore said.

A Google search brings up advice on breaching the lock, sometimes without tell-tale damage.

Students’ attempts to skirt the policy have required the school to devote time to enforcement rather than relying on Yondr alone, Wilmore said.

As part of the morning routine, students go through bag checks and Wilmore or a vice principal examines every Yondr pouch. When they find a damaged pouch, they toss it.

In class, teachers who catch students using phones call administrators.

Students who violate the policy can have their phones confiscated during school, sometimes for days or weeks. Other than those consequences, the policy isn’t meant to be punitive.

“We do not want to suspend kids, restrict them and do things to them that could lead to them not being in school,” Stalling said.

Students also got around the policy by bringing tablets — too big to fit in Yondr pouches — or Apple watches, Ward said. But in general, those devices have been less disruptive than phones. For example, it’s easier to see at a glance how a student is using a tablet.

Reactions and impact

Stalling said the policy left more time for teaching.

Students beat the scores of their Kansas City Public Schools neighborhood high school peers, on average, when they took their 2023 state English exams. DeLaSalle records also show they narrowed the gap on math scores. Final scores for 2024 aren’t available yet.

Stalling said it’s notable because many DeLaSalle students previously struggled in those neighborhood schools. It’s not clear how much of the improvement is a result of the cellphone policy.

Teachers generally supported launching the cellphone policy, Stalling said, with the exception of one who already had a policy that was working well.

Wilmore, the principal, said teachers generally appreciate the clarity and the attempt to reclaim instruction time. But they also say enforcement — hailing an administrator when a kid gets busted for using a phone — can pose its own distraction.

About 95% of parents also support the policy, Stalling said. Some even help enforce it.

“We have had parents call us to say, ‘Hey, my son just called me from the bathroom, and I know he’s not supposed to have his phone,’” he said.

Some parents say they worry about safety and how they’d reach their child during a shooting or some other crisis, Ward said.

The school made exceptions for special circumstances such as students using phones to monitor medical conditions, expecting an important phone call from court or going through a family tragedy.

Students who go off campus for internships or college classes are generally allowed to keep their phones with them for safety reasons, Ward said.

She thinks phones pose their own risks. Social media drama “spills over into real life here in the building,” she said. “Behavioral incidents have (gone) down significantly because they have less access to their phones.”

Phone restrictions also prevent real-life teasing or conflict from being recorded, going viral and becoming a schoolwide incident, Stalling said.

Students, generally, aren’t so hot on the policy.

Administrators and students are negotiating potential changes, Stalling said. DeLaSalle will still keep phones out of class but could retire Yondr pouches — unless a student breaks the rules.

“Instructional time will still be sacred,” Stalling said. But “students have lunch, students have passing periods, students have out-of-the-building programs. And so there are times that the students would like to have access to their phone.”

Ideas about tweaking the policy are worth listening to, Wilmore said. But she also likes what the strict version of the cellphone ban has done.

Students now understand, she said, “that we’re not going to let phones take away from the culture of learning. … It showed them an extremity. Now, it’s putting the ball back in their court if we revise the policy.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

University of Missouri President Mun Y. Choi gave his State of the University Address in March 2022 (photo courtesy of the University of Missouri).

The last time faculty of the University of Missouri-Columbia weighed in on their campus leader, they said he “fostered a general culture of helplessness and submission” and that morale had been “irreparably damaged.”

Only 26% of those surveyed in 2022 supported retaining Mun Choi as chancellor of the university, a position he took over in addition to his role as president of the entire University of Missouri System.

This year’s survey shows Choi is getting much higher marks, with 64% of faculty now saying they want to keep him in his position.

Choi chalks up his improved scores to his visits across departments and conversations with university leaders. 

“​​I took to heart the faculty concerns that were shared in (the 2022) survey about listening to faculty voices and ensuring that faculty input helps form my decisions,” Chois said in an interview with The Independent. “I took the message about the perception of a lack of shared governance to heart and also to be more effective in communicating my priorities and also seeking input from the faculty during the many visits that I’ve made to colleges since that survey.”

University of Missouri faculty survey scorches Mun Choi for poor morale on Columbia campus

Choi has been the president of the University of Missouri system since 2017 and became chancellor of the flagship campus in 2020. The faculty survey is focused on his work with Mizzou.

Low morale continued between the 2022 and 2024 surveys, with arts and humanities faculty more likely to feel a lack of support in the latest review, authors wrote.

“The results indicate concrete improvements since 2022 and suggest logical starting points for further enhancing the relationship between the Chancellor’s office and the faculty,” the MU Faculty Council on University Policy wrote in its report.

Faculty’s average scores improved across all survey categories. The survey prompted participants to rank Choi 1 to 5 in the categories, and most answers were a “5,” or outstanding,  in all but four of 19 areas.

The lowest scores were for Choi’s ability to “display leadership policies rooted in shared decision-making principles,” “solicit faculty input” and “demonstrate commitment to shared governance.” These three categories were the biggest problems reported in 2022, though they have now improved by one point on the five-point scale.

“There is still more work to do, so it is my responsibility to continue to seek input from the faculty in decision making and to communicate very clearly about the rationale behind my decisions,” Choi said.

His overall performance has improved, according to faculty, from a 2.26 to a 3.45 on a five-point scale.

The 2022 report included harsh critiques like, “He is stunningly opposed to true shared governance and any efforts are lip service at best.” The rating most frequently given to Choi in 14 of 18 categories was a “1,” including in overall performance.

Respondents had more negative comments than positive in 2022. This year, the opposite is true.

Carolyn Orbann, vice-chair of the faculty council and leader of the review process, told The Independent the increase could be impacted by a few factors. The survey response rate increased from nearly 25% of faculty answering to 32.8%. 

COVID-19 also had a larger impact on responses in 2022.

Chancellor performance surveys were on pause prior to Choi’s appointment, so Orbann doesn’t know if the jump in positive responses is typical. But she said there is “more unity in comments about what he’s excelling in.” Choi’s top-performing area is as an “advocate for the MU campus,” with faculty praising his positive relationship with legislators and the community.

Choi said efforts to be “more visible” and engaged likely helped. He visited each of the departments last year to “share (his) vision” and solicit feedback, which he plans to continue. His role is significant, he said, because of Mizzou’s potential to impact people nationwide.

“This is such an important institution for not only the state of Missouri, but the country as a whole, because of the important work that we do,” he said.

Choi pointed to work the research reactor does in the development of radiopharmaceuticals used in cancer treatments nationwide, developments in crop research out of the agriculture program and an advancement in civil discourse through the humanities.

Choi said he’d like to retain his current office for “at least another four years.”

“We are on a really good path to achieving the objectives of becoming that stronger research university and continuing with the vision MizzouForward to improve our research,” he said. “As well as ensuring that our students get a high quality education at an affordable rate and for us to continue to make investments to create economic development in this region.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson leads a panel discussion Wednesday, June 26, 2024, in the U.S. Capitol on “protecting Title IX and women’s sports” with (left to right) Betsy DeVos, former U.S. Education secretary; Riley Gaines, former NCAA swimmer; Heather Higgins, chairwoman of the Independent Women’s Forum; and U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Prominent members of the GOP on Wednesday strongly criticized the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX, including U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx and former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

As the fate of a key Biden administration effort to protect LGBTQ students from discrimination in schools hangs in the balance, Republicans at the state and federal levels are ramping up their attempts to stop the measure from taking effect.

“As you know, the Department of Education … has gone about its effort to rewrite Title IX, and it’s having a very devastating effect. It’s something that is a great alarm to all of us,” said Johnson during a panel discussion at the U.S. Capitol on “protecting Title IX and women’s sports” to celebrate the 52nd anniversary of its adoption.

“There’s much more to do, and Congress is not just sitting around,” Johnson added, noting that the House would vote soon on legislation to reverse the final rule.

The speaker hails from Louisiana, one of 10 states that has so far temporarily blocked the administration’s final rule for Title IX from taking effect on Aug. 1.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana issued a temporary injunction barring the final regulation from taking effect in the state, plus in Idaho, Mississippi and Montana.

Separately, Chief Judge Danny Reeves of the U.S. District Court in Eastern Kentucky also temporarily blocked the final rule in the Bluegrass State, as well as in Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education confirmed that it is appealing both of these rulings, saying the agency has “asked the trial courts to allow the bulk of the final rule to take effect in these states as scheduled, on August 1, while the appeals are pending.”

Republican attorneys general from 26 states have quickly scrambled to challenge the Biden administration’s final rule, with states banding together against the new regulation. Some states’ attorneys general, like Texas and Oklahoma, have sued the administration individually.

Rule issued in April

In April, the U.S. Department of Education released its final rule for Title IX, which “protects against discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”

Part of the final rule also “promotes accountability by requiring schools to take prompt and effective action to end any sex discrimination in their education programs or activities, prevent its recurrence, and remedy its effects,” per the department.

The updated regulations would roll back controversial changes to Title IX that DeVos oversaw while she was Education secretary during the Trump administration and were a major part of her legacy. Advocacy groups fought for years against the Trump administration rule.

“It is time to return to the original intent of Title IX and have common sense prevail again,” said DeVos, who is also the former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, during the panel discussion.

Wednesday’s panel also featured Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer, and Heather Higgins, chairwoman of the conservative Independent Women’s Forum.

Gaines, who competed for the University of Kentucky, is a leading voice in opposing transgender athletes’ participation in sports that align with their gender identity.

House vote expected 

A measure to block the rule from taking effect is set for a full House vote after the House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved legislation earlier in June that would reverse the rule under the Congressional Review Act. This is a procedural tool Congress can use to overturn certain actions from federal agencies.

Rep. Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican and the committee’s vice chair, introduced the measure, which already has over 70 GOP cosponsors.

Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, said Miller’s Congressional Review Act resolution would “roll back these new rules put out by the Biden administration that negate most of the work that was done under (Education) Secretary DeVos, which was extraordinarily thoughtful and well done.”

Republicans’ efforts have also ramped up in the Senate, where U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Mississippi Republican, introduced legislation earlier in June seeking to block the final rule via the same procedural tool. Over 30 of Hyde-Smith’s GOP colleagues are cosponsors.

Regardless of whether attempts to block the measure are successful in the House and Democratic-controlled Senate, President Joe Biden is likely to issue a veto.

LGBTQ advocacy group weighs in 

“Sadly, it’s no surprise that Speaker Johnson and MAGA Republicans are once again attacking transgender kids,” David Stacy, vice president of government affairs for the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said in an emailed statement to States Newsroom.

Stacy said that while DeVos was Education secretary under Trump, she “rolled back protections for LGBTQ students and did nothing to ensure they could be safe from bullying, harassment and discrimination in school.”

“Every student deserves to be safe and respected in school, something Johnson and DeVos clearly don’t care about at all. All they have to offer the American people are cruel and cynical political attacks that are a desperate attempt to salvage their dysfunctional House majority,” Stacy added.

Department of Education defends rule

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the agency “crafted the final Title IX regulations following a rigorous process to give complete effect to the Title IX statutory guarantee that no person experiences sex discrimination in federally-funded education,” echoing an earlier statement.

The spokesperson reiterated that all schools receiving federal funding are obligated to comply with the final rule as a condition of obtaining those funds.

The department has not yet finalized a separate rule that establishes new criteria for transgender athletes.

Rep. Brenda Shields. R-St. Joseph, is leading a special committee that seeks to set a performance-based formula for higher education funding (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications).

A Missouri House committee began a new phase Tuesday of a years-long process to create a formula to fund the state’s higher education institutions.

Led by state Rep. Brenda Shields, a Republican from St. Joseph, the Special Interim Committee on Higher Education Performance Funding is hoping to pick a performance-based formula that would determine funding while allotting for institutions’ unique missions.

Shields sponsored legislation in January pushing for the switch in higher-education funding, which passed a committee but was never debated by the full House. 

The pressure to establish a formula stems from a 2022 appropriations bill that gave the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development $450,000 to commission “a study which provides recommendations to the governor and General Assembly on public higher education performance funding models.” The department has been working with the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems since and has created reports on higher-education funding and efficiency.

“It is a long haul to make this happen if we do the testing correctly,” Shields told the committee Tuesday afternoon.

She predicted the first year of implementation would be 2027, and she aims to have a model by January that the committee can “run simulations with.”

Committee members commented that it was a challenge to create a formula for higher education — especially when term limits place a ceiling on legislators’ experience.

“I’m concerned about the technicality of what we are talking about here that is beyond my experience and perhaps ability to understand,” said state Rep. John Black, a Marshfield Republican.

Black noted that he, as well as Shields and committee member state Rep. Kevin Windham, have two years remaining in the House.

“The legislature will never understand some of these parameters at a level necessary to implement a good program. We are going to have to give over some authority to the department,” he said.

He said they will have to “convince” fellow House members to give power to the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

Windham, a Democrat from Hillsdale, said they will need the Senate’s authorization.

Shields suggested expanding the group to a joint committee, incorporating senators.

Leroy Wade, deputy commissioner of the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development, described a process of cooperation between the committee, the department and higher-education institutions, with the department serving as a liaison and source of manpower for the calculations involved.

Many of the state’s colleges sent a representative to talk to the committee Tuesday, answering what they wanted out of the funding model.

Mun Choi, president of University of Missouri System and chancellor of its flagship campus in Columbia, said his ideal formula would reward “strong outcomes such as high graduation rates and high future earnings.”

He said it should also account for pricier degree programs, comparing the cost of educating an engineering student versus a history major.

“The formula should also reflect the unique missions of all of the public universities in the state,” he said. “In fiscal year 2023 the University of Missouri System spent $600 million in expenditures to support research that led to discovery but also had impact to the region and the state.”

Elizabeth Kennedy, chair of the Council on Public Higher Education in Missouri and president of Missouri Western State University, said lawmakers should consider historic underfunding.

The Council on Public Higher Education in Missouri has 10 member schools, including the state’s two historically Black universities, Harris-Stowe State University and Lincoln University. A federal report recently showed Missouri, among other states, has been underfunding its historically Black land-grant university.

Windham said funding imbalances are a challenge as the committee discusses performance funding.

“I find it hard to talk about performance funding when I think about how institutions have been underfunded, some worse than others in the state,” he said. “The institutions that have seen significant investments in the past from the state will likely do better than most.”

Kennedy said the committee has the opportunity to study this.

Kimberly Beatty, chancellor of Metropolitan Community College, said the funding model must account for the differences between four-year institutions and community colleges. She said the current way colleges are funded has left state aid out of valuable programs.

“We do the apprenticeship programs. We have (certified nurse assistant) programs, manufacturing, welding, and all of those are apprenticeship programs,” she said. “None of those apprenticeship programs or their enrollees are considered in the current funding model.”

She said non-credit programs, which provide workforce training, provide workforce development for Missouri but are not funded at the state level.

“We’d like to see the value of workforce programs included in the funding model, whether those are credit programs or non-credit programs,” she said.

Beatty said around 20% of students are currently not counted towards full-time enrollment, as funded currently.

Full-time enrollment is one metric among many that may be incorporated into the formula. Currently, performance funding is not in effect in the budget process.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona speaks with families at the Mattie Rhodes Center in Kansas City, Missouri, in September (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Federal judges in Kansas and Missouri on Monday blocked the full implementation of a student-loan forgiveness program proposed by the Biden administration that was set to launch July 1.

The SAVE Plan, an acronym for Saving on a Valuable Education, has been partially rolled out. The provisions already in effect may remain, United States District Court for the District of Kansas Judge Daniel Crabtree ruled Monday. But elements set for July 1, like reducing payments to 5% of borrowers’ income instead of 10%, are on hold while litigation challenging the program moves forward.

A separate ruling out of the Eastern District of Missouri will block only loan forgiveness. The SAVE Plan offered forgiveness for those who borrowed less than $12,000 and have been paying for more than 10 years, with an additional year for each $1,000 additional borrowed.

Both judges wrote that the SAVE Plan, which uses the Higher Education Act to authorize approximately $475 billion in loan forgiveness, is beyond the law’s legislative intent.

“The court is not free to replace the language of the statute with unenacted legislative intent. Congress has made it clear under what circumstances loan forgiveness is permitted, and the (income-contingent repayment) plan is not one of those circumstances,” United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri John Ross wrote.

The rulings are the result of lawsuits filed by two coalitions of attorneys general: one led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and the other by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, representing a combined 18 states.

Crabtree dismissed eight of the 11 states represented in Kobach’s lawsuit earlier this month, finding that Alaska is the only state that can claim harm in Monday’s ruling over “$100,000 in lost (federal family education) loan interest over two years.”

Ross determined that Missouri, through quasi-governmental loan servicer MOHELA, has standing. MOHELA, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, gave Bailey standing in a U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned an earlier version of loan forgiveness last year.

Ross wrote that the allegations of harm to MOHELA are “substantially similar to, if not identical to,” those argued in last year’s Supreme Court case.

MOHELA has routinely distanced itself from Bailey’s litigation against loan forgiveness.

Bailey, in a press release, lauded the Missouri ruling as a win for Missourians without large amounts of student-loan debt.

“Only Congress has the power of the purse, not the president,” he wrote in a statement. “Today’s ruling was a huge win for the rule of law, and for every American who Joe Biden was about to force to pay off someone else’s debt.”

Kobach also emphasized the judge’s ruling of a lack of Congressional authorization in the SAVE Plan.

“Kansas’s victory today is a victory for the entire country,” he said. “As the court correctly held, whether to forgive billions of dollars of student debt is a major question that only Congress can answer. Biden’s administration is attempting to usurp Congress’s authority. This is not only unconstitutional, it’s unfair. ”

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said the Department of Justice “will continue to vigorously defend the SAVE Plan.”

“We designed SAVE to cut undergraduate loan payments in half, avoid interest growth for borrowers making zero-dollar or low payments, and allow at-risk borrowers to reach forgiveness faster,” he wrote in a statement. “Under SAVE, nearly 8 million Americans — one out of five borrowers — have breathing room from bills that, too often, compete with basic needs.” 

Cardona said Republican elected officials are trying to block the plan “even though the department has relied on the authority under the Higher Education Act three times over the last 30 years to implement income-driven repayment plans.”

He promised a continued push from the federal government for student-loan forgiveness. The SAVE Plan is the department’s second iteration of forgiveness, of which three have been announced. Bailey and Kobach wrote a letter to Cardona in May with “significant concerns” about the latest plan, which has yet to be implemented.

Second graders study in a classroom on May 7 at George Melcher Elementary School. Kansas City Public Schools changed its grading policy beginning with the 2023-24 school year (Zach Bauman/The Beacon).

Finish zero schoolwork, expect zero for a grade.

Not anymore in Kansas City Public Schools.

The district launched a different grading system during the most recent school year. The minimum grade on any given assignment is now 40%, even if the student didn’t do a single bit of it.

The district started to discuss changes to the grading policy — which also addresses late work and grading categories — in 2021 to make grades more objective, more equitable and less punitive.

KCPS declined an interview with The Beacon, but the district has said publicly that the new system leads to grades that better reflect students’ mastery of their schoolwork.

It has drawn a mix of praise and criticism.

“Those who do not support it say you should not get 40% for doing nothing. (If) you are an hourly employee, and you don’t come to work, you don’t get 40% of your pay,” said Jason Roberts, president of the district’s teachers union. “Those who do support it say a 40% is still an F. But it’s an F that you can recover from.”

Tricia McGhee, a KCPS parent, backs the 40% grade minimum. But she said the late work policy has been unclear and inconsistent in her daughters’ middle school.

KCPS should also have done more to engage with families before implementing changes, McGhee said.

“Conversations have been going on for three years surrounding this,” she said. “Those three years could have been used a little bit better had they been in conversation with parents.”

The KCPS grading policy’s impact on schools

High school student Zoe Wilson, then a junior at Lincoln College Prep, had the impression her teachers hated “the 40% rule.” So she polled them.

Of 46 teachers she interviewed, nearly two-thirds didn’t like the 40% grade minimum and another quarter were on the fence, she told the school board during its April 24 meeting.

Zoe said one concern is that students calculate the bare minimum of work they need to do, sometimes waiting until the end of the semester to do enough makeup work to pass a class.

When she asked about that possibility in a district meeting, she said she was told it doesn’t happen. That doesn’t ring true to her experience.

“Students refusing to make up work because it won’t hurt their grade happens daily, which is a loss in education,” she said.

Roberts estimated about 60% of teachers favor the grading policy and 40% oppose it.

He doesn’t take a side but would have liked to see greater community engagement and formal board approval. The revisions were developed by a committee of teachers and administrators and approved by the union.

The district later sent parents information and surveys about the policy changes, but McGhee said that engagement should have come before the policy was in place.

“Decision-making can lack other perspectives when you’re just leaning on academic experts and not families or parents,” she said.

In addition to the 40% rule — which applies to non-Montessori students, grades two to 12 — the policy specifies that middle and high school students can get no more than 70% credit for late work and gives them a deadline to complete it.

McGhee said that’s one place where she thinks the district’s communication fell short.

She saw teachers interpret the late work policy in differing ways. Some teachers accepted work later than others. Some reminded families about late work deadlines, but McGhee didn’t receive reminders from the district or school.

Deadlines are based around quarter and semester end dates, which aren’t obvious to families because they don’t always line up with school breaks.

“The policy is not being applied across the district equitably, or even within the same building,” McGhee said.

The 40% rule has helped cushion the impact of that confusion, McGhee said, and nudge grades toward better representing what her daughters know.

One daughter, for example, regularly gets A’s on exams and projects but can fall behind on homework.

“That’ll tank her grade in a class that she’s actually excelling in skillswise,” she said.

How the 40% rule works or doesn’t work

Imagine a student who skips the semester’s first assignment and gets a 0% grade.

If all assignments are worth the same, it would take two perfect scores to get her grade above failing and nine perfect scores to eke out the lowest possible A.

Now imagine the student gets 40% for the missed assignment. With just one perfect score, she’s at a low C and with five she has a low A.

Proponents of the 40% minimum say that better reflects the kind of work she typically does and keeps her motivated.

“That can be discouraging to a student to say, ‘Hey, look at the progress I’ve made, and I still haven’t improved my grade,’” Deputy Superintendent Derald Davis said during a presentation about the grading policy to the KCPS District Advisory Committee.

The new system also makes more sense mathematically because it doesn’t devote nearly 60% of the scale to F grades, the district argued during the presentation.

The newly adopted system is an idea that has been around for decades.

In a 2004 article that is still sparking discussion, education researcher and writer Douglas Reeves called a zero on a standard grading scale a “mathematical inaccuracy” and disproportionate punishment.

But just because a scale is even mathematically doesn’t mean it’s the most fair or appropriate for a specific context, said Daniel Buck, a policy associate at the Thomas Fordham Institute. He wrote a 2022 critique of Reeves’ piece after seeing districts adopt minimum grades.

During his seven years as a classroom teacher, Buck said, he found himself becoming stricter and more convinced that high standards push students to excel. He thinks the traditional grading scale “tips toward excellence.”

While he believes some alternative grading systems are worth exploring, he said they need more study.

“We kind of skipped over the experimentation phase and went straight to the universal adoption phase,” he said. “I’m pretty sure if we had stuck with the experimental phase, we’d find out that it didn’t work very well.”

Reeves still defends his original article, but now he’s focused on teaching students to take feedback well. He thinks averaging grades in a way that penalizes students for early mistakes defeats that purpose.

Instead, he’d like to see grades based on a few major assignments that go through required revisions, with students expected to improve their work and evaluated on the final result.

“This 40% or zero is the wrong argument,” Reeves said. “The appropriate argument to have is how do we evaluate students based on how they finish?”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

CAPTION: John Arthur, a teacher at Meadowlark Elementary in Salt Lake City, Utah, testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in Washington, D.C., on Thursday (Screenshot from committee webcast)/

WASHINGTON — The only reason John Arthur is able to be a public school teacher is because his wife makes much more money than he does.

Arthur —  the 2021 Utah Teacher of the Year  — testified on Thursday at a hearing in the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on the challenges facing public school teachers.

Arthur, who is also a member of the National Education Association and holds National Board Certification, pointed to pay as the main reason for both teachers leaving the profession and parents not wanting their children to become teachers.

“The No. 1 solution to addressing the issues we face must be increasing teachers’ salaries,” said Arthur, who teaches at Meadowlark Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Gemayel Keyes, a teacher at Gilbert Spruance Elementary School in Philadelphia, told the committee that even as an educator, he still has an additional part-time job.

The special education teacher spent most of his career in education as a paraprofessional. At the time he moved into that role, the starting annual salary was $16,000 and the maximum was $30,000.

“It’s still pretty much the same,” he said.

Minimum teacher salary 

Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, introduced a bill in March 2023 that would set an annual base salary of $60,000 for public elementary and secondary school teachers.

“We understand that the children, young people of this country, are our future and there is, in fact … nothing more important that we can do to provide a quality education to all of our young people, and yet, for decades, public school teachers have been overworked, underpaid, understaffed, and maybe most importantly, underappreciated,” Sanders said in his opening remarks.

“Compared to many other occupations, our public school teachers are more likely to experience high levels of anxiety, stress and burnout, which was only exacerbated by the pandemic,” he said.

Sanders said 44% of public school teachers are quitting their profession within five years, citing “the extremely low pay teachers receive” as one of the primary reasons for a massive U.S. teacher shortage.

For the 2023-24 school year, a whopping 86% of K-12 public schools in the country documented challenges in hiring teachers, according to an October report from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Maryland sets $60,000 minimum  

But a minimum annual teacher salary of $60,000 is not far off for every state.

In Maryland, the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future raises the starting salary for teachers to $60,000 a year by July 2026.

William E. Kirwan, vice chair of Maryland’s Accountability and Implementation Board, said the multi-year comprehensive plan, passed in 2021 in the Maryland General Assembly, “addresses all aspects of children’s education from birth to high school completion, including most especially, the recruitment, retention and compensation of high quality teachers.”

Kirwan said the “Blueprint’s principle for teacher compensation is that, as professionals, teachers should be compensated at the same level as other professionals requiring similar levels of education, such as architects and CPAs.”

An “allocation issue”  

Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking member of the committee, dubbed Democrats’ solution of creating a federal minimum salary for teachers as a “laudable goal.”

But he noted that “the federal government dictating how states spend their money does not address the root cause of why teachers are struggling to teach in the classroom.”

“More mandates and funding cannot be the only answer we come up with. We must examine broken policies that got us here and find solutions to improve,” the Louisiana Republican said.

Nicole Neily, president and founder of Parents Defending Education, a parents’ rights group, argued that “schools don’t have a resource issue” but rather an “allocation issue.”

“There’s a saying: ‘Don’t tell me where your priorities are, show me where you spend your money, and I’ll tell you what they are.’ Education leaders routinely choose to spend money on programs and personnel that don’t directly benefit students,” said Neily.

Neily pointed to a 2021 report from the Heritage Foundation, which found that “standardized test results show that achievement gaps are growing wider over time in districts with (chief diversity officers).” Such staff members commonly encourage efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion in schools.

Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said “higher pay does not ease the burden we place on teachers or add hours to their day.”

“By all means, raise teacher pay, but do not assume that it will solve teacher shortages or keep good teachers in the classroom. Poor training, deteriorating classroom conditions, shoddy curriculum and spiraling demands have made an already challenging job nearly impossible to do well and sustainably,” he added.

Margie Vandeven, who is leaving her position as the Commissioner of Education, spends one of her final days in her office Commissioner Karla Eslinger will serve solo at the helm of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven will leave her position with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education at the end of the month, ending her 19 years of work in the department.

She announced her departure in October, saying it was the “right time to move on personally and professionally.”

An educator since 1990, Vandeven was appointed commissioner in 2015. She was ousted briefly between December 2017 and November 2018 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens stacked the board to force her out. After Greitens was forced to resign a few months later in order to avoid impeachment, the board voted to reinstate Vandeven

“Margie went through something that I never thought I’d see in my political life — with the Greitens administration,” State Board of Education president Charlie Shields, of St. Joseph, said during the state board’s June 11 meeting. “The idea that you had a governor that tried to influence the State Board of Education, tried to influence the selection of a commissioner, that wanted change for no other reason than political expediency.”

He said Vandeven “never, ever cracked during that,” applauding her for “grace under pressure.”

Next, Vandeven will work as an education chief with the Missouri Department of Conservation and help with education research at Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank at Stanford University.

She has been working alongside incoming commissioner Karla Eslinger, who will be serving solo beginning July 1. Eslinger, who recently resigned from the state senate, has served as a teacher, assistant commissioner and an advisor to federal education officials.

In her last days in her office, Vandeven spoke to The Independent about the issues that will persist long after her tenure.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: A big problem for a lot of districts, both in Missouri and nationwide, is attendance. What’s Missouri doing to work on this?

A: The thing with attendance is that the issues are very different depending upon where you are. Local context matters on attendance. It is a national issue right now, and we certainly saw an increase post-pandemic.

We are really focusing on getting a highly trained teacher in every classroom, which helps attendance rates because we know that that relationship between the student and the teacher is key. If they have a different substitute teacher in front of them every single day… it can be intimidating.

We are looking at learning just a little bit differently and talking about more competency based learning, project based learning, keeping our students very engaged and putting our career counselors in place to say, “You need to know this and understand this because it will help you go on this particular pathway that you’re choosing.”

We are meeting with parents and helping them understand that school is a little bit different today than it might have been when they were in school. People depend on you being there. We do a lot of group projects. We do a lot of collaborative teaming… It is making sure parents are aware of the disruption that occurs when students are out and helping educate on what is considered an illness that is severe enough that students should stay home and when is it appropriate to send them back to school. 

There are a lot of different efforts that are taking place. I had a meeting today with the Department of Mental Health to really talk about how we better address some of these mental health issues that our students are feeling.

Q: I always hear that Missouri students can’t read at grade level. Can you tell me about this problem?

A: I think what they’re referring to are the National Assessment for Educational Progress scores, and those have been relatively stagnant across the nation for the past decades. So that’s what they’re referring to when they talk about reading scores.

The main shift that we’re seeing is that the science of reading has been just so studied and better understood now. We know better how to teach reading.

We’ve been working with our educator-preparation programs. We’ve been working with our teachers who are in the classroom today, and we’ve been looking at high-quality instructional materials. We have been looking at measuring students earlier.

If we say we need students to be proficient in reading by grade three, because if you look again at the data, it will tell you that students who are proficient in reading by grade three then read to learn. So, waiting until grade three to get a statewide temperature check on that doesn’t make as much sense.

We have kindergarten through third-grade reading assessments, but we’re really focusing on getting that statewide metric for grade two so that they’re assessed early and then interventions are provided early.

Early intervention is key. So working with that, I think we’re gonna see the big, big shifts in the future.

Q: Has the state done an inventory of which districts have science-based reading curriculum?

A: We have not done a complete inventory as a state but that is because curriculum is a local decision. However, our school districts are all, to my knowledge, really working on the science of reading.

It would be hard to do the state assessments and plans in today’s environment with a curriculum that does not support the science of reading.

Q: As Gov. Mike Parson leaves office, what should people know about working with him, especially with the budget process?

A: I feel very fortunate to have worked with Gov. Parson. He has made it clear from the start that his emphasis was on workforce development and infrastructure, and education falls right into that.

He believes that investing in our children is investing in the future of the state of Missouri. And so working with the budget process, the State Board of Education approves (the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) budget. Then, we take it to the governor’s budget, we see what they’re going to put in, and then it goes through the legislative process. It’s a pretty lengthy process. But I do think you can really get a sense of where people’s priorities are when you look at where they’re putting their funding. We’ve seen significant increases in funding for education, and for our students, which genuinely is an investment in the state’s future.

Q: What are your hopes for the next governor?

A: I hope that we can stay united and committed to educating our kids. We can get a lot more done when we’re focusing on the same things together.

I always say this, “Great teachers matter.” And you need great teachers in public schools; you need them in private schools; you need them in charter schools, and you need them in virtual schools. Great teachers matter. 

Early learning matters, no matter your ZIP code. Making sure families have access to that opportunity matters. So, I really hope that the next governor can find some of those areas that are genuinely common ground and focus more on bringing people together and moving towards those goals.

Q: Have you seen a trend of politicization of K-12 education?

A: I’ve absolutely seen an increase in the politicization of education throughout my tenure, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when that occurred. But we certainly have seen it. And that’s not just in Missouri, that is across the nation.

People do realize how important education is for our students and how important it is for this country, so that has garnered quite a bit of attention from both sides of the aisle. I still believe that we can get much more accomplished when we focus on the big issues.

We need politicians, and we need them to be involved in education. But we don’t want it to be a politicized football, where you’re just battling back and forth. We need to be focusing on what it is that we want to accomplish as a state and move those initiatives forward.

Q: Do you have any tips for focusing on the big issues?

A: Both sides of the aisle should be at the table together. I always say that’s one of the greatest things about our State Board of Education. It was written in the constitution that there can’t be more than four (of eight) of any party. Then they develop these personal relationships with one another.

If you’ve only talked to like minded people, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to fully understand solutions to issues. When you do that, you find out there are more commonalities than differences. I just truly believe that.

Q: Missouri is the only state that I know of with the schools for the disabled model. Do you think this will continue to be the state’s model for high intervention?

A: We’re doing a study right now. We are the only state that does it this way. We’re studying to make sure that it is the best way to serve the students and their families, and that’ll be coming out shortly.

It really requires change over time. This has been in place for over 50 years. So I think it is time to really look at the model. And if it’s working in some places, that’s great. If it can be improved in others, let’s take a look at that. But what we want to really do is make sure that we’re serving the students and their families well.

Q: Some lawmakers have proposed different methods of accreditation and accountability. What arguments would you make in favor of the current model, the Missouri School Improvement Plan 6 (MSIP6)?

A:  There is a place for statewide state standards. You have to have something in place.

When we develop our state standards, we get input from people from all across the state to say: this is what every third grader should know, this is what every fifth grader should know. We really do it for backwards design to say this is what every graduate should know, and be able to do in the state of Missouri. And then you go back, what do they need to know here all the way down to kindergarten, right? It shouldn’t matter where you live in our state, the expectation should be that they’ve acquired these particular skills, and how you go about doing that should be at the local level.

MSIP gives that great flexibility where it says, “These are your standards.” And it gives local districts flexibility on how to get there.

The general public and taxpayers do want to know how students are performing against those standards, so I do think there is certainly a place for a third-party provider to come in and provide that information. The state board has been given that authority and has used it consistently from the first MSIP to MSIP6 to focus on ways to provide improvement.

If they choose to go to a different accrediting model, I would not go for multiple models because you can’t compare apples to apples, then. And there’s got to be a base understanding of where we are in these measures.

Q: In MSIP6, the distribution of districts among scores seems to be more of a bell curve with fewer high achievers compared to MSIP5.

A: What happened in MSIP5 is there were a number of changes in assessments, a number of things that were passing legislation that said you can’t penalize districts. S we had a lot of districts at the very top of the chart.

MSIP6 provides a reset. So often you will see a bell curve at the start of any kind of a reset. That’s sometimes what happens. It is just a much more even distribution of where districts really fall within measurement against those standards.

Q: Do you think the scores needed for accreditation might change because of this different distribution?

A: It could change some. They have multiple years to make sure that they’re showing some improvement. The first year that you run these systems, you’re typically going to see a number of districts that say, “Okay, what do we need to move forward,” and then they are able to do that.

One of the big things with MSIP 6 is that we have a growth model that’s in place. Now, that gives equal credit for both individual student growth and their status. That has been a significant shift.

Q: What do you think Commissioner Eslinger will bring to the table?

A: She has so much wisdom, and she’s got a strong drive about doing the right things for kids. With her background of being an educator, of having experience in the state capitol, she is a people person. She is committed to doing the right things for our students.

I really couldn’t be happier with the choice. I think she’s gonna do a great job.

Q: Is there anything else we should know?

A: It has been an honor working here. I really, really have found this to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Thursday approved a measure that would roll back a final rule by the Biden administration on Title IX. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress got one step further in their efforts to reverse the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX after the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved a measure on Thursday that would overturn the updated regulations.

The U.S. Department of Education’s final rule — which seeks to protect LGBTQ+ students from discrimination in schools and is set to take effect Aug. 1 — has been met with a wave of GOP backlash. But even if attempts to roll it back succeed in the House and Senate, President Joe Biden is likely to issue a veto.

Nearly 70 House GOP lawmakers are cosponsoring legislation that Rep. Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican and the committee’s vice chair, introduced last week. The measure seeks to reverse the final rule through the Congressional Review Act — a procedural tool Congress can use to overturn certain actions from federal agencies.

The legislation is headed for a vote in the full House after the Republican-led committee approved the measure in a party-line vote, 24-16.

“Title IX has paved the way for our girls to access new opportunities in education, scholarships and athletics. Unfortunately, (President) Joe Biden is destroying all that progress,” said Miller during Thursday’s markup.

Supporters of Miller’s legislation voiced their opposition to the new regulations during the markup, including committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, as well as Reps. Lisa McClain of Michigan, Bob Good of Virginia and Nathaniel Moran of Texas.

“To be clear, this rule is not about protecting LGBTQ students from sexual harassment. Title IX already does that. I’m gonna repeat that: Title IX already protects LGBTQ students,” said Foxx, a North Carolina Republican.

Good said that “with the stroke of a pen, the Biden administration destroyed Title IX’s promises of equal opportunity to women and eradicated sex-protected spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms and campus housing for students from kindergarten through grad school.”

A slew of Republican attorneys general also quickly challenged the final rule that the federal agency released in April. It has racked up a number of legal challenges in various federal courts as GOP-led states attempt to block the rule from taking effect.

Democratic opposition

Meanwhile, Democratic members of the committee stood against the Republican-led measure.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, of Oregon, said “invoking the Congressional Review Act is not only unnecessary but deeply harmful.”

Bonamici said the new Title IX rule “strengthens protections for vulnerable student populations, including the LGBTQ+ community, and for the first time, Title IX explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Virginia’s Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the committee, said he found it baffling that the committee spent six months and more than five years “investigating the existence of hostile learning environments in education settings and then decides to bring the CRA bill to the committee for reasons they have publicly stated.”

GOP efforts in the Senate 

In the Senate, more than 30 Republicans, led by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, introduced legislation this week that also seeks to reverse the final rule by invoking the Congressional Review Act. Only a majority vote is required in the Senate.

At a Wednesday press conference announcing the legislation, Hyde-Smith called the rule “backward,” saying it “only hurts women and girls by stripping away opportunities and rights they have enjoyed for decades.” She added that the rule would have “dramatic implications beyond the classrooms.”

“Title IX has been about making sure women have a fair shake relative to men. The new Biden rule radically overhauls Title IX, injecting a progressive gender ideology that removes longstanding protections for women and girls,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and lead cosponsor of the legislation, said in a statement this week.

“This is the death of Title IX as we know it,” he added.

Education Department’s response 

In response to these congressional efforts, a spokesperson for the Department of Education echoed an earlier statement, saying the department does not comment on pending litigation.

The spokesperson added that “as a condition of receiving federal funds, all federally funded schools are obligated to comply with these final regulations.”

The spokesperson also said the department looks forward to “working with school communities all across the country to ensure the Title IX guarantee of nondiscrimination in school is every student’s experience.”

The department has not yet decided on a separate rule establishing new criteria regarding transgender athletes.

The University of Missouri-Columbia. (University of Missouri photo)

Sen. Doug Beck speaks during a Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee hearing in January (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

The Independence School District recently completed its first school year on a four-day-a-week schedule — a change that made headlines and stirred state officials.

Now, with the passage of a new state law, the district will have to ask voters to keep the four-day week by July 1, 2026. 

Is that enough time to test the concept of the abbreviated week? Dale Herl, the district’s superintendent, told The Independent that he is already seeing benefits just a year into the schedule.

“At one point, we were fully staffed with bus drivers in the school district,” he said. “We were also fully staffed with nurses, and neither one of those has happened during my 15 years within the school district (prior to the four-day week).”

Jon Turner, an associate professor at Missouri State University who researches the four-day school week, is studying the Independence School District. He backed up Herl’s claims about a full roster of bus drivers, adding that a wave of teacher applications was a result of the new schedule.

Independence’s four-day school week draws Missouri auditor probe

“It’s very clear that the four-day school week was a strong reason that Independence application rates were so much higher,” Turner said. “There is something so attractive about the four-day week within personal-life balance between certified educators that there’s no doubt that they’ve reaped the reward.”

Herl said the district’s hiring looks “very different.” More veteran teachers are applying to come to Independence, pulling in educators from affluent communities in the Kansas City area.

Turner, who serves on the board of the Missouri Association of Rural Education, was keenly interested if Independence was attracting teachers from rural communities. He only saw one applicant from a rural area.

Independence is the largest Missouri school district to adopt the four-day week. The shortened week has been part of rural Missouri schools since 2011, and around a third of the state’s schools have adopted the schedule — comprising 11% of Missouri’s K-12 students.

Herl chose the four-day week to help recruit teachers into the district’s open positions. Rural schools may have done so a decade earlier, but Herl said he sees the need growing now.

“I don’t think anyone anymore is immune to the teacher shortage,” he said. “You look at very large school districts across the United States, and they have hundreds and hundreds of teacher openings. We are in a crisis in the United States, but especially in Missouri regarding the teacher shortage.”

During the 2022-2023 school year, almost a quarter of new teachers were not properly certified or were substitute teachers, according to a State Board of Education report. The same report showed that nearly a quarter of student teachers serve as the teacher of record, or primary educator, in the classroom.

State Sen. Sen. Doug Beck, a Democrat from Affton and former local school board member, sponsored the legislation on four-day school weeks that became part of the large education package signed into law earlier this year. He, too, said the core issue was teacher recruitment and retention, pointing out shallow pay for educators and a culture war surrounding teachers.

A four-day week isn’t the solution, he told The Independent.

“Nobody has given me a report that says a four-day school week increases kids’ education or our test scores or anything like that,” he said. “They’ve all said it’s either been a little bit less or almost not noticeable, but that isn’t what we should be striving for in education.”

The State Board of Education in February reviewed a report that concluded that the four-day schedule had “no statistically significant effect on either academic achievement or building growth.” 

Academic achievement looks at one year of scores whereas building growth compares students scores over time.

Beck wanted to make his legislation effective statewide, meaning rural schools would have to take a vote for a four-day week. Instead, Beck’s proposal focused on schools in counties with a charter form of government or in cities with over 30,000 residents, knowing the inclusion of rural schools would draw the ire of some lawmakers and sabotage its chances of passage. 

“The great part about this bill is that if it is a great thing for Independence, when they go for a vote, the people should vote for it,” he said. “It is democracy in action.”

Herl said he received positive feedback from a survey sent to parents about the four-day week. He believes voters would approve the four-day week if it was limited to district parents, but he worries that older voters without any kids attending school may come out against the new schedule.

Turner’s research bares that fear out.  

“Looking at key stakeholders in the community and how they perceive the four-day week, the only group that we found that opposed the four day week were people that no longer have kids at school,” Turner said.

Herl has not thought about what he would do to retain teachers if he had to revert to a five-day week.

The bill that contained the four-day-school-week provisions also included a raise to the formula that funds public schools and other teacher-recruitment initiatives.

“All of the things contained within (the law) is based upon appropriations,” Herl said. “So just because it is in the bill does not mean it’s going to happen. The money has to be appropriated, and the state legislature has a very long history of not fully funding education. So my fear is if things get tight financially in Missouri, then education is just going to be the first thing to get cut.”

He said the incentive written for five-day weeks would give his teachers an extra $500 a year.

“The financial incentive is so small that it’s not going to keep a particular teacher in the profession,” he said.

As he prepares for a future vote, there are a few tweaks planned for the four-day program in Independence, Herl said. But overall, he is enthusiastic about the first year on the schedule.

An appellate court unanimously ruled Tuesday that a transgender man who formerly attended the Blue Springs School District was discriminated against when he was barred from using the boys' locker room (photo illustration by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder).

After a decade-long legal battle, a transgender man and former student of the Blue Springs School District should receive over $4 million in damages for discrimination that occurred when he was an adolescent, the Missouri’s Western District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

Judge Anthony Gabbert wrote the court’s unanimous decision, ruling that the school district discriminated against the student, identified by his initials R.M.A., on the basis of sex when it barred him from using the boys’ locker room.

A key part of the appellate court’s decision was the factor that spurred the school district’s discrimination.

Attorneys for the Blue Spring School District did not contest that R.M.A. was treated differently, according to Gabbert’s ruling, but said it was because of his “female genitalia.”

“School district employees suggested that R.M.A. had been excluded from the boys’ restrooms and locker rooms because of [the] school district’s belief that he had female genitalia,” Gabbert wrote. “[The] school district did not actually determine the nature of R.M.A.’s genitalia, however, and does not speculate, inspect or otherwise inquire as to the genitalia of other male students.”

The admission of different treatment based on assumed genitalia, Gabbert wrote, was itself discrimination on the basis of sex.

Part of the judicial proceedings included testimony from R.M.A.’s doctor, who said R.M.A. was a male for as long as she has been treating him (which began at age nine).

During his time as a student, R.M.A. received an updated birth certificate with his male gender identity.

School district employees and school board members told R.M.A.’s mother that locker-room access is determined by birth certificate. After she gave the corrected birth certificate to school district officials, R.M.A. was still denied access to boys’ restrooms and locker rooms.

The school board discussed R.M.A’s birth certificate in a closed-door meeting, according to court documents, but never gave his mother a clear answer about the policy.

“The evidence at trial… was that (Blue Springs) School District had an unwritten policy of using birth certificates to determine sex,” Gabbert wrote. “Yet, [the] school district refused to tell R.M.A.’s mother that it would honor a corrected birth certificate stating he is male because (it) wanted to keep its options open in the event R.M.A. was able to obtain a corrected birth certificate.”

R.M.A’s birth certificate was amended in December 2014, around a year after he began asking to use the locker room that aligned with his gender identity and two months after he filed a complaint with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights.

R.M.A. filed the lawsuit in October 2015, starting a complicated legal process. The initial trial court dismissed his claim in 2016, saying the Missouri Human Rights Act does not protect claims on the basis of gender identity. The Missouri Supreme Court, in 2019, reversed this decision and opened the doors for another trial.

A December 2021 jury trial awarded R.M.A. over $4.7 million in damages and legal fees, but attorneys for the Blue Springs School District asked for a “judgment notwithstanding the verdict,” a ruling that allows a judge to usurp a jury’s decision. 

The school district argued that R.M.A. only proved that he was discriminated against “because of his female genitalia” and not on the basis of sex.

The trial court judge sided with the school district, which would have spurred another trial. But Tuesday’s decision reverses that judge’s call, returning the case back to the jury’s verdict.

There are other similar cases currently winding through Missouri’s courts, including a lawsuit against the Platte County School District brought by the ACLU of Missouri.

The Blue Springs School District could not be reached for comment by time of publication.

The Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in St. Louis, home of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

A United States District Court judge in St. Louis heard arguments Monday morning on whether the federal government can continue with a student-debt-forgiveness plan due to begin next month.

The lawsuit, filed last month by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, seeks to block an income-driven repayment plan for borrowers proposed by President Joe Biden’s administration. 

Missouri Solicitor General Josh Divine argued in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Monday morning that the repayment plan, dubbed the SAVE Plan, was never authorized by Congress.

Divine is representing Missouri along with Republican attorneys general from Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma.

“The defendants have asserted authority to redistribute $500 billion from teachers, farmers, nurses and truckers to those who haven’t paid off their student loans yet,” he said at the conclusion of his argument. “Congress simply did not give the president or the secretary (of education) authority to make a massive, monumental policy.”

Judge John Ross said it would take him “a couple of weeks” to craft an order. If Bailey gets his way, the court will block the federal government from approving additional borrowers for the SAVE Plan. Those who have already applied would not be affected, which U.S. Department of Justice Attorney Steven Petri said Monday was “news to (him).”

Bailey’s office blocked implementation of the Biden administration’s first attempt at loan forgiveness in a lawsuit settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2023. He has threatened to file suit against the latest plan for loan forgiveness announced by the federal government in April.

The SAVE plan, an acronym for “Saving on a Valuable Education,” sets monthly payments based on income, with some borrowers having monthly payments waived. Those who borrowed less than $12,000 and have been paying for more than 10 years may have their debt canceled, with an additional year for each $1,000 additional borrowed.

The first forgiveness plan used the HEROES Act, which provides relief in time of emergency, to authorize $10,000 and $20,000 payments to borrowers. The HEROES Act was a central part of the Supreme Court case. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the ruling that, “the (HEROES Act allows the Secretary to ‘waive or modify’ existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up.”

The SAVE plan, however, relies on the Higher Education Act. Petri described it as “an amendment to an existing plan.”

The law prescribes an income-driven repayment plan “paid over an extended period of time prescribed by the Secretary, not to exceed 25 years.” The wording of “not to exceed 25 years” was a central point in Monday’s arguments.

Divine said that while the federal government is using the wording as permission to forgive loans, he argued that the Secretary of Education should set rates that complete payment by 25 years.

“The text expressly requires repayment, ” he said, emphasizing the label of SAVE as a “repayment plan.”

Ross questioned this by saying that Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), a program that waives outstanding student debt after 10 years working in public service, is also named a repayment plan.

Divine said enrollees in PSLF make payments and must repay entirely “unless you satisfy the elements needed to obtain forgiveness.”

Petri said the Higher Education Act must be considered in full.

“We think that the full statutory language, taken as a whole, not only authorized in this plan but provides clear congressional authorization,” he said.

While the authorizing law has changed between the Supreme Court ruling and Monday’s arguments, Divine said the reason Missouri has standing in the case remains. He told the judge it was the “same exact theory of standing” argued last year, saying that the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) will be harmed if the plan goes into effect.

“MOHELA doesn’t just process loans, it owns loans… and it earns interest on those loans,” Divine said.

MOHELA is a quasi-governmental nonprofit. It did not consent to being part of the lawsuit that ended up before the Supreme Court, and internal communications released by loan-forgiveness activists show employees apprehension in being named.

MOHELA stands to lose $987 million if the plan is enacted in July, Divine argued.

U.S. Department of Justice attorney Simon Jerome said there are “problems with that number,” like the federal contract for many of these loans is expiring.

He also pointed to MOHELA’s request to downsize its portfolio by up to 1.5 million borrowers.

“And 1.5 million is quite a bit larger… than the 81,000 accounts slated for forgiveness under the SAVE Plan,” Jerome said.

Ross asked if the SAVE Plan might be removing borrowers in addition to MOHELA’s request.

“The department is committed to removing up to 1.5 million,” Jerome said. “There is room to right-size it.”

When loan payments resumed in the fall, MOHELA borrowers submitted complaints, like not receiving bills that led to them missing payment. As a result, the Department of Education fined MOHELA $7.2 million for “servicer failures.”

With fewer accounts to service, Jerome said, MOHELA can “get back on its feet.”

“These potential benefits, aren’t they all speculative?” Ross asked.

Jerome said the department used “a lot of data” in its estimation.

Divine also spoke about another entity he argues would be harmed, mentioning the Bank of North Dakota’s program refinancing federal loans. He said customers would not be likely to refinance with the bank after the SAVE Plan offers $0 payments and forgiveness.

“You don’t have to be an economist to understand that free money is appealing,” he said.

Jerome said this argument was “speculative.”

“For all of the Bank of North Dakota borrowers, I haven’t seen a single affidavit, haven’t seen a single statement from a borrower (promising to consolidate),” he said.

He looked at the bank’s website, he said, and noticed that it did not represent itself as a competitor with the federal government.

Jerome, additionally, told the judge he thought all the states should have to prove harm for the case to continue. In the previous Supreme Court case, just MOHELA’s harm was enough.

The timing of the case, which was filed in April months after the rule was proposed, will also come into consideration as there is a question of whether the attorney general’s office is too late.

Divine said the timing should be allowed because the office is only trying to proactively stop the program, rather than revoking loan forgiveness that has already occurred.

Ross asked him if he’s declaring “imminent harm,” why he didn’t file earlier.

Divine doesn’t read the Federal Register daily, he said, so he didn’t know about the rule until February.

Divine was part of a negotiated rulemaking committee on federal student loan relief from October to December, before removing himself from the committee. The committee was crafting the rule announced in April but discussed the SAVE plan, according to meeting transcripts.

Both the judge and Petri mentioned the State of Missouri’s involvement in negotiated rulemaking committees. MOHELA’s ​​Director Business Development & Government Relations Will Shaffner was part of the previous round of negotiated rulemaking in 2021-2022.

“I think any timing issue is a problem of (Missouri’s) own making,” Petri said.

He said the delay should “undermine an assertion of irreparable harm.”

MOHELA did not respond to a request for comment.

Article has been updated to correct Divine’s estimate of the SAVE Plan’s cost to taxpayers.

Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, answers questions about his legislation expanding MOScholars during a press conference in January. His bill was expanded and signed into law by the end of this year's legislative session (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

During Missouri’s 2024 legislative session, 338 bills addressing education were filed: a mix of proposals to change curriculum, increase funding, boost oversight and others.

The House appeared poised to expedite more K-12 legislation by forming a Special Committee on Education Reform in addition to its usual Elementary and Secondary Education Committee.

Chair of the existing education committee Rep. Brad Pollitt, a Republican from Sedalia, told The Independent that the beginning of session was “hot and heavy” for his bill dubbed open enrollment.

The bill, which sought to allow students to enroll in neighboring school districts that opt in to the program, passed the House for the fourth year in a row.

But soon, it was “radio silence,” as he describes it, for his bill.

Pollitt’s bill, like many others, died behind closed doors as lawmakers negotiated what would become just two education bills signed into law this year.

The vehicle

One of the themes among the few hundred bills filed on education was the expansion of tax-credit scholarships for private schools, a program called MOScholars in Missouri.

MOScholars allows taxpayers to donate up to half of their tax burden to scholarship-distributing nonprofits and get a refund come tax time. The nonprofits, who report to the State Treasurer’s Office, give the money to private schools they partner with. Currently, the program is only in the state’s most populated areas.

Sen. Andrew Koenig, a Republican from Manchester, proposed to open MOScholars statewide and allow wealthier families to qualify for the scholarships. He also sought to raise the cap on tax credits for the program.

When his bill made it to the Senate floor, Democrats held a lengthy filibuster, and negotiations began. The closed-door deal brought the originally 12-page bill to over 150 pages.

Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, was a key negotiator for Senate Democrats. She told The Independent that large education changes in Missouri seem to require an omnibus bill, and her job was about balancing policies her caucus favored with changes others demanded.

“I think as a result of this law, what our schools are capable of and the support we are giving our teachers will hopefully be better as a result of some of the changes we’ve made,” she said.

Her priority was changing the formula that funds public schools. A provision added in negotiations will change a multiplier in the formula to slowly switch from funding based on just attendance to splitting between attendance and enrollment. A study commissioned by the state’s education department last year recommended an enrollment-based funding model.

The change to 50% attendance and 50% enrollment is estimated to bring an additional $47 million annually to public education, according to the fiscal note.

“​​I am sure there were great bills that tackled smaller problems,” Arthur said. “But in terms of really trying to address some of the major issues, these were the right provisions to do that.”

Priorities

Pollitt was part of the negotiations, too. Although he has spent years refining his open-enrollment legislation, he knew it wouldn’t make it onto Koenig’s bill. He said his bill “wasn’t a priority on either side of the aisle.”

“The side of the aisle that I’m on wanted educational choice that was more extensive than open enrollment, and the other side of the aisle didn’t want any school choice necessarily,” he said.

He said Senate Democrats could stomach the expansion of MOScholars, since it was already available in Democratic areas, but wouldn’t sit down for a new program in their areas like he was proposing. Arthur confirmed this to be true, adding that the new law’s expansion of charter schools into Boone County was unfavorable but was a long-time priority for Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden — a Republican from Columbia who has announced his retirement from state politics.

When the House was ready to debate Koenig’s bill on the floor (now loaded with the caucuses’ priorities), movement on other K-12 education bills stopped. Some of the bills didn’t move because they were completely incorporated into the larger education package, but others lacked support.

​​“In order to move that big bill, there was a lot of political capital spent on that,” Sen. Jill Carter, a Granby Republican, told The Independent.

She attempted to place her educational priority onto the bill after Senate leaders had completed negotiations and distributed the thick stacks of the legislation.

Her bill sought to remove school accreditation authority from the state’s education department by allowing school districts to use nationally recognized accrediting agencies instead. It also proposed replacing the Missouri Assessment Program, or MAP test, with a summative assessment “that meets federal requirements.”

The legislation received bipartisan support in committee and passed unanimously, but the committee’s vote was never reported on the Senate floor — a step required to come up for debate.

When she attempted to add it as an amendment to Koenig’s bill post-negotiations, she was advised against unbalancing the education package.

Sen. Curtis Trent, a Springfield Republican, told her the bill was “highly negotiated.” He had filed a bill that also sought to change the way school accreditation is done in Missouri, though his approach focused on performance and growth scores. His proposal would focus more on standardized testing, whereas Carter’s had a decentralized approach.

“This is a highly crafted, highly balanced, fine-tuned piece of legislation,” Trent said on the Senate floor. “Inserting it like this in the 11th hour… risks derailing this very important piece of legislation in a way that I don’t believe is fair to the underlying bill sponsor and everyone involved in the process.”

He indicated that he had an amendment to Carter’s legislation, and she withdrew her bill.

Arthur said she didn’t see enough support behind Carter’s bill, so it wasn’t likely to pass.

Both Carter and Pollitt are planning to refile their legislation.

Arthur, who has termed out of the Senate, said she recommends watching how new laws affect education before passing more large changes.

“(Koenig’s bill) is a major education omnibus bill, and it contains a lot of provisions that can shape and reshape education in Missouri,” she said. “I would recommend that the legislature let those things get fully implemented and see how they’re working before moving forward with anything else as substantial.”

Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick speaks to reporters Jan. 23 about a critical report of the Secretary of State's office (Jason Hancock/Missouri Independent).

Independence School District Superintendent Dale Herl feels targeted by the state for moving to a four-day school week.

On Wednesday, Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick announced a plan to audit the district.

Independence schools aren’t accused of wrongdoing, and no one asked for an audit.

Rather, it’s Fitzpatrick’s first foray into conducting more routine audits of some of the state’s 518 school districts, something he promised during his campaign and inauguration.

Fitzpatrick initially said he wanted to investigate schools teaching about sexuality, gender or “critical race theory” — which has become a catchall term for race- or diversity-related concepts that parents or politicians may find objectionable. So far, he hasn’t emphasized that in the Independence audit.

“The combination of them being a large district that has a four-day week that’s in the Kansas City area was a big factor” in choosing to audit Independence, he said.

The auditor’s office has held expanded power to audit school districts for more than a decade, but has rarely used it. Fitzpatrick’s decision to flex that power comes as a bill further expanding the auditor’s authority to investigate other government bodies without an invitation awaits Gov. Mike Parson’s signature.

The formal announcement of the audit to the school board on May 14 came shortly after Parson signed legislation to require school districts in charter counties and cities over 30,000 in population to seek voter approval if they want a four-day school week.

Independence switched to a Tuesday-through-Friday schedule for the 2023-24 school year to better recruit teachers and other staff. Herl said it’s already been successful.

The law doesn’t affect most of the more than 150 districts in the state that, like Independence, switched to a four-day week, because most of them are rural.

But it requires Independence, by far the largest district in the state to go to a four-day week, to win voter approval or return to a five-day week.

The new law and the audit announcement come as Independence is wrapping up its first school year on the four-day schedule.

“It does feel like we were certainly targeted because we are (on) a four-day school week,” Herl said.

Making audits routine

The state auditor’s job is to check state agencies, circuit courts and local governments for waste, fraud and inefficiencies.

School districts are required to have regular financial audits, conducted by an independent auditor. But audits from the state typically look beyond finances and don’t follow a set schedule.

While the auditor has had expanded power to audit school districts since 2008, school audits have most frequently happened when citizens collect signatures to petition for an audit or in response to specific concerns.

Of six school district and charter school audits completed since 2019, half sprang from citizen petitions, two were requested by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and one was requested by a charter school’s board.

Older audit reports don’t always state why they were initiated, but Fitzpatrick said auditors have conducted an average of one to two school district audits a year since 2008.

The Beacon confirmed those numbers are accurate based on online audit reports when you leave out follow-up reports, charter school audits and higher education audits.

K-12 education is one of the state’s biggest expenses. Fitzpatrick said, “we spent almost none of our audit resources auditing the recipient of those funds.”

He wants routine audits of school districts to become more common and has been adding staff for that work.

“We are going to use more of our discretionary audit resources to do audits of school districts,” Fitzpatrick said. “The role that school districts play in preparing the next generation of Missourians for the workforce is incredibly important.”

Fitzpatrick’s office is also auditing the Kingston K-14 school district in Washington County because of a citizen petition and the Francis Howell school district in St. Charles County because of concerns with “management and efficiency issues,” particularly with recent building projects.

Both districts are on the eastern side of the state, which influenced the decision to add a Kansas City-area district to the mix, Fitzpatrick said.

Costs and benefits

Herl said he expects the audit report will be clean and that it could include useful suggestions.

But the audit is also a burden.

When auditors ask for documents, Herl said, “we need to stop what we’re doing as far as payroll or ending our fiscal year out to make sure that we’re complying with their requests.”

The process is “very cumbersome for our staff,” but “something we’ll gladly do,” Herl said. “If there are things that we could do better, we certainly want to know that.”

Neither Herl nor Fitzpatrick could estimate how many staff hours the audit will take.

Fitzpatrick’s office takes on any direct costs to pay for the audits. He estimated it could use $70,000 to $80,000 worth of staff time from his office.

“That would be what they would be paid regardless of whether we’re (auditing) Independence or some other district or some other entity,” he said.

The report could be public by late 2024 or early 2025, Fitzpatrick said.

If the audit reveals the district is well-run, “that should be something that the community should be happy about, and should instill confidence in the people in charge of the district,” he said.

When auditors get involved, schools are more likely to follow the rules and function in a more austere way, said Dustin Hornbeck, an assistant professor of leadership and policy studies at the University of Memphis.

Hornbeck has studied the expanding role of some state auditors in education, particularly as they’re called on to hold charter schools accountable.

While audits’ impact can be positive, Hornbeck said they’re also conducted by political, partisan officials in states like Missouri where the auditor is elected.

The ability to do performance audits at will could lead districts to wonder whether the auditor is trying to send a message with the timing of an audit, he said.

“It’s fascinating and kind of startling to think that the auditor just gets to pick and choose at random whomever they decide they want to audit,” he said. “You could use it as a political ax to grind or to go after political adversaries.”

In Independence, audit staff are figuring out how to approach an audit without a specific problem area in mind. They’re talking with school board members, surveying upper-level staff and distributing contact information so community members can leave tips.

Questions so far have focused on the four-day school week and finances, Herl said.

There will be some emphasis on curriculum as well, Fitzpatrick said.

Todd Schuler, a Missouri audit manager who presented to the school board, said the final audit report won’t mention any topic unless there’s a recommendation related to it. It won’t rule on whether the four-day week is good or bad, but might examine how the decision was made.

“It’s a bit unusual,” Schuler told the school board. “This is pretty rare that we don’t go out with at least some known issues or concerns.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The reasons behind the rise in mental health issues among children and adolescents remain unclear. Mental health professionals often point to smartphones, social media and — a big one — the hangover from the pandemic shutdown (Getty Images).

Melvin White sits with his generation at a demographic Ground Zero for mental stress.

The Schlagle High School junior survived COVID isolation during middle school. He’s never known a world without smartphones. And he’s finishing high school amid the FOMO energy of a social media world in its own adolescence.

All of those factors, experts say, put Melvin and his classmates at the center of uncharted ground for mental health. It has psychiatric professionals worried about suicides for the most troubled kids and recognizing serious problems among more kids than have been recorded before.

Melvin is one of the lucky ones. He got a spot in his school’s Becoming a Man, or BAM program, which teaches middle and high school students how to process trauma, deal with anger, interact with friends and set goals. Its counterpart for girls is Working on Womanhood, or WOW.

Melvin has spent an hour a week for the last two years in a group counseling session — talking with other boys and a counselor about school stress, friend issues or whatever else is on their minds.

The experience, Melvin said, changed him.

“Before, I wasn’t confident in myself,” he said recently at a youth summit sponsored by Youth Guidance, the national organization that runs BAM and WOW.  “I was very shy. And I was very, like, depressed and … I wasn’t taking care of myself.”

Now, Melvin, who works part time at Skate City and loves to read and play sports, imagines a future after high school. A future he’s even excited about.

“I want to go to the military,” he said, a smile crossing his face, “and see where that takes me.”

The reasons behind the rise in mental health issues among children and adolescents remain unclear. Mental health professionals often point to smartphones, social media and — a big one — the hangover from the pandemic shutdown. Younger people also possess a growing desire for mental health care and are more willing to ask for it.

But whatever the cause, the reality is that many young patients in need of care go untreated. And that is raising alarms — all the more concerning because this generation of parents, counselors and kids is the first to deal with the aftereffects of the pandemic, the consequences of social media or what never-ending alerts on kids’ phones might mean for their well-being.

Youth mental health ’emergency’

The U.S. surgeon general in 2021 put out an advisory that drew attention to the issue, calling the challenges today’s young people must face “unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate.”

“Too often, young people are bombarded with messages through the media and popular culture that erode their sense of self-worth,” wrote Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, “telling them they are not good looking enough, popular enough, smart enough, or rich enough.”

Even before COVID shut down the world, replacing classroom discussions, exchanges in the hallway and rides home on the bus with endless screen time, kids already were anxious, Murthy said. They fretted about a gone-wild climate, the growing gap between rich and poor, racism and the ravage of opioids and guns.

The pandemic shutdown poured gasoline on that anxiety. The isolation it brought left gaping holes in kids’ social skills and changed the reality they understood, experts said.

“We came back to school and we pressed go,” said Garrett M. Webster Sr., executive director of Youth Guidance Kansas City. “We didn’t really think about the impact of what had been normalized. There was so much talk for at least two years about getting back to normal, without realizing that there was a new normal.”

The isolation of the pandemic also shone a light on the country’s shaky mental health infrastructure.

Major medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health in 2021. And a broad coalition of health care and social service organizations in 2023 put out a document of principles. It identified nine areas that could help stem the crisis, such as reaching kids sooner, bolstering the mental health workforce and adding mental health care at schools and in pediatricians’ offices.

The last couple of years have seen some progress, said Dr. Marian F. Earls, who chairs the AAP’s Council on Healthy Mental & Emotional Development.

For example, the federal agency that oversees Medicaid has changed rules that could increase benefits available for mental health care and make it easier to get coverage for school-based behavioral health services. And the federal government put more money into the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program, a network of mental health care teams that consult and train pediatricians.

In Kansas, a program is joining community mental health centers and school districts to get treatment to kids.

“There are so many good, hopeful things happening,” Earls said. “The awareness of folks is so much higher. We have the opportunity to address things earlier and better than we have.”

But, the work is far from done, she said.

Start with medical insurance. Because it’s hard for clinics to get paid, it’s hard to get help. The byzantine rules of American health care billing stump families and frustrate mental health providers, made worse by state-by-state quirks.

“We still have a long way to go,” Earls said.

Psychiatrists, psychologists and other providers are often in short supply. Psychiatric hospitals have closed, in part, because of low reimbursement rates. And many people — especially children — can’t get care.

No true health care without mental health care

Children’s Mercy Hospital has seen a 67% increase in referrals for mental health services since 2017. Only 166 psychiatric beds for children and adolescents exist within 45 minutes of Kansas City, and those beds aren’t available to some patients who have other medical conditions or certain neurodevelopmental disorders.

The hospital estimates that between 40% and 50% of kids who need mental health care in the Kansas City area may go untreated.

Last summer, Children’s Mercy announced a $150 million fundraising campaign to put more money into the problem. Among other things, the hospital is working to embed mental health professionals in schools and pediatrician practices, add psychiatric beds for kids and open an outpatient facility that can serve kids who need mental health services in a school-like setting.

That will be a start, said Dr. Bob Batterson, who leads the hospital’s Developmental and Behavioral Health division. But COVID left an enormous need where there was already a growing void, he said.

“There is no true health care without mental health care,” Batterson said. “It all is one package.”

Britney Sanders, a care coordinator with the Wyandot Behavioral Health Network, said she thinks young people are more aware of mental health issues than older generations. But knowing you need help doesn’t matter if you can’t find it. And help should come before a crisis develops, she said.

“There needs to be more services at a prevention level versus an intervention level,” Sanders said.

Remember BAM and WOW, the programs that bring group counseling to middle and high schools? This year, they reached about 700 middle and high school students in the Center, Hickman Mills and Kansas City, Kansas, school districts.

Youth Guidance, the organization behind BAM and WOW, hopes to expand into additional Kansas City-area school districts. The nonprofit is funded through a mix of private donations and tax dollars.

The programs are working, Webster said. By Youth Guidance’s calculations, girls involved with WOW in the Kansas City districts saw a 62% reduction in anxiety symptoms and a 71% drop in depression symptoms.

Zoie Harrington, a junior in WOW at Ruskin High School, said the Tuesday afternoon group meetings she went to throughout the school year gave her a needed outlet to take a breath between school work and theater rehearsals.

“It’s a safe space for girls to figure themselves out,” she said.

BAM and WOW reach kids who probably wouldn’t have another outlet to get help. Yet they are also kids — often from poor neighborhoods where violence and other trauma are commonplace — who need help the most.

“I love helping young men in general, but especially the ones that look like me,” said Jaron Reed, a counselor with the BAM program at Ruskin who is Black.

He’s teaching his students skills for dealing with stress and trauma and just giving them an opening to feel their emotions. In Reed’s classroom, boys can toss a basketball through a mini hoop if they need to blow off steam. They can yell and get upset. Or they can just talk.

“This is their safe space,” Reed said. “Anything that happens in the room, stays in the room. And we’re treating each other with integrity.”

The social and emotional skills the boys are learning, Reed said, will serve them throughout their lives.

“When I was their age, I didn’t have anybody to guide me and help counsel me in that aspect,” he said. “It took me a while to get where I was going. But if I can give them a head start, that’s all the better.”

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The iconic columns of the University of Missouri-Columbia campus (University of Missouri photo).

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, calls on the U.S. Education Department to cut ties with Missouri student loan servicer MOHELA on Wednesday, May 22, 2024, outside the U.S. Capitol (Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — A group of advocates and progressive Democratic lawmakers called on the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday to end its contract with MOHELA, a Missouri-based student loan servicer.

U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Greg Casar of Texas and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts urged the department to cut ties with MOHELA, also known as the Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri, during a press conference hosted by the Debt Collective, which advocates for canceling student debt.

Advocates and the lawmakers accused MOHELA of being a predatory loan service and failing student borrowers, citing mismanagement, administrative failures and hours-long wait times for assistance.

“It is time to stop their contract, it is time to fire them, it is time to listen to the borrowers that have been speaking up about the struggles that they are facing, and it is time for us to do the right thing,” Omar said. “We are asking the administration to take this step forward because it is past time that we listen to the borrowers that have been suffering under the incompetence of MOHELA.”

The Education Department did not respond on the record to a request for comment Wednesday.

In moves it has characterized as bolstering protections for borrowers, the department launched a new accountability initiative in November and has transitioned to new loan servicing contracts.

‘Nothing short of a nightmare’

MOHELA is at the center of two class-action lawsuits in recent months accusing the nonprofit of a “failure to timely process and render decisions for student loan borrowers enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.”

One of the lawsuits names MOHELA alone, while the other names both the nonprofit and the U.S. Education Department.

The student loan servicer has also taken heat from the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group, and the American Federation of Teachers, a major teachers’ union. In a report from February, the two entities accused the nonprofit of failing “to perform basic servicing functions.”

They also claimed that “more than four in ten student loan borrowers MOHELA services have experienced a servicing failure since loan payments resumed in September 2023.”

In March, MOHELA sent a cease and desist letter to the Student Borrower Protection Center, accusing its report of making “false, misleading and sensationalized claims and insinuations regarding MOHELA and its business activities.”

A spokesperson for MOHELA said in an emailed statement Wednesday that “borrowers are not better off when outside groups spread false and misleading information about our work as a federal contractor for FSA.” The spokesperson added that MOHELA remains “committed to continuing to provide the highest quality of customer service to the borrowers that we serve.”

Student loan servicers are companies contracted by the federal government to handle billing and other administrative tasks regarding federal student loans, according to Federal Student Aid.

MOHELA services nearly 8 million borrowers after winning a contract in 2022 to handle the Education Department’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, said during Wednesday’s event that “at every step,” MOHELA has “failed student loan borrowers.”

“They’ve lost paperwork, they’ve given people the runaround,” Pierce said while standing next to an exhibit displaying what appeared to be a nine-hour hold time when trying to reach one of MOHELA’s customer service representatives.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, at Wednesday’s press conference said MOHELA has a “call-deflection scheme.”

“When it is critical for people to be on the phone with someone, they can’t get on the phone with someone,” Weingarten said.

Shamell Bell, a member of the Debt Collective, said her interactions with the student loan servicer have been “nothing short of a nightmare.”

Bell said she was in a “labyrinth of just false information, false promises and failures that are not just administrative errors” but also “systemic obstacles that jeopardize the financial stability and mental wellness of countless borrowers like myself.”

More student loan forgiveness 

Meanwhile, the Biden administration said earlier Wednesday that it had approved an additional $7.7 billion in student debt relief for 160,500 borrowers. The bulk of the relief — more than $5 billion — went to nearly 67,000 borrowers partaking in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Wednesday’s move brought the administration’s total loan forgiveness to $167 billion for 4.75 million Americans.

“The Biden-Harris Administration remains persistent about our efforts to bring student debt relief to millions more across the country, and this announcement proves it,” U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “One out of every 10 federal student loan borrowers approved for debt relief means one out of every 10 borrowers now has financial breathing room and a burden lifted.”

Interns Santino Bono (left) and Alanna Nguyen stand with legislative assistant Dustin Bax after receiving resolutions from the Missouri House of Resolutions to commemorate their service (courtesy of Santino Bono).

In March, the phone in state Rep. Deb Lavender’s office in Jefferson City started ringing constantly, but the calls weren’t for her.

They were for her interns, Santino Bono and Alanna Nguyen.

The interns, along with Dylan Powers Cody, who was interning for state Rep. Peter Merideth, had spent months cross-checking spreadsheets to pinpoint school districts who had not yet claimed pandemic-era federal funds for homeless students.

Those federal dollars are part of the American Rescue Plan and must be budgeted by September. A large part of the interns’ project was calling districts to notify them that they had money that could expire if they didn’t act quickly.

The office got so many calls back from schools about the interns’ project that Lavender’s legislative assistant needed to create a voicemail folder just for them.

So far, they helped districts claim $1.15 million in funds in four months that can be used for a range of services for homeless students — from buying washers and dryers to temporary hotel stays and transit cards.

“We had multiple school districts call back and say, ‘We have twenty grand in the bank that we can use to help homeless students? No one really told us,’” Bono said in an interview with The Independent.

Most of the districts the interns reached had no idea they had funding available, Nguyen said.

“Then, they wanted more information on it,” she said. “Once they got the information on it, they were able to kind of kickstart it up and get things moving along.”

Bono expected the internship might be more menial, including the “intern trope of having to get coffee for people,” he said.

“To know that I could have potentially a much bigger impact on actual students, as a student myself, I’m really proud of that,” Bono said.

Missouri received an infusion of $9.6 million in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 for students experiencing homelessness, and schools were able to start using it in 2022.

But many of those schools had never received federal dollars to support homeless students before.

Tera Bock, director of homeless education for Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the agency alerted school districts to the funding but that several challenges emerged.

“It is not funding that most districts are used to having, so they usually are supporting their students experiencing homelessness without any funding specific to that,” she said. “The extra funding creates the need for a shift in mindset as far as what they provide for those students.”

School districts have until the end of September to budget the remaining $6.1 million or lose out on it. 

Most schools received a few thousands dollars in federal aid for homeless students. The largest allocation, based on its homeless student population, went to St. Louis City which received $850,000.

The funding is best used for one-time costs, Bock said, like a vehicle to transport students with housing insecurity or to meet emergency needs.

“The district should really consider how they can use it in a way that is not going to create a financial burden in the future whenever they don’t have the funds anymore,” Bock said.

She said rural districts with a smaller population of students experiencing homelessness are the most likely to struggle to spend the money.

Bock has been in her role for a couple months, and the position was vacant briefly.

Part of her job is to contact each district’s homeless liaison, a position every district is federally required to have. But sometimes, the liaisons have multiple positions in schools, and Bock doesn’t hear back from them.

“Especially in the districts where they don’t typically see a large population of homeless students, they get multiple roles, and it just gets lost in the shuffle,” she said.

“We don’t have very many (districts) here in Missouri where that person is completely designated as their entire job for the most part,” she said. “They are wearing lots of different hats.”

Bock said she sends “lots of communication,” so “they should be aware” of the funds but wonders if liaisons are properly connected to district administration to get the money budgeted.

With more communication and activities planned, Bock is not concerned about being able to get more money claimed by districts.

“This is definitely a big piece of what I’m working on right now,” she said. “And our sights are set on Sept. 30.” 

Bock said the interns were “super helpful” in the process.

“There has been good communication whenever they need some backup information to support questions that are coming up,” she said. “So they’ve been great to work with.”

The interns are hopeful schools will continue allocating the funds.

“There’s still a lot to be done by September and session’s ending,” Bono said. “I’m going off to law school. I can’t keep calling school districts. So we’re just hoping that more awareness can be given to school districts to kind of get them to keep working towards this.”

Lavender said the funds might look modest in terms of the state’s overall budget but the impact on students is large. In Webster Groves, she said, the schools “got another $8,000 that I don’t think they knew was sitting there.”

Lavender’s legislative assistant Dustin Bax chimed in: “And $8,000 of backpacks, non-perishable foods, fuel cards — that goes a long way.”

A large first grade class heads outdoors on May 7 at George Melcher Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri. The school has seen rapid enrollment growth this year (Zach Bauman/The Beacon)/

The line of children filing down the hallway of George Melcher Elementary School in Kansas City seemed endless.

“This is one first grade class,” Principal LaKeisha Paul said.

“How many kids do you have?” she called to the teacher. The answer was 32.

It’s hard to keep track. New students have continued to pour into Melcher throughout the school year.

The kindergarten-through-sixth grade school went from 298 students in early September to 413 in mid-April, a nearly 39% increase.

Growth didn’t stop there. On May 7, Paul said the school had seen 95 new students since April 1. Eight more had arrived that day.

“Right now, we’re just trying to get them in, let them know that they’re safe, feed them lunch and start planning for next year,” she said.

About 18 months ago, Melcher was on a list of 10 schools that the district considered closing, hoping to spend more money on academics and activities rather than buildings. Declining enrollment — and projections that the area’s population would drop — figured prominently.

Now, Melcher strains to fit in an ever-growing number of students.

The school offers a stark example of growing enrollment across the district throughout the 2023-24 school year, especially in several schools the district had considered shuttering.

A nearly 80% increase in the number of new students arriving from other countries compared to last year fueled much of the growth.

Adding about 970 K-12 students — a 7% increase — between September and mid-April has upended the conversation in the district, Deputy Superintendent Derald Davis said.

“It lessens the chance that we need to consider any consolidations,” he said. “If schools are filling up and bursting at the seams, we’ll actually have to have a different conversation around possibly opening up another school.

Challenges for schools

When new students arrive in Melcher, the school has to address their medical and mental health concerns as well as squeezing them into classrooms and adding more children for teachers, counselors and administrators to look after, Paul said.

That can be especially true if the family is brand-new to the U.S.

“We had a little boy, just got here, speaks no English, missing his parents, and he had an abscessed tooth,” she said. “(The) fourth grader cried for days and days with the nurse’s office just trying to get him into a dentist because they’d come with no insurance. It’s like a whole ordeal. … We’re just kind of making it work right now.”

The school has leaned on district language resources to communicate with new families in Spanish, Arabic and Swahili. One family spoke a language rare enough that the school had to specially download it into Google Translate, Paul said.

Class sizes are another concern.

Missouri sets standards, from up to 25 per class for kindergarten through second grade to as many as 33 for high school. KCPS tries to aim lower, especially for schools that haven’t historically performed well, Davis said.

But when extra students show up partway through the year, schools have to surpass the caps or find workarounds.

The state limits represent “a strong suggestion,” Paul said. But when new students keep arriving, “what do you do at the end of the year? You can’t just hire a teacher.”

Davis said the district has made overflow plans, where some students are sent outside their neighborhood to a school with more room.

At Melcher, Paul no longer has an instructional coach — someone who mentors teachers to improve their work. She made that person a second grade teacher to split two huge classes into three smaller ones.

Next year, Davis said, the district will be able to plan for hiring enough teachers.

He said KCPS is expecting to see more growth based on current trends, predictions of how many refugee children will arrive and plans to make the district more appealing to families, such as improving transportation and fixing air conditioning problems.

While the growth is an overall positive sign that families trust the district with their children, it puts stress on teachers, said Jason Roberts, president of KCPS’ teachers union.

“I am thankful that we did not close 10 schools, because we have nowhere to put the children now,” he said. “In the midst of a teacher shortage, there aren’t people to fill classrooms, which means classrooms are already large, and they’re getting larger. And I think that’s the deficit that we have to fix. We have to be prepared for a solid influx of kids every year.”

Benefits for KCPS

KCPS has made it clear that improving enrollment is central to the district’s success, especially if the public doesn’t want it to close schools.

Having more students in each building is more financially efficient, allows for programs such as sports teams that work better in larger schools and could justify keeping more schools open.

Enrollment has been a struggle.

Competition with charter schools — public schools that are free to attend but operate independently of the district — helped shrink KCPS. The district had more than 36,000 students in the mid-1990s but less than 15,000 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like most districts, KCPS saw a drop in enrollment in 2020 — about 5% — as some families opted for private school or homeschooling, delayed enrolling young children or fell off the radar.

During the 2021-22 school year, charter school enrollment exceeded the district’s.

In early 2022, the district regained full accreditation from the state for the first time in a decade.  Small increases in fall enrollment followed in 2022 and 2023, but not enough to bring the district back to pre-pandemic levels.

That suddenly changed with the 7% K-12 enrollment growth during the school year that’s wrapping up now. When including pre-kindergarten students, enrollment increased by nearly 1,250, or about 9%.

In addition to fending off school closures, enrollment growth feels like a vote of confidence, Davis said. The district plans to ask voters to approve a bond to fund building improvements, something that hasn’t happened in nearly 60 years.

“We want to be the premiere destination for a quality education in Kansas City,” Davis said.

Why KCPS enrollment is growing

For years, it seemed the number of children in the area was declining, said Ike Graham, president of the Vineyard Neighborhood Association.

With talk of KCPS closing Melcher and the Missouri State Board of Education shutting down Genesis School, he worried that pattern would continue.

“If I still had a family with kids,” Graham said, “I’d move where the school is.”

Recently, Graham said he’s seeing quite a few people move into the neighborhood, though it wasn’t obvious to him that the number of children specifically had increased.

Some are returning to the city from the suburbs or are drawn by affordable housing, such as new duplexes, Graham and neighborhood association secretary Virginia Flowers said.

Paul, the Melcher principal, said the school’s growth could be driven by rental prices and the draw of community.

“A lot of our Hispanic families are moving because they already have family in the area,” Paul said.

Melcher is tucked away in a residential neighborhood of small, ranch-style homes, about a block away from 39th Street and about half a mile from where it intersects with Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard.

It serves the neighborhoods of Vineyard, Vineyard Estates, Dunbar, Knoches Park, East Side and Palestine West/Oak Park Northeast.

Some students transfer from charter schools, but most families are coming from other districts, states and countries, Paul said.

KCPS shared data that show how students enrolled at the end of the 2022-23 school year ended up in the district. Then it compares that to how current students, or those who graduated this year, got there.

The largest group of new students moved in from elsewhere in Missouri. But the biggest change from last year was the number of students coming in from outside the U.S.

That group went from 400 students last year to 717 students this school year, about a 79% increase.

KCPS also saw about 160 more students move in from within the state compared to last year. Increases in students transferring from out of state, private school and homeschooling were smaller.

It’s not clear from the data what proportion of students from in-state come from charter schools, elsewhere in the metro or other regions of Missouri.

Area school districts, including North Kansas City, Hickman Mills, Center, Shawnee Mission, Olathe and Kansas City, Kansas, said enrollment had been steady or shared data showing only small percentage changes during the school year. The Independence district did not respond.

Davis said KCPS’ public engagement, such as conversations about proposed school closures and the district’s long-term plan, have improved awareness about what the district has to offer and led to more local families choosing KCPS.

But there’s no noticeable trend of families leaving local charter schools en masse, said Leslie Kohlmeyer, executive director of Show Me KC Schools.

Her nonprofit helps families navigate their education options including charter and private schools and runs School App KC, an application used by most area charter schools and several private schools and pre-K programs. The number of families using that application has stayed steady.

“Probably both (traditional public and charter) sectors are increasing in numbers and not one pulling from the other,” she said.

Kohlmeyer has noticed some families taking a strong stance in favor of KCPS.

“Millennials and Gen Z are very dedicated to public education, which for them doesn’t include charters,” she said.

Which KCPS schools are growing in enrollment

The schools that grew most during the school year were generally located in the east-central or northeast areas of the district.

Like Melcher, many of them were also on a school closure list before the district reversed course.

That includes Faxon Elementary School, which covers the Santa Fe and Squier Park neighborhoods and grew by nearly one-third during the school year. Wheatley, James and Whittier elementary schools and Central High School grew 10% to 20%.

Other schools that grew at a similar rate — but hadn’t been at risk of closure — include Trailwoods, Garfield and J.A. Rogers elementary schools, Northeast and Central middle schools and East High School.

Some of KCPS’ small special programs, such as Evening Academy and alternative schools, grew by a dramatic percentage, and the district’s virtual academy saw a 29% increase.

Kohlmeyer, whose nonprofit is located in the historic northeast to better serve immigrant families, also said she’s noticed more of those families finding affordable housing farther south.

The district’s southernmost schools, Hartman and Hale Cook elementaries in Waldo, didn’t see the most dramatic growth, but Davis said that’s in part because they were already full at the beginning of the year.

While the district’s high schools generally have space to spare, Davis said full elementary schools could require the district to reopen a school.

“We are pretty much full on the southern end of town,” he said. “So if our northern schools and those in the central part of town began to show those same sort of numbers, we may be there fairly quickly.”

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey, right, testifies to the House Budget Committee on Feb. 6, 2024 (Rudi Keller/MIssouri Independent).

School districts in Jackson County saw home property assessments leap by nearly a third — and add more heft to their tax bases.

They set their property tax rates lower to reflect the beefier assessments — amid a furor from homeowners and politicians contending the numbers inflated the real value of properties in the county.

That tossed Jackson County into the center of a court challenge from the state that could test who can challenge assessments and how.

Meanwhile, those schools? And other entities that get tax money such as police, fire departments, libraries, mental health services?

School districts in the county claimed in court this week that a win for the homeowners would prove “catastrophic,” costing school districts nearly $1,500 per student.

“That’s not fair to the school districts, the fire protection districts, the libraries,” said Joe Hatley, an attorney representing the Lee’s Summit School District.

It looks most likely that those taxing districts won’t take a hit — a lawsuit demanding that  nearly all the new assessments be erased faces steep odds. Meanwhile, any rebate for homeowners wouldn’t arrive for months at the earliest.

The lawsuit filed by the Missouri State Tax Commission and Attorney General Andrew Bailey contends property owners didn’t get a fair shot to challenge such dramatic increases in their assessments.

The Missouri Supreme Court threw out a similar class-action lawsuit last year. In that case, the court concluded that homeowners couldn’t sue if they didn’t appeal their property assessments with the county first.

That earlier lawsuit sought to reverse all of the assessments that increased more than 15% or didn’t get a mailed notice of the change. But most of the cases had not gone through the usual appeals. Likewise this year, the state wants to throw out all the new assessments that increased any amount.

That means Bailey is testing the limits of a fresh precedent from the high court. Bailey’s case differs by arguing that there is no fair way for homeowners to challenge assessments. That case has its next court date on June 6.

The Missouri Supreme Court has said no before 

Bailey has used his office aggressively in pursuit of conservative causes with mixed success — pushing to ban gender-affirming care, abortion and federal student loan relief.

Now the Republican is stretching the scope of the attorney general’s office by stepping into an intra-county dispute between taxpayers and their local government.

Mike Ardis, a spokesman for the International Association of Assessing Officers, said he was unfamiliar with any case where a state has tried to void an entire county’s assessment increases.

“We’re not familiar … with a similar situation where a state has tried to void a county’s reassessment,” he said in an email.

Before going to court, property owners can challenge an assessment with the county’s Board of Equalization. If they strike out there, they can appeal to the State Tax Commission.

If their case fails with that state commission, they can sue.

What’s different with these lawsuits is that the attorney general is suing on behalf of all property owners whose assessments increased — even if they didn’t appeal.

Bailey argues that homeowners can go to court before taking a case to the State Tax Commission because the appeal process doesn’t give homeowners a fair shot.

Jackson County’s lawyers counter that if homeowners never tried to appeal, they don’t have the right to sue. Some homeowners have challenged through the county and the state, but the lawsuit calls for undoing all 247,500 property assessments that went up. That includes 190,000-plus that were never appealed.

Last June, a group of property owners filed a class-action lawsuit arguing that the county botched the assessment and appeal process.

The Missouri Supreme Court dismissed their lawsuit using the same reasoning the county’s lawyers push now — that the homeowners hadn’t finished appealing their assessments.

Most states, including Missouri, can order reassessments, Ardis said, “but that is usually because an assessment hasn’t been done rather than on questions about a reassessment.”

Jackson County argues the State Tax Commission can compel Jackson County to redo its assessments without going to court. The county was told by that same commission in 2018 to bring all of its 301,000 properties up to market value because it wasn’t complying with state law.

But the State Tax Commission hasn’t ordered the county to take action on the 2023 assessments. It could sue a county for not following such an order.

‘Catastrophic’: School districts stand to lose millions of dollars

If the attorney general’s lawsuit is successful, Jackson County’s taxing jurisdictions will be forced to refund millions of dollars to homeowners.

The Fort Osage, Oak Grove, Independence and Lee’s Summit school districts submitted an amicus brief on May 9 asking the judge to consider the “catastrophic financial harm” of tossing out the higher assessments. It estimated that would mean paying back $57 million in taxes across the four districts, or $1,468 per student.

Lee’s Summit would have to give up $32 million — almost a tenth of its revenue. But that money has already been spent on the 2023-24 school year.

“The school districts budget for the fact that there will be some successful challenges to the county’s assessments,” the brief says, “but not for an illegal rollback of assessments on virtually every property in the county.”

For Lee’s Summit, that amount is nearly a third of its reserve. It would take years to recover, and in the meantime, the district would be in a precarious position.

“It would require an immense juggling act on the part of the district’s business staff to figure out what to do,” Hatley said. “You’re not going to dig out of that hole anytime soon.”

Housing costs are continuing to rise

The 30% spike in property values that Jackson County residents saw last year appears consistent with the rise in home sale prices. Tech real estate company Zillow says home values in Jackson County have increased by 45% since March 2020.

“There are parts of the county that we’re still trying to get to value … but I would say the majority of what is driving up these values right now is simply an increase in value,” Jackson County’s director of assessment Gail McCann Beatty told The Beacon in April 2023.

At the time, she said that home values have been increasing 14% to 15% every year since the housing market recovered from the pandemic.

Remote work has made the Midwest more appealing for people who previously needed to live in high-cost cities like New York City or Los Angeles. Since 2020, those workers have been able to relocate to Kansas City.

Additionally, corporations have been buying up Kansas City homes to add to their investment portfolios and renting them out. That has shrunk the number of homes for sale and made the market more expensive.

If a judge tells Jackson County to throw out all assessment increases, that will temporarily reduce property values for the 2023 tax year. But unless the county can get the housing market under control, market value will continue to increase and property owners will see their assessments spike once again in 2025.

So even if taxpayers get a property tax refund for 2023, that relief could be short-lived.

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Missouri State Board of Education members look line by line at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education budget Tuesday morning during their board meeting (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education anticipates asking lawmakers for more money later this year in order to meet the demands of a massive new education law and make up for reduced federal funding.

“My gut is… because you have a lot of federal authority deleted… ​​you’ll see the mother of all supplemental budgets, probably in a special session,” State Board of Education Chair Charlie Shields, of St. Joseph, said during Tuesday’s board meeting.

The budget approved by lawmakers for the fiscal year that begins July 1 is more than $1 billion short of the current year’s appropriation, despite a 3.2% bump in pay for the education department’s employees. 

This is before any possible vetoes or budget withholds by Gov. Mike Parson.

Kari Monsees, the department’s commissioner of financial and administrative services, told the board that a “common theme” of the budget was reductions in federal funding. And that impacts the amount of general revenue required next year, he said.

“Is that normal?” Mary Schrag, a board member from West Plains asked. “Is it considered realistic that we’re not going to use all those federal funds moving forward from year to year?”

Some items usually funded by federal money may be part of a supplemental request, Monsees said. He is most worried about the child-care-subsidy program, which encourages child care providers to serve low-income families.

The budget approved by lawmakers last week gives the department almost $260 million for two child care subsidies — a reduction of $23.4 million from current funding. The amount pulled from the state’s general revenue fund is stagnant between the fiscal years, showing a reduction in federal funding.

“We are seeing the case loads increase to the point where we’re going to need some of that capacity moving forward,” Monsees said. “It lowers the overall state budget by reducing some of those federal funds. The question is, is there enough left there?”

House Budget Chair Cody Smith, a Republican from Carthage, told reporters in a press conference last week that the House consolidated federal fund requests based on how much was used in the previous year. According to budget documents, the program has a projected 92% utilization rate in the upcoming fiscal year. .

The budget, which squeaked through hours before the constitutional deadline, doesn’t include provisions of an omnibus education bill recently signed into law by Parson. 

The bill at its core expands the K-12 tax-credit scholarships called MOScholars. But it also includes public-education priorities like a raise to the base teacher pay and scholarships for future educators. House lawmakers, in a floor debate on the legislation, wondered if there would be enough money in the state’s budget in future years to help districts raise teacher salaries and other costly provisions.

Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge, a board member from Pasadena Hills, noted the law’s projected price tag of $468 million when fully implemented.

“Do you feel like this budget adequately incorporates all the mandates that are outlined in this bill?” she asked Monsees. “There is a lot of concern from the educational community that there are a lot of unfunded mandates in this bill.”

A couple items, like expanding the small school grant program and providing lunch to pre-k students, are unfunded, Monsees said. He anticipates requesting the funding in a supplemental budget.

The mandated raise to teachers base pay doesn’t take effect until fiscal year 2026, he said. The state has been offering an opt-in matching grant program to raise teacher pay to $38,000, subject to annual reappropriation. This year, that amount will bump up to $40,000 before the new law forces districts to raise salaries with a grant program that will also require funds annually.

“The requests that you’re gonna see for fiscal year (2026) will be significant,” Monsees told board members. “It was going to be significant anyway, and (the new law) makes it where it will be an even bigger request.”

Shields also foresees budget woes.

“I think you are two to three years out from having a huge challenge,” he said.

Shields and Monsees agreed that they had never seen a budget process like the one that occurred last week, with closed-door negotiations and without a conference committee where lawmakers openly compromise on the budget.

The Independent’s Rudi Keller contributed to this report.

(Darrin Klimek/Getty Images).

When the U.S. Department of Education announced last summer that federal Pell Grants would become available to incarcerated college students, lawmakers and state corrections agencies scrambled to adjust statutes and step up potential partnerships with universities.

But nearly a year later, colleges and agencies are recognizing the steep administrative challenge to winning approval from the U.S. Department of Education. So far, just one new program eligible for the federal financial aid grant — in California — has gotten off the ground.

“We’re going to see an impact — it’s coming. It’s been a bit slow to arrive because of this quality focus within the regulations,” said Ruth Delaney, who leads a program at the Vera Institute of Justice to help scale up college programs in correctional institutions. “What’s great is that there’s a lot of energy in colleges and corrections to start new prison education programs.”

Pell Grants were officially restored for incarcerated students in July 2023, following a nearly 30-year federal ban that prohibited most incarcerated students from receiving the aid. The ban was one of the provisions in the sweeping 1994 federal crime bill signed by President Bill Clinton.

More than 750,000 incarcerated students could potentially become eligible for Pell Grants. But to qualify, they must be below the family income limits and be at a prison that offers a college program approved by the federal Department of Education.

To date, only one program has been fully approved, at Pelican Bay State Prison in northern California. Students there will be eligible to receive Pell Grants starting next fall to study for a degree in communications from California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.

Still, officials from state corrections agencies in Maryland, Michigan and Wisconsin told Stateline that since Pell dollars became available, more colleges and universities have become interested in establishing prison education programs. Since last summer, 44 state corrections agencies and the federal Bureau of Prisons have developed applications or other systems to approve prison education programs, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

“There are people in prison who have been waiting 30 years for this opportunity to come back, and they are just so eager to enroll,” Delaney said in an interview. “Anything we can do to move quickly to get high-quality programs in place — that’s what we’d like to see.”

State action

The Pell Grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education, is provided to low-income students across the country to help cover college expenses. Most students apply online using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Incarcerated students are usually required to submit paper applications because internet access is restricted. The current maximum grant is $7,395 for a full academic year.

While states pay to house incarcerated people in their prison systems, many don’t pay for higher education; prison college programs often rely on alternative funding, such as donations and state grants. Some are a part of a federal pilot program called the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative, which has included about 40,000 incarcerated learners. Otherwise, students have to pay out of their own pockets or use scholarships and donations from nonprofits and colleges.

No matter how it’s paid for, the goal of providing college-level instruction in prisons is to make it easier for incarcerated people to reenter society once they are released and to connect them to meaningful, good-paying jobs.

“College saved my life. It was a place where I could be free. I could read, I could learn, and I could grow. It was very transformative for me, and I realized that my life wasn’t over,” said Alexa Garza, who obtained two associate degrees and a bachelor’s degree while incarcerated in Texas. Garza now works as a Texas policy analyst and higher education justice initiatives analyst for The Education Trust, an education access advocacy group.

Prison education advocates say it’s important for schools to expand the college experience in prison beyond just offering classes. That means fostering meaningful relationships between professors and students.

“I didn’t have family in the courtroom. I had professors in the courtroom,” said William Freeman, who served time in Maryland and now leads the Justice Policy Fellowship at The Education Trust. “Now, I’m a first-gen everything — college graduate, homeowner. I don’t think my parents ever made the kind of money I’m making now.”

Many state lawmakers have worked, with varying outcomes, to boost prison college programs in anticipation that Pell Grants could help more incarcerated students earn degrees.

In Washington state, for example, a law set to take effect in June will allow more incarcerated learners to seek both federal and state financial aid grants to cover the costs of postsecondary education programs.

Maryland’s legislature has sent Democratic Gov. Wes Moore a bill that would require that the state corrections department help incarcerated students in accessing Pell Grants and set goals for participation. Moore’s office said the legislation is under consideration.

A Florida bill that would have allowed students to be eligible for in-state tuition even if they had been incarcerated in the state in the past year made it out of House and Senate committees but was tabled before the legislature adjourned.

And in Montana, lawmakers grilled state corrections officials after a legislative audit found that prison education and workforce programs are limited, featuring long waitlists and inequitable access between private and public facilities.

New programs and partnerships

Corrections agencies and colleges in several states have recently announced new partnerships, with some soon to become Pell-eligible.

Maryland’s corrections department recently announced a memorandum of understanding with the University System of Maryland to provide incarcerated students with the opportunity to obtain bachelor’s degrees or credit-based certificates from any of the 12 system universities. The university system will also be able to accept Pell Grants.

Danielle Cox, the state corrections department’s education director, said she aims to have a college or university program at every state facility by 2027.

In Utah, female incarcerated students at the Utah State Correctional Facility can apply to a new bachelor’s program at the University of Utah through the school’s Prison Education Project. At least 11 of 15 prospective students already have received their admissions decisions, according to Erin Castro, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Utah and co-founder of the Prison Education Project.

“This is the first time that the flagship public institution is admitting a currently incarcerated cohort,” Castro said.

The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and Southeast Community College are expanding their partnership to offer more higher education opportunities to students in five state facilities. The college enrolled 229 students this spring semester, and also is working on gaining the federal approval to offer Pell Grants as an official prison education program.

The college now offers an associate of arts degree in academic transfer, and in the fall will offer an associate of applied science in business and more career and technical education programs.

Bureaucratic barriers

But navigating the new application process from the U.S. Department of Education has required significantly more administrative labor, some advocates say.

At least one university so far has decided to pull the plug on its prison education program. Georgia State University cited the feds’ new rules for Pell Grants and a $24 million budget cut as reasons to close its program this summer, according to Open Campus, a nonprofit news outlet that reports on higher ed. The program has been in operation since 2016.

“The shape and tenor of this new system is causing significant damage to the framework of college-in-prison,” Jessica Neptune, the director of national engagement for the Bard Prison Initiative at Bard College in New York, wrote in an email to Stateline.

“Much of the recent policy work related to Pell, especially, is moving in a direction that makes it harder and harder for colleges to just be colleges and not criminal justice interventions,” she said.

The Department of Education did not directly respond to advocates’ concerns about the new application requirements, but said it held a “negotiated rulemaking process that enlisted significant stakeholder input to put forward the best regulations possible.”

Some prison education advocates also argue that the new bureaucratic process isolates the mission of educating incarcerated students from that of other students and encourages the “othering” of current or formerly incarcerated individuals.

“Whenever we are creating separate systems for individuals — particularly when they’re incarcerated — that reinforce processes, isolation and marginalization, it is not going to go well,” said Dyjuan Tatro, a senior government affairs officer with the Bard Prison Initiative and a Bard College alum.

“Incarcerated students should have the same access to Pell Grants, full stop, as any other students in this country,” Tatro said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson begins the annual State of the State speech to a joint session of the legislature Jan. 24 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed legislation Tuesday that boosts the minimum salary for teachers, changes the formula for funding public schools and expands a tax-credit scholarship for private schools.

It also allows charter schools in Boone County and requires a public vote for districts seeking to go to a four-day school week.

When fully implemented, the legislation is estimated to cost roughly $468 million a year.

Parson signed the bill a day before the constitutional deadline to take action. His weekly schedule did not announce his intention to sign the legislation.

In a brief press release, he focused on the raise for teachers, which would boost minimum salary from $25,000 to $40,000 a year.

“I have and always will support Missouri teachers. Since the beginning of our administration, we’ve looked at ways to increase teacher pay and reward our educators for the hard work they do, and this legislation helps us continue that progress,” he said. “We ask a lot of our educators when it comes to teaching and caring for our children.”

Dean Johnson, CEO of K-12 education policy group Quality Schools Coalition, focused on investments in pre-k and teacher pay in a statement sent to the press following Parson’s signature.

Missouri House narrowly sends private-school tax credit, charter expansion to governor’s desk

“For too many years, Missouri education policy has been stagnant, lacking both a commitment to reform and a lack of resources,” he said. “The law signed by Gov. Parson today smartly brings new investments in Missouri’s educational future and will directly lead to better paid teachers and better prepared students.”

Johnson is one of few advocates for public education that has spoken in favor of the legislation.

A collaborative of 41 school districts called the Southwest Center for Educational Excellence wrote a letter to the governor, first reported by the Webb City Sentinel, raising concerns about raising minimum teacher pay. 

The districts worried that the mandate to increase pay did not come with guaranteed funding to make it happen.

“Increasing the minimum salary yearly per the consumer price index or inflation does not allow for a guarantee for state funding to follow indefinitely,” the school districts wrote. “Our member school districts are in complete agreement with this provision, except for the lack of any guarantees in the bill for required future funding.”

The Missouri School Boards’ Association crafted letters for school board members to send to the governor. For school districts paying teachers under $40,000, the letter addresses fears that the raise is an unfunded mandate.

“While there are provisions in this bill that increase statutory minimum teacher pay, the bill does not ensure state funding will be appropriated this year or any subsequent year to support such an increase,” the sample letter says. “Our district is funded in large part by local taxes, and I fear that if the teacher pay increase is funded at the expense of the foundation formula or school transportation or not funded at all, we as the board may be left to make up the difference with budget cuts or local tax increases.”

Seven Boone County school superintendents, representing all the local districts but Centralia, wrote to Parson on Friday asking for a veto.

The legislation authorizes charter schools in Boone County. Otherwise, charter schools are only allowed by state statute in Kansas City and St. Louis and in areas with unaccredited school districts. All of Boone County’s districts are currently accredited.

“Our districts include a tremendous range in student size and local revenue,” the superintendents wrote “The opening of a charter school and the depletion of state and local funds from our urban and rural districts will have a devastating effect on some of our continued ability to operate.”

They argue carving out Boone County might not pass legal muster.

Much of the opposition from public schools and associated organizations centers on the K-12 tax-credit scholarship expansion. The law, when enacted, will open the program statewide and increase the low-income qualifications from 200% of the free-and-reduced-lunch eligibility to 300%. 

The income cap, for a family of four, would be $166,500, under this school year’s reduced lunch eligibility.

The legislation began as a 12-page proposal to expand the tax-credit scholarship program, called MOScholars. Lobbyists representing public education entities testified in opposition to the legislation throughout the session.

Senate Democrats led a filibuster of the legislation, leading to a compromise and a 167-page education package.

The House did not amend the bill, since any changes would send the legislation back to the Senate for renegotiation. Lawmakers found a way to make requested changes by adding them to a separate House bill, clarifying things such as that homeschools are exempt from the state law that prohibits guns on school grounds.

This fix calmed the Missouri homeschool advocacy organization Families for Home Education, which posted on Facebook that it now had a neutral stance on the bill. It had previously opposed the legislation, with many homeschooling families asking to be written out of the tax-credit scholarship program to avoid the potential of government oversight.

Amelia Ford, 15, speaks at a press conference in Little Rock on May 7, 2024, where Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin announced he and five other state attorneys general are suing the U.S. Department of Education over an expansion of federal Title IX protections to transgender students. Amelia and her mother are also plaintiffs in the litigation (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate).

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin on Tuesday filed a lawsuit with five other states, including Missouri, against the U.S. Department of Education’s change to Title IX that codifies protections for LGBTQ students.

The federal rule, announced in April, protects students and employees from sex-based discrimination, requires schools to offer support for people who make complaints, sets guidelines for schools and codifies protections for transgender students. It is expected to go into effect on Aug. 1.

The 60-page lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, alleges the education department exceeded its authority by rewriting the law. It also claims the rule is unconstitutional through a violation of the First Amendment, goes against decades of understanding of Title IX making it arbitrary and capricious, and presents “an actual controversy” by redefining “sex” to include gender identity.

The suit seeks to ultimately stop the federal rule’s effective date.

Though Title IX applies broadly, Griffin’s press conference Tuesday largely focused on transgender students joining girls’ sports teams.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Arkansas Solicitor General Nicholas Bronni joined Griffin at the press conference, as did Amelia Ford, a 15-year-old sophomore at Brookland High School near Jonesboro. Amelia and her mother Sara are plaintiffs in the suit, along with Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Amelia, a basketball player, said she’s worked hard to earn her spot on the team and doesn’t want that opportunity taken away from her. She also expressed concerns about the possibility of having “a boy who identifies as a girl” in her bathroom, locker room or hotel room during overnight sports trips.

“You don’t just become a girl by what you feel or by what you think,” Amelia said. “The government should not force us to disregard common sense and reality.”

The lawsuit mentions Ford’s faith several times and states it would be a violation of her Christian beliefs to refer to someone using pronouns that don’t align with the person’s biological sex.

Bailey referred to the Title IX rule as being “in favor of a radical transgender ideology,” and Griffin seemed baffled by the idea of such a proposed change.

“For a legal suit, it can’t just be ridiculous, nonsensical, hard to believe, outrageous — there has to be a legal basis,” said Griffin, who also added that he thinks “nationally, a vast majority of people think this whole thing is nonsensical.”

Asked whether he saw the lawsuit as harmful to transgender students, Griffin said, “No, I see it as following the law.”

Griffin’s lawsuit comes days after Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order  instructing public schools to follow state law instead of the federal Title IX rule when it goes into effect in August.

“My message to Joe Biden and the federal government is that we will not comply,” Sanders said during a press conference.

A number of other states have also filed suit against the Title IX rule in their own federal circuit courts, and more are expected.

This story was originally published by the Arkansas Advocate, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

Dr. Samuel Cook, a resident at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on May 2, 2024, about the need for more support for HBCU schools of medicine (Screenshot from U.S. Senate webcast).

WASHINGTON — Doctors on Thursday urged Congress to pass legislation addressing the disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality throughout the country and to lower barriers that have hindered people of color from becoming medical professionals.

During a hearing in the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, a panel of five medical professionals detailed health disparities for communities of color, including higher rates of maternal mortality.

“Research consistently demonstrates that patients from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds experience better outcomes when treated by health care providers who share their racial and ethnic backgrounds,” said Dr. Yolanda Lawson, president of the National Medical Association and an OBGYN in Texas. “In short, patients can have better health outcomes when their doctors look like them.”

“Yet, Black doctors remain vastly underrepresented,” Lawson added.

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking member on the committee and a doctor, noted that “African American physicians account for only 8% of all physicians despite comprising 13.6% of the population.”

Cassidy said that reducing maternal mortality has been a top issue for him during his time in Congress and said “it’s important to acknowledge that this issue disproportionately affects African Americans.”

California Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler testified that the “United States has the highest rate of maternal mortality among high-income nations.”

“Within recent years, thousands of women have lost their lives due to pregnancy-related causes,” Butler said. “And over the past decade, while the birth rate in this country has declined by roughly 20%, maternal mortality rates have steadily risen.”

She implored the committee to debate and approve the so-called Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, legislation introduced last year by New Jersey Democratic Sen. Senator Cory Booker, Illinois Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood and North Carolina Democratic Rep. Alma Adams. It currently has 31 co-sponsors in the Senate and 193 in the House.

“This legislation is not just about the life and death of Black women — its enactment will improve birthing outcomes for all women,” Butler said.

HELP Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, indicated the panel would take up the legislation in the months ahead.

Sanders also said Congress should also look at increasing funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also known as WIC; increasing class size at Historically Black Colleges and Universities to increase Black representation in the health care workforce; and making medical schools tuition-free to reduce the mountains of student loan debt that can serve as an obstacle to more people of color becoming doctors.

Thursday’s hearing coincided with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s release of new maternal mortality data, showing that 817 women died during 2022 — a decrease from the 1,205 deaths the year before, but roughly in line with the 861 deaths from 2020.

The maternal mortality rate for Black women was 49.5 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to 19 for white women, 16.9 for Hispanic women and 13.2 for Asian women.

Funding for HBCU medical schools

Dr. Samuel Cook, a resident at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, said during the hearing that medical students of color “sacrifice our physical, mental, spiritual and financial wellbeing to be the change in the medical field we so desperately seek.”

“So now we ardently advocate for the reintroduction of legislation which would specifically fund and protect the growth of HBCU medical schools,” he said.

Cook told the committee that the exorbitant cost of medical school is “the greatest impediment in recruiting Black and brown doctors to our workforce.” He currently holds nearly $400,000 in student loan debt.

Dr. Brian Stone, president of Jasper Urology Associates in Jasper, Alabama, told senators there are “serious challenges” that must be addressed in access to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, education for Black and brown students.

“There’s a wealth of data showing better health outcomes when Black patients have Black physicians. And this applies across different cultures,” Stone said. “This is because when you have cultural connectivity, you have better communication, you have shared experiences and you can overcome the mistrust that has developed over the decades.”

Stone said his home state of Alabama has a population of about 4.8 million people, of whom about 25.8% are Black. “Yet we only have 7% of the physician workforce that’s Black.”

Stone told the committee that there’s a huge need to replace retiring physicians. And he said that making several changes, like providing mentors early and reducing the financial burden, can help to bridge the gap that’s forming.

“Currently, we have about 71,000 physicians retiring per year for the past few years. We only graduated 21,000 medical students per year,” Stone said. “And if you follow the mathematics, you see where we’re going to end up. We’re going to need some very creative ideas to get us out of this situation.”

The State Board of Education voted to revoke a Kansas City school's charter, prompting a legal battle last fought in Missouri's western district court of appeals (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A Kansas City charter school for at-risk students will be allowed to stay open after an appeal of the state’s decision to revoke its charter.

In a ruling issued last week, the presiding judge of Missouri’s western district court of appeals ruled a charter school has the right to judicial review if the state attempts to shut it down.

The case comes after the State Board of Education and the Missouri Charter Public School Commission pulled the charter of Kansas City’s Genesis School last year, citing poor performance.

The appeals court decision, which follows a Cole County judge’s earlier ruling in favor of Genesis, rejects the State Board of Education’s argument that the board has final authority over a charter’s status.

Mallory McGowin, spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), said the department is looking at the ruling for potential procedural changes. Otherwise, she said, the State Board of Education’s role will remain as it is now and continue making decisions about charters.

“The charter model is designed to allow for flexibility to promote innovative approaches to educating students, along with a timely closure when low-performing charter schools fail to meet the academic standards outlined in statute,” she said. “The State Board’s role in this process is critical.”

McGowin could not comment on whether the department planned to appeal the decision.

The original case in Cole County reversed the charter revocation. The State Board of Education’s argument in appellate court was that a 2012 change to the law governing charter schools prevents them from seeking judicial review but it did not challenge the underlying argument.

During the original Cole County hearing, Genesis’s attorneys argued that the state didn’t have enough consecutive years of performance data to justify closing the school.

When the Missouri Charter Public School Commission met to consider the charter early in 2023, the latest performance data was from the 2017-18 school year.

The commission became Genesis’s sponsor in July of 2022 after the State Board of Education removed the University of Missouri’s ability to sponsor Genesis and other low-performing charters. 

In April of 2023, the State Board of Education heard Genesis’s appeal. Genesis, a K-8 school with a focus on high-risk students, had low performance scores and average growth, according to an assessment released a month before that hearing. 

The school had earned 42.7% on the new annual performance report. The department told school districts the scores, which were calculated under a new system, would not affect accreditation.

The Cole County judge ultimately determined the state’s decision to pull Genesis’ charter was “unlawful and arbitrary” because of the lack of data.

In the appeals court ruling, the judge wrote that Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven noted “deficiencies” in the charter commission’s process. Still, the board made the decision to revoke Genesis’s charter.

The state education department had concerns with the Missouri Charter Public School Commission’s revocation process, McGowin said, but it had “even more significant concerns with allowing a school with long-term, chronic performance issues to remain open, particularly in the face of the educational uncertainty its attending families were facing in planning for the coming school year.” 

Chuck Hatfield, the attorney representing Genesis, told The Independent that the case is not likely to change the oversight of charter schools beyond allowing them to appeal administrative decisions.

“The issue the Court of Appeals decided was just whether a charter school has standing, but the underlying problem is they didn’t have [performance] data because of COVID,” he said. “So I can’t imagine that’s gonna happen again.”

For Kevin Foster, executive director of Genesis School, the process was “traumatic.”

“We didn’t find out until July that we were going to be open, and we survived,” he said.

Students were worried, Foster said, about where they were going to attend school, sometimes pulling focus from their schoolwork.

In December, Genesis scored 62% in the newest performance reports from the state’s education department. Kansas City School District scored 66.6%.

Genesis’s score is composed of two factors, performance and continuous improvement, in which the school scored 44% and 92.3%, respectively.

Foster said this illustrates the school’s ability to teach kids who enroll with a lower knowledge base than students in other areas and schools.

Genesis is located in Census Tract 60, an area where around 5% of residents have at least a bachelor’s degree and 31% are below the poverty line. Foster told The Independent that 81% of his students live within three miles of the school.

All the students at Genesis are eligible for free or reduced lunch, compared to a statewide rate of 47.4%.

The school markets itself for these students, setting itself as a space for a high-risk population. Foster said the state’s system of accountability deters charter schools like this.

“The accountability system is not designed to encourage people to do this work,” he said. “Not only is it not designed to encourage me to do this work, but now they are literally trying to close us, to take away our ability to do the work.”

The school’s charter will be up for renewal in 2025. Foster hopes a sponsor will continue to partner with Genesis.

“People just have a model of what reform is gonna look like, and a small little community charter school serving an at-risk population just doesn’t fit their model,” he said.

Hatfield said the state’s accountability program may continue to impact charter schools that serve high-risk students.

“That’s a real challenge for the way DESE does their (Missouri School Improvement Program) standards these days,” he said. “The schools that are really focused on highly challenged children, they are going to close a lot of them down if they are not more thoughtful about it.”

The Missouri Charter Public School Commission could not be reached for comment.

Paul Wagner, executive director of the Council on Public Higher Education in Missouri, testifies in a Missouri Senate committee hearing Tuesday morning (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Legislation that could expand the number of college credits universally transferable between Missouri’s public two-year and four-year institutions took another step towards becoming law on Tuesday as time runs short before lawmakers adjourn for the year.

A Senate committee, in its last scheduled meeting of the legislative session, debated and passed a bill Tuesday morning that seeks to create a 60-credit-hour core curriculum in concert with Missouri’s higher education institutions. Currently, there is a 42-credit-hour block that transfers between all Missouri’s public colleges, created in 2018.

The bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Cameron Parker of Campbell, passed the House unanimously earlier this month. 

“This will eliminate some problems for students transferring from a two-year to a four-year. It reduces the cost,” Parker told the committee. “What we’re looking at is a seamless transition from a two-year to a four-year.”

Parker’s bill calls for the coordinating board for higher education to craft the 60-hour block for “at least five degree programs with substantial enrollment.”

Paul Wagner, executive director of the Council on Public Higher Education in Missouri, testified in “soft opposition” because the bill could exclude students outside of popular degree programs.

“This only applies to a certain type of student,” he said. “That is a student that knows from the beginning that they want to major in one of the five degrees that are chosen.”

It is going to be a large undertaking to get each public college to agree on a 60-credit-hour program, he said.

“If we are going to put in that kind of work, we would prefer that there was a broader result,” Wagner said.

State Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat who serves on the committee, said Wagner’s comment was “well-taken.”

“I would like to see it more broadly applied,” she said.

She voted in favor of the bill, along with the other nine members in attendance.

Representatives from community colleges said the legislation would solve problems their students face.

Brian Miller, president and CEO of the Missouri Community College Association, testified that there is a “high frequency” of students retaking classes after transferring to a four-year university.

State Fair Community College President Brent Bates said his students have a similar frustration.

“Each year students transfer from State Fair Community College,” he said, “sometimes they are surprised when they transfer to a public university in the state and the classes don’t transfer as they anticipated.” 

To make it to the governor’s desk, the legislation must pass the Senate before the legislative session ends on May 17.

President Joe Biden in the White House Rose Garden on Oct. 11, 2023 (Official White House photo by Oliver Contreras).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education on Friday announced a final rule that will update Title IX regulations governing how schools respond to sexual misconduct, undoing changes made under the Trump administration and former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

“For more than 50 years, Title IX has promised an equal opportunity to learn and thrive in our nation’s schools free from sex discrimination,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said on a call with reporters on Thursday night. “These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights.”

This new rule will roll back Title IX changes overseen by DeVos. Those regulations narrowly defined sexual harassment, and directed schools to conduct live hearings to allow those who were accused of sexual harassment or assault to cross-examine their accusers.

Many advocates argued that practice would discourage victims of sexual misconduct from coming forward. President Joe Biden during his campaign in 2020 promised to nix the Trump administration’s Title IX regulations.

The final rule will protect students and employees from sex-based discrimination, such as sexual violence and other forms of sex-based harassment. It would also require schools to have in place measures to offer support to those who make complaints.

The rule also sets guidelines for schools, such as treating all forms of sexual discrimination complaints equitably and promptly.

The new rule codifies protections for transgender students from sex discrimination. It prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ students and employees based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.

“The final regulations clarify that a school must not separate or treat people differently based on sex in a manner that subjects them to more than de minimis harm, except in limited circumstances permitted by Title IX,” according to a fact sheet.

“The final regulations further recognize that preventing someone from participating in school (including in sex-separate activities) consistent with their gender identity causes that person more than de minimis harm.”

The rule does not establish new criteria for transgender athletes, which is a separate rule the Department of Education is still finalizing, a senior administration official said. That rule would prevent blanket bans on transgender athletes competing in sports that align with their gender identity. So far, 24 states have passed laws that ban transgender athletes from competing in sports that align with their gender identity.

The new rule also protects students, employees and applicants from discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, recovery from pregnancy and other reproductive care.

It requires schools to “provide reasonable modifications for students based on pregnancy or related conditions, allow for reasonable break time for lactation for employees, and access to a clean, private lactation space for students and employees,” according to a fact sheet.

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education Catherine Lhamon said on a call with reporters that the final regulations clarify the requirements that schools should follow to address all forms of sex discrimination.

“We look forward to working with schools, students, and families to prevent and eliminate sex discrimination,” Lhamon said.

Cardona said that the new rule will go into effect Aug. 1.

Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, answers questions about his bill that would expand MOScholars during a press conference early in the 2024 legislative session (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A massive education bill that expands a private school scholarship program and opens up Boone County to charter schools squeaked out of the Missouri House and to the governor’s desk on Thursday, winning the bare minimum number of votes needed for passage. 

The 153-page bill, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Andrew Koenig of Manchester, is estimated to cost taxpayers $468 million when fully implemented. It passed 82-69 and heads to Gov. Mike Parson. Three Democrats joined with 79 Republicans in support of the bill, with 45 Democrats and 24 Republicans voting against. 

State Rep. Phil Christofanelli, a St. Peters Republican, carried the Senate bill and sponsored the legislation in 2021 that created the tax-credit scholarships, called MOScholars.

He said during Thursday’s debate that the bill combines his interest in the MOScholars program with investment in rural schools.

“We put together a package that serves all the diverse interests in education,” Christofanelli said.

The original bill was 12 pages, but negotiations in the Senate led to the inclusion of over a hundred pages of education legislation.

“We’re all going to take a step together,” Christofanelli said Thursday. “This is the most substantive investment in public education that this state has ever seen.”

Lawmakers filed 53 amendments prior to the vote, but none were allowed by GOP leadership  to offer them for consideration. 

Rep. Paula Brown, a Democrat from Hazelwood, said during debate that the Senate was controlling the process. 

“This is an esteemed chamber, and we’re acting like we don’t matter,” she said.

Christofanelli said the Senate had listened to concerns, and amendments were made to another bill Wednesday to smooth over issues with the larger package.

“My concern was that if I did those changes on this bill and sent it back into the Senate, it would get caught in the abyss and we would never have a law at the end,” he said.

He gathered input from key lawmakers, and delivered suggestions to the Senate. Then, Wednesday evening, the Senate introduced and passed a new version of Christofanelli’s bill on full-time virtual schools.

The House passed this second bill, with the fixes, after approving the larger education package.

Although the bill has measures to boost teacher salaries and school-district funding, Democrats had concerns. Many focused on the estimated cost.

“This is a bill that has some great, shiny things that we like in exchange for some really bad (things),” said House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat. “But as we’ve talked about, the real problem with this bill is the amount of money we have.”

Democrats from Boone County also spoke against the addition of charter schools in their community.

State Rep. David Tyson Smith, a Democrat from Columbia, called the bill “poison” to Boone County.

“Our schools are accredited. We don’t need this bill,” he said. “We are hanging on by a razor’s edge financially already. You bring charter schools into Boone County, which is what this bill specifically does, and it hurts us.”

As the final votes rolled in and the bill’s passage was assured, Koenig sat on the House dais, smiling as the bill he has called his top legislative priority made it across the finish line.

Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, answers questions about his bill that would expand K-12 tax-credit scholarships during a committee meeting on Jan. 20 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

The Missouri Senate voted Wednesday night to ensure homeschool families are allowed to own firearms.

On a 27-4 vote, lawmakers approved legislation that originally was focused on cleaning up issues with Missouri’s virtual school program. 

But over the course of a five-hour recess in the Senate Wednesday, Republicans turned that legislation into a catch-all measure aimed at ensuring the House approves an even larger education bill approved by the Senate last month.

The bill approved Wednesday night was crafted to ease House concerns about a 153-page bill that passed the Senate to expand Missouri’s private school tax credit program and allowed charter schools in Boone County, along with other provisions aimed at bolstering public schools.

That bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Andrew Koenig of Manchester, told The Independent he would prefer the House pass the Senate’s education bill without changes and send it to the governor’s desk. Any changes in the House would bring it back to the Senate for debate, putting its changes at risk.

After the Senate passed Koenig’s legislation last month, criticism began popping up on social media and in the Capitol about a myriad of issues — primarily that homeschooling families may face additional government oversight.

Despite assurances from gun-rights groups, one concern focused on the idea that homeschoolers’ inclusion in the private school scholarship program would result in home educators being subject to laws banning guns in schools. 

The Missouri Firearms Coalition made a statement that it felt that gun-ownership was not threatened in the bill. And an attorney for Home School Legal Defense Association Scott Woodruff was adamant that he was not concerned about the provision.

“The idea (the bill)…. would make the criminal penalties of (state firearm code) apply to home schoolers with guns in their home is supported, at best, only by a long, thin string of assumptions and implications,” he wrote.

But House members were flooded with emails and social media messages expressing concerns, putting the bills’ chances of passing without being altered at risk. 

Koenig said Wednesday that the ability to own a gun was not threatened by his bill.

“I don’t know that it was a problem, but this definitely makes it a lot stronger,” he said. “Anytime we can clarify something in statute, then we make sure that interpretation is stronger.”

The bill applies the existing homeschool statute to particular sections of state law — avoiding applying the definition of a “home school” to the state code that prohibits firearms on school grounds.

The legislation approved Wednesday night expanded beyond virtual schools to include  changes such as connecting funding for K-12 tax-credit scholarships to state aid for public schools’ transportation. This is current state law, but Koenig’s bill separated the two.

The bill also exempts Warsaw School District from taking a vote to reauthorize the district’s current four-day school week. If Koenig’s bill passes, school districts that have switched to a four-day week in charter counties or cities with at least 30,000 residents will have to hold a vote to continue with an abbreviated week.

Similar provisions are included in amendments to Koenig’s bill filed by House members. Fifty-three amendments have already been filed on Koenig’s bill in the House.

House Majority Leader Jon Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, told reporters on Monday that he would prefer to pass the Senate’s version of Koenig’s bill but there was not a guarantee to do so.

The ornate interior of the Missouri State Capitol building (Getty Images).

Despite growing tensions between elected officials nationwide and the media, Missouri lawmakers are looking to educate students on media and digital literacy through a new pilot program.

Bills in the House and Senate contain provisions to help elementary and secondary students navigate an online world. The bills contain identical language that originated from a model bill written by the advocacy group, Media Literacy Now. Media Literacy Now aims to educate students through the public school system on key media literacy competencies.

Julie Smith, a state advocacy leader for Media Literacy Now and a professor of communications at Webster University, originally brought the model bill to state Rep. Jim Murphy, a Republican from St.Louis, ahead of the 2020 legislative session.

Murphy, the House bill’s sponsor, has introduced varying iterations of the original model bill in the years since then.

“Who’s the sender of the message? What’s their motive or intent? How is the message designed to get my attention? What information is left out? Who benefits from this?,” said Smith. “It’s as simple as asking those five questions about every message.”

The Media Literacy and Critical Thinking Act includes provisions for:

• Analyzing news content to determine fact from opinion or propaganda.
• Understanding how to find and interpret visual images such as photographs, videos, maps and graphs.
• The effects of media, including social media, on behaviors and emotions.
• Learning about online norms and ethics to reduce cyberbullying.
• How algorithms and economic influences can affect media content.

If passed by the legislature, a pilot program will begin during the 2025-2026 school year and last through the summer of 2027.

The legislators tasked the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education establishing the pilot program. During this process, the department will select five to seven school districts across the state to formulate a program that covers the above criteria.

Upon the conclusion of the pilot program, the department will analyze reports from participating schools and develop guidelines and sample materials regarding media literacy.

The Senate bill’s sponsor, Sen. Curtis Trent, a Springfield Republican, spoke Tuesday to the committee he chairs, the Select Committee on Empowering Missouri Parents and Children, about his concerns with children’s access to media.

“It’s also a … national security issue because not only do our students have access to a wide variety of information that originates in this country,” said Trent, “but they also have access to a wide variety of information that originates in other countries.”

Trent expressed a desire to educate students on how to identify fake or misleading information as he acknowledges that they have access to an endless supply of content when using digital platforms.

Illinois recently passed legislation addressing media literacy education in public high schools across the state. Over the last two years, Illinois high school students have learned skills and resources on accessing, analyzing, creating and consuming media in multiple forms including social media.

Kathy Kiely, a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and the Lee Hills Chair in Free Press Studies , underscored the importance of social media’s role in a changing media landscape. According to Kiely, the threat of libel lawsuits against journalists and news organizations provides a measure of accountability for mainstream, traditional news sources.

In the modern digital age, “internet service providers have an exemption from libel,” said Kiely, “and that means we have no kind of incentive to police that environment.”

Gentry Middle School in Columbia piloted a media education curriculum last school year that has now expanded to all middle schools in the district. The curriculum was made in collaboration with IREX, a global development and education non-profit organization.

According to a handout about the district’s My Mind > My Media program, middle school students in sixth through eighth grades learn about topics like “How the News Works”; “The Power of Words”; and “Stats and Science in the Media.”

“(The program) is taking the approach that media is a part of our lives,” said Kerry Townsend, the Library Media Coordinator for Columbia Public Schools.

“We all need to find the balance that is the most comfortable to us based on our individual needs so it helps students be reflective about their media use and how its connected to their emotions.”

The My Mind > My Media integration varies by school. A common theme among supporters of media literacy education is the hesitancy to over mandate teachers. With the CPS program, the school decides how to apply the program within existing curriculum being taught already.

“Media literacy is completely cross-curricular so no matter what you’re already teaching, you can easily add media literacy activities,” said Smith, who highlighted her understanding of teacher’s frustrations with mandate curriculums as a former K-12 teacher herself.

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

Advocates for protections for survivors of childhood sexual abuse speak in front of the Missouri Supreme Court building prior to delivering a letter to the Missouri Attorney General (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A group including survivors of childhood sexual abuse is hoping Missouri lawmakers will change state law to give victims more time to sue their assailants and that the attorney general will provide more oversight of boarding schools and camps.

Douglas Lay, assistant director of Missouri Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told reporters Monday afternoon that he was abused at school as a child and didn’t tell his story for 40 years.

“The trauma is sufficient enough to stay silent,” he said alongside survivors and advocates outside the Missouri Supreme Court building.

Monday, he testified in a Missouri Senate committee in favor of extending the statute of limitations to give survivors more time to share. In town for the committee hearing, the group also delivered a letter to Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey demanding he begin investigating camps and boarding schools that have been accused of abuse.

The committee held a hearing Monday on a bill that would place  a constitutional amendment on the statewide ballot to make the time limits for filing a civil action the same as it is for criminal prosecutions.

Currently, survivors of childhood sexual abuse can file a civil suit against perpetrators until they reach the age of 31 and against other defendants until the age of 26. There is no statute of limitations for criminal cases of rape.

A similar bill last year sought to allow survivors to file a claim until they reach 55 years old. 

Versions of the bill have yet to clear a committee in either the House or Senate, and with the legislative session ending May 17, their odds of passing are slim.

Kathryn Robb, executive director of nonprofit child-protection advocacy group CHILD USAdvocacy, said the statute of limitations is “arbitrary.”

“When the perpetrators silence the victims, they should not benefit from the statute of limitations that cuts (lawsuits) off,” she said. “It is just bad policy.”

Richard AuBuchon, executive director of the Missouri Civil Justice Reform, testified to the Senate  committee he believes there should be “finality” to cases.

“There should be fair process, like we do in Missouri, where the statute of limitations creates a constitutional right that the case is final,” he said.

Ken Chackes, a St. Louis-based attorney, told reporters he has represented 300 or more survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

“Many survivors told me I was the first person they ever told,” he said.

Some have waited years to share their stories, Chackes said, because they wanted to shield loved ones from pain.

“They don’t want to put their parents through the devastating impact of learning that their child… was abused and suffered this trauma,” he said.

He believes allowing them to bring civil proceedings will allow more people to share their experiences, and in turn, expose abuse.

Agape Boarding School will close its doors this month after years of abuse allegations

Lay and other advocates also delivered a letter to Bailey Monday asking for an investigation of facilities like Agape School in Stockton, Circle of Hope Ranch in Humansville and Kanakuk Kamps in Branson.

Agape has been accused of physical and sexual abuse, including restraint and starvation.

The daughter of the owners of Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch came forward in 2021 with stories of abuse. The facility is now shuttered, and the owners face 100 felony counts under prosecution by the Attorney General’s Office.

Former campers have alleged sexual abuse by a Kanakuk Kamps staffer and concealment of the abuse.

The letter submitted to Bailey reads: “Ample evidence already exists in the public record that these institutions lack oversight and sometimes attract predators who hurt kids.”

Advocates said oversight of facilities with known abuse will lead to widespread change in the child-boarding industry.

“Institutions don’t change unless there’s a threat of liability,” Robb said. “Just look at the history of time. They don’t change unless they can be sued.”

Bailey, in a statement to The Independent, said he will always “fight for Missouri to be the safest state in the nation for children.”

In 2021, former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt bemoaned local authorities for holding up the closure of Agape Boarding School after years of abuse allegations.

Agape announced its closure in January of 2023, blaming financial strains. In late 2022, a Cole County judge ruled that the school’s director was allowed to remain off Missouri’s child-abuse registry.

Students leave Raytown High School at the end of a school day in April. After the school saw an unusual number of fights and gun incidents, students spoke out about their need to feel safer in school (Maria Benevento/The Beacon).

In early February, Raytown High School sophomore Harper York crossed the street to pick up some M&Ms from a Casey’s store before her next rehearsal.

Suddenly, she turned around from the checkout and saw a “mob fight” had broken out.

When the chaos died down and she got over her initial shock, Harper made a break for it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast across the parking lot in my life,” she said. “And before I cross the street, I look back and another (fight) is starting. … I can hear police sirens and ambulances, and people are on the ground, and people are crying. And it’s just like: Is this who we are?”

While the gas station fight was the biggest Harper had seen, physical altercations in or near school had become common.

Even bystanders weren’t safe. A few days later, junior Chase Dernier ended up near a fight that turned into a large-scale shoving match. He got slammed into a wall, hitting his head hard enough to make it ache for days.

“A lot of us, we were scared to go to school. We were scared to leave our class to go to the next class,” Chase said. “We thought we were going to get caught up in a mob fight.”

The last straw came when school officials confiscated three firearms from students in a two-week period.

Chase and Harper recruited classmates and other district residents to call leadership, attend the February school board meeting and sign up for public comment. They pushed for changes such as longer suspensions for students who fight and adding metal detectors to school.

Since that public pressure, students say Raytown High School has made effective changes, such as hall sweeps targeting students who aren’t in class. They’ve also seen signs that the district is seriously considering other measures such as installing weapons detectors.

Superintendent Penelope Martin-Knox said fully solving the problems of frequent fights and guns entering school requires combing through all the ideas to find what will actually work.

Schools throughout the country have been grappling with the ways traditional discipline and security tactics can cause long-term harm to students who make mistakes, exacerbate racial disparities and make school feel a little like jail.

Martin-Knox has also watched other districts seize on solutions that fail, such as when weapons make it past metal detectors.

“I don’t want to give people a false sense of hope,” she said. “I just need to make sure that what we do is going to be as effective as it possibly can be.”

What’s happening at Raytown High School

Reiko Groves first appeared in front of the school board to perform a song from Raytown High School’s spring musical, “Six,” which reimagines Henry VIII’s wives as pop icons.

Reiko wishes she could have focused on her performance alone.

Instead, still in costume, the high school junior returned to the front of the audience and addressed the board as herself: a teenager worried about guns and violence.

“I go from performing for this great show that I was so proud of, to now I have to go speak about how, even though I love the (school) building, I don’t feel safe in it,” she said later. “I have to go fight for … almost my ability to perform (and) make sure everybody’s safe while performing.”

After students’ basic physical safety is secure, Reiko said, “we can focus on the well-being of our students to find solutions to not only survive, but thrive in Raytown schools.”

Students say the school climate hasn’t always been like this. But during the fall semester, violence started to feel like an everyday thing.

Incidents reached a peak in December, according to district data reported to the board. Students were in school for less than three weeks that month. But during that time, there were 50 suspensions for fighting and school officials confiscated three firearms.

Harper said she started begging her parents to let her stay home from school, even though it meant she would miss beloved activities like theater rehearsals. Chase, normally proud of his high attendance, was skipping school to lie in bed, feeling “mentally drained.”

They weren’t aware of the firearms found in December until later, but they did hear about three additional guns found during a two-week period in late January and early February.

The weapons weren’t fired or brandished, Martin-Knox said. School officials found them by searching students after suspicions were raised: a bullet found on a hallway floor, a phone call about a social media post.

The students said they weren’t planning to use the guns at school, Martin-Knox said.

“I heard the reasonings of, ‘You don’t know where I have to walk when I go home. You don’t know what happens when I get off the bus. I have to go to a relative’s house in a different community somewhere. And I just need to safeguard myself,’” she said.

But bringing a gun to school is a “nonnegotiable” that comes with legal consequences and the student’s permanent removal from in-person school, Martin-Knox said.

Consequences for fights can vary, but some students have argued they should be harsher.

“They think they’re trying to help the students,” Chase said. “But in reality, by lowering the suspension rates, it’s not holding students accountable.”

A rumor that suspensions for fighting have been uniformly reduced to three days from nine days isn’t true, Martin-Knox said. But she has emphasized to principals that they have discretion to set suspension lengths based on the circumstances.

In recent years, some schools have made a concerted effort to reduce discipline tactics that can harm students’ education or life prospects, such as removing them from school or involving law enforcement. That’s especially in light of evidence that they can disproportionately target students of color and those with disabilities.

Martin-Knox said schools also need to figure out how to help students understand and take responsibility for their actions when they return from suspension.

“Because otherwise,” she said, “I’m going to send you back out there, (and) you’re going to do it again.”

High tech vs. low tech solutions 

Schools nationwide are seeing more verbal and physical aggression from students since the return to in-person school after the pandemic, said Kenneth Trump, a school safety consultant.

Administrators face pressure to solve those issues, he said, especially when there are high-profile incidents involving weapons.

“It puts school leaders at great risk of what I call ‘do something, do anything, do it now and do it fast’ type of policy and practice rather than having a comprehensive assessment done of their safety,” he said. “We’re seeing many cases where that includes turning to physical security measures, security hardware products and technology.”

Those solutions don’t always work as promised, Trump said, especially when they aren’t executed perfectly.

Locally, Kansas City Public Schools faced a lawsuit when a knife used in a fatal stabbing made it through a metal detector.

“Your high school coach and a teacher’s aide and the principal working the screening at the front doors, (who) probably got an hour of training, total, on a new product they spent millions of dollars for in your district, is not going to be comparable to the TSA,” he said.

And when those staff members are pulled from other areas of the school, they lose opportunities to interact, head off conflicts before they escalate and build relationships with students who might be willing to tell a trusted adult about a weapons plot.

“One of the best, strongest security measures in a school is a visible, actively supervising adult,” he said.

That has borne out at Raytown High School, according to several students who credited a reduction in fights to regular hall sweeps — where students late to class are locked out, rounded up and warned or disciplined —  and increased patrolling by security staff and administrators.

Some of the security measures can be double-edged swords.

Reiko says she understands why the school no longer holds assemblies — they were leading to fights — but is sad to miss out on the experiences.

The hallway sweeps can be anxiety-inducing, and she’s been stopped and questioned more often while on legitimate errands for her classes.

But she also appreciates the reduction in fights and being able to go to the bathroom without finding all the stalls filled by students skipping class.

“Probably the hardest part about this is finding that balance between … making sure it is truly a safe environment, but also not making it feel like it’s a prison or giving punishment that’s too harsh,” she said.

Weapons detection

Students said they’d appreciate weapons detectors in schools despite potential drawbacks, such as feeding into racist stereotypes and perceptions that the school is dangerous.

“As a Black student in the school district, I care more about our Black bodies than our reputation in the schools in the surrounding area,” Reiko told the board. “And being brutally honest, ‘they’ will think we are ghetto no matter what we do.”

Martin-Knox isn’t ruling out metal detectors in schools, but she says she needs to think through what schools would need to make them work, such as locking and putting sensors on additional doors and windows.

“I’m not going to invest district money, taxpayer money, or even grant money on something just to say I’ve done it,” she said.

The district has already begun increasing security measures for sporting events, which can bring large numbers of unknown people onto school grounds, Martin-Knox said.

At its March meeting, the board approved purchase of a weapons detection system that it hopes will streamline the security scans, spending $300,000 in Department of Elementary and Secondary Education safety grant funding and more than $22,000 in other district funds.

The system can be set to target dense metal shapes that might be a firearm, said Josh Hustad, director of facility operations, allowing people to pass through more quickly without taking small items out of their pockets and bags.

Raytown has spoken with other districts who have used the system, such as Wichita, to learn how it works and what pitfalls to expect, Hustad said.

For example, they’ve heard a laptop, a folded umbrella, or “two Red Bull cans side by side” could set it off, he said.

The three students who spoke with The Beacon said they were invited to join a student committee on school safety and participated in a test of the detectors at the school entrance.

Chase and Harper appreciated that they were unobtrusive and only required them to remove laptops from bags.

Chase said students speculate that moving the portable detectors from sports games to school entrances could be an easy next step once the devices are in schools’ possession.

Next steps at Raytown High School

After major incidents, Martin-Knox said she always visits the affected school, talks to students and works on refining safety plans.

In addition to the student committee, the district recently launched a school safety task force that will make recommendations.

Chase hopes for more safety measures such as clear backpacks — which he’s heard are on backorder but will arrive next year — and weapons detectors in schools, he said.

In general, he feels seen, heard and supported by Martin-Knox and Raytown High School’s principal and assistant principals, but would like to see school board members take action on policy and spend more time in schools.

Students also wish they hadn’t had to speak out before they started seeing concrete changes.

“They obviously want us to be safe,” Chase said of leadership. “I think they could have done things in a more proactive manner. But that change is happening now.”

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

President Joe Biden delivered remarks Monday in Madison, Wisconsin, on his plans for student debt forgiveness. (C-SPAN screenshot)

WASHINGTON — During a speech in Madison, Wisconsin on Monday, President Joe Biden touted his administration’s efforts to provide student debt relief through several new proposals, such as canceling accrued interest.

“While (a) college degree still is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket is becoming much too expensive,” Biden said. “Things are a lot different from when college tuition was more affordable and borrowing for colleges, repaying those loans was reasonable.”

The new proposals announced earlier Monday, if finalized, would include a one-time cancellation of all accrued interest for 23 million borrowers; cancellation of the full amount of student loan debt for 4 million borrowers; and providing more than 10 million borrowers with at least $5,000 in student debt relief, among other initiatives.

As Biden makes his bid for another term, his stance on providing debt relief for student loan borrowers has evolved since he won the 2020 presidential election.

In 2021, during a town hall, a voter from Racine, Wisconsin asked Biden if he would support student loan debt cancellation and he bluntly replied that he would not, and instead said he would support congressional action on the issue.

The White House believes the new proposals are narrowly targeted enough that they will survive any anticipated legal challenges in order to avoid an outcome similar to last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s earlier version of student debt cancellation.

“Today, too many Americans, especially young people, are saddled with unsustainable debts in exchange for a college degree,” Biden said in Madison.

Student debt forgiveness remains a key issue for voters, especially young ones. The administration has begun to lose support from some young voters who back a ceasefire in Gaza and are frustrated with the administration’s support of Israel in its war against Hamas that has led to the death of more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a center-leaning think tank, has not estimated the cost of the new proposal, but in a statement Monday argued against any debt cancellation.

“This new plan will cost tens of billions of dollars at a time when we should be working to reduce the debt, and by worsening inflationary pressures it’s likely to lead the Fed to keep interest rates higher for longer,” Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement.

President Joe Biden is expected to deliver remarks in Madison, Wisconsin on Monday about the administration’s new plan for student debt relief. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday will announce the rollout of a student debt forgiveness proposal that the White House believes is narrowly targeted enough to survive legal challenges.

The plan, if finalized, would include a one-time cancellation of all accrued interest for 23 million borrowers. It would also cancel the full amount of student loan debt for 4 million borrowers and provide more than 10 million borrowers with at least $5,000 in student debt relief.

The president will unveil the Department of Education proposed regulations during a speech in Madison, Wisconsin, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on a call Sunday.

The announcement comes seven months ahead of the November elections, in which student debt forgiveness remains a key issue for voters, especially younger ones. Some of those younger voters who back a ceasefire have been turned off by the administration’s support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

The proposed rule will be released in the coming months, and the Biden administration expects some provisions, such as the interest cancellation, could be implemented as early as this fall, Jean-Pierre said.

“President Biden will use every tool available to cancel student loan debt for as many borrowers as possible, no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stand in his way,” she said.

A fresh legal fight likely

The proposal is likely to face legal challenges, similar to the battle that engulfed Biden’s original student debt forgiveness plan. The Supreme Court struck it down last year when it was challenged in lawsuits backed by six Republican-led states — Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina.

Senior administration officials told reporters that the Biden administration carefully studied the Supreme Court’s opinion last year, which turned aside the administration’s argument that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona had the legal authority under the HEROES Act to enact a one-time student debt relief plan of up to $20,000 for some borrowers.

A senior administration official said the new proposals “address specific situations and specific populations in ways that we feel very confident are covered by what the secretary’s long-standing authority under (the Higher Education Act) allows him to do, and we’re confident that we’re acting within the scope of the law, as set forth by the Supreme Court.”

After the Supreme Court ruling, Biden directed the Department of Education to take a more targeted route to provide student debt relief through the Higher Education Act in anticipation of legal challenges.

“The negotiated rulemaking process is how we change and improve our higher education policies,” Cardona said to reporters Sunday, adding that the Department of Education is moving to quickly finalize the proposals.

While the rulemaking process can take months or years, Cardona has the ability to designate provisions for early implementation, a senior administration official said.

About 43.5 million people have student loan debt, totaling $1.73 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.

Building on previous student debt relief plans

The new plan builds on several student debt relief programs the Biden administration already has rolled out, such as the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, known as the SAVE plan, or any other income-driven repayment plans. For the SAVE plan, borrowers who make monthly payments are not charged accrued interest; payments are based on a borrower’s income and family size; and the plan forgives balances after a set number of years.

Under the proposed regulations, there would be a one-time cancellation of up to $20,000 of unpaid interest regardless of a borrower’s income level. Low-and-middle-income borrowers enrolled in any Department of Education income-driven repayment plan would be eligible to have the entire amount of their interest accrued balance canceled. Eligibility would apply to single borrowers who earn $120,000 or less and married borrowers who earn $240,000 or less.

The Biden administration estimates that 25 million borrowers would benefit from some type of interest cancellation.

“The interest forgiveness is currently crafted as a one-time benefit for example, but going forward, borrowers will benefit from substantially more favorable treatment through the SAVE program,” a senior administration official said.

The plan would also automatically cancel debt for borrowers eligible for that forgiveness under the SAVE, Public Service Loan Forgiveness or other programs like the closed school loan discharge who have not yet applied for those programs.

The Department of Education would also be able to use its own data to identify those borrowers who would be eligible for student loan debt forgiveness, but have yet to apply. The Biden administration estimates that this would cancel debt for about 2 million borrowers.

20 years of loan repayments

Under the proposed plan, borrowers who began repayment of their undergraduate student loans 20 years ago, and borrowers who began repayment of their graduate loans 25 years ago, would have their student loan debt canceled. Those borrowers would need to be on an income-driven repayment plan in order to qualify for that relief.

The plan also aims to cancel debt for borrowers who enrolled in low-financial-value-programs, which means the total cost of attending exceeded the financial benefits.

Borrowers who attended institutions or programs that lost eligibility to participate in the federal student aid program or were denied recertification would be eligible to have their student loans canceled. And borrowers who attended those intuitions that either closed or failed to provide “sufficient value” would be eligible for relief.

Cardona added that this could include some career training programs that have “taken advantage” of borrowers, or institutions that have an unusually high student loan debt default rate.

The plan would also provide relief for borrowers who are experiencing some sort of hardship in their daily lives that creates a barrier to paying back loans. Some of those financial hardships would include medical debt or child care.

While the administration is aiming for this debt relief to be immediate, a senior administration official said that some additional information would be required for the borrowers who qualify under the hardship relief.

“Our goal is for the overwhelming majority of things like interest, loans that are older, borrowers (who) attended programs that didn’t deliver financial value, to do that all automatically,” the senior administration official said.

Sen. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, names education policy as a top priority in a speech after his colleagues unanimously approved his appointment as president pro tem on Jan. 4, 2023 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Caleb Rowden only has a few more months left as a Missouri lawmaker, and he wants to leave a legacy in his hometown of Columbia. 

The Senate president pro tem will leave office this year because of term limits, and before he’s done he wants to change state law to allow charter schools in the local district. And even though nearly every school district in his county opposes the change, Rowden knows this might be the last chance to get it done.

“My stated goal is not to abolish public education and just make everything private. That is never going to happen,” he told reporters Thursday. “I want public education to be functioning, hitting on all cylinders. I want those schools to be museums where people can go and get the best education that they can get anywhere in the world, in a public school in Missouri, that would be incredible.”

Rowden’s district was redrawn for this election, with population growth in Columbia requiring Boone County to get its own Senate seat. That gives Democrats a major advantage, and the frontrunner in the race to replace Rowden in the seat — former Democratic state Rep. Stephen Webber — is not on board with the charter school expansion. 

Suzette Waters, president of Columbia Public Schools’ Board of Education, said Rowden referred to the situation as they talked about her opposition to authorizing charter schools in the county. Rowden, she said, didn’t think the incoming senator would have the same appetite for charters.

“This was his last chance to get something done in Boone County, because with Stephen Webber coming in, it wasn’t gonna go,” Waters told The Independent.

Waters met with Rowden after the Senate approved a 153-page education bill that coupled charter school expansion in Boone County with myriad other provisions, from an expansion of a private school tax credit scholarship to a change to the formula that funds public schools.

Currently, Missouri only has charter schools in Kansas City and St. Louis. Charter schools, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, are “independent public schools that are free from some rules and regulations that apply to traditional public school districts.”

Sen. Denny Hoskins, a Warrensburg Republican, prepared an amendment to the legislation that would have required a vote of Boone County residents to authorize charters. After a brief meeting in Rowden’s office, he ditched the idea.

Hoskins is currently running for Secretary of State, and was expecting to run against Rowden, who had announced his candidacy but had not yet filed at the time of their conversation.

Hoskins told The Independent that the meeting with Rowden didn’t include talk of the Secretary of State’s race nor any promises or deals. Less than a week after that meeting, Rowden announced his withdrawal from the race, saying a retirement from politics is what is best for his family.

“There were rumors and speculation that had been going on for several days because he had not yet filed,” Hoskins said, “but his decision to not run for Secretary of State had nothing to do with me not offering (my amendment).”

Hoskins has spoken negatively about Rowden’s role as president pro tem this session, especially after Rowden removed Hoskins and other members of the Senate Freedom Caucus from key committee positions. But when Rowden asked him not to offer the amendment, Hoskins agreed.

“Sen. Rowden has been an advocate for charter schools, and he’d like to see those going in Boone County,” Hoskins said. “This is his last year as well as my last year. I have supported charter schools in the past and ultimately decided not to offer that amendment.”

Rowden, who has represented Columbia since being elected to the Missouri House in 2012, has long called himself a “supporter of education reform.”

His advocacy for charter schools and K-12 tax-credit scholarships has earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from like-minded donors, most notably retired investor Rex Sinquefield. Since 2020, Sinquefield and his wife have donated $625,000 to Rowden’s political action committee, Missouri Forward PAC.

Yet as the charter expansion makes its way through the legislative process, some critics have even begun to question Rowden’s motives.

Jeanne Snodgrass, vice president of Columbia Public Schools’ Board of Education, during a public hearing on the legislation Thursday in a Missouri House committee, voiced her opposition and wondered aloud, without naming names, whether “someone with a sister that runs private schools might want to expand to charters and then get public taxpayer money for that.”

Rowden’s sister, Rebekah Jouret, is the principal of Christian Chapel Academy in Columbia, a private Christian school with students grades K-8.

Rowden balked at the accusation, telling reporters his support for charters is not based on any personal or familial benefit.

“Their Christian school would never become a charter school because they’d have to give up a tremendous amount of autonomy and their ability to teach things that are grounded in faith. I can’t imagine that they would ever do that,” he said. “I, frankly, never had that conversation with my sister.

 “My support for education reform has been well-documented and has been long-running long before my sister was in that role.”

The legislation that could bring charter schools to Boone County originated as an expansion of the tax-credit scholarships. Rowden is in support of enlarging the program and told reporters earlier this year he would even be in favor of a state appropriation for the K-12 scholarships.

All but one of Boone County’s superintendents wrote in a letter earlier this month that lawmakers should focus on funding public schools.

“In Boone County, our public schools are the heart of our communities. Strong public schools mean strong, thriving communities. Public schools impact economic growth, workforce development, employment, and populations,” the superintendents of five Boone County school districts wrote. “Dismantling those structures by introducing charter schools will hurt the very fabric of our communities.”

Centralia was the only district left out of the signed letter to lawmakers.

Waters told The Independent that districts have concerns that introducing charter schools to Boone County will worsen an already restrictive budget.

“If every kid that leaves CPS and goes to a charter school comes from the same building in the same grade level, yes, we can economize by reducing our staff, just for those classes. But that’s not how it works,” she said. “They come from all different grade levels, a couple at this building, a couple at that building.”

She worries the district would have to cut services even if just a few hundred children leave Columbia Public Schools. She discussed this with Rowden earlier this month after the Senate approved the legislation.

Rowden described it as a “great conversation.”

“(Rowden) kept saying, ‘We’re only talking about a couple hundred kids. It is not going to hurt you guys that much,’” Waters recalls of their talk.

She told him her concerns, pushing against his lack of fear.

“I would say it was a respectful conversation, but at the  end of it, we come from polar opposite viewpoints on what is appropriate for Boone County public schools,” she said.

Rowden told reporters he hopes the legislation will pass with the inclusion of charter schools in his home county.

“I don’t think that the implementation of a charter school or two or three in Columbia would in any way keep public education from continuing to flourish and grow and regain the trust in the community,” he said.

A Missouri House committee is scheduled to vote on the legislation Tuesday.

State Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, filed his candidacy for State Treasurer at the end of February. If elected, he would oversee the MOScholars program — a K-12 tax-credit scholarship he seeks to expand in his bill, SB727 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Homeschooling families and lobbyists representing public school groups renewed their opposition to a wide-ranging education bill on Thursday, outnumbering advocates who testified during a House committee hearing.

The criticism echoed previous concerns with the bill, despite a litany of new provisions added by the Senate designed to win over Democrats and public school advocates.

The bill began as an expansion to the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program, called MOScholars, with provisions to bump the income cap for program eligibility and end geographic restrictions. After negotiations, over a 100 pages added to the legislation by the Senate, including boosts to public-school funding, teacher recruitment efforts and the authorization of charter schools in Boone County.

Homeschoolers have questioned their inclusion in the MOScholars program, with many families saying they worry it will have negative long-term consequences for the larger homeschooling community.

The bill’s sponsor — Republican state Sen. Andrew Koenig of Manchester — created a new category in the legislation designed to assuage those concerns. Dubbed “family-paced education,” the group would mirror homeschool statute but would be allowed to participate in MOScholars.

“That way, at any point in time in the future, if there were some kind of strings that were attached, homeschoolers will be protected,” Koenig told the House’s Special Committee on Education Reform Thursday morning.

But homeschooling parents who testified Thursday were not won over.

“(Family-paced education) or homeschooling, whatever you want to call it, is the same thing as homeschooling. Legally, a court is likely to interpret (family-paced education) as homeschooling,” Melissa Jacobs, who homeschools her eight children, told the committee Thursday morning. “We do not want to have to be under the same regulations as a public school as far as curriculum goes.”

Jacobs said she heard from the Home School Legal Defense Association that the two terms — family-paced education and homeschooling — could be considered the same in a courtroom.

“In the future, the concern is that it would not be an opt-in thing and that would be required for all homeschoolers to register with the state and do state testing and change,” she said.

Some homeschooling families have requested to be completely removed from state programs like MOScholars to guarantee their independence.

In November, there were 13 homeschooled children enrolled in the MOScholars program, according to data from the State Treasurer’s Office.

The Senate’s efforts to mollify concerns of the public school community weren’t any more successful. 

Groups like the Missouri School Boards Association and the Missouri Association of School Administrators spoke in opposition to the bill even though it includes provisions to raise the base teacher pay and other increases to school funding.

Otto Fajen, lobbyist for the Missouri branch of the National Education Association, said he has financing worries beyond his objection to expanding MOScholars.

“There are provisions in here that substantially increase funding obligations,” he said.

He foresees a challenge for next year’s General Assembly, if the legislation passes, to fully fund the programs alongside a potential cut to corporate income taxes.

Additionally, the formula that funds Missouri’s public schools was recalculated in the fall, costing approximately $120 million in fiscal year 2025 and $300 million in fiscal year 2026.

Those who testified in favor of the bill on Thursday focused on things like the increase to teacher pay and the increased choice provided by the tax-credit scholarships.

Becki Uccello, whose daughter Izzi is a MOScholars recipient and uses a wheelchair, said the program allowed Izzi to attend an accessible school. Uccello told the committee her neighborhood school couldn’t make wheelchair-friendly modifications, offering to put it on a five-year plan. 

A nearby parochial school, she said, was more accommodating.

“Fortunately, Izzi qualified for a MOScholars scholarship because we live in Springfield and she has an (individualized education plan),” Uccello said. “But what about the families in nearby Nixa with students who have dyslexia and are not being taught to read?”

She said the bill’s proposal to open MOScholars statewide would be helpful to kids with similar experiences to her daughter’s.

Private schools are not required to accept students with individualized education plans, which outline goals and accommodations for students with disabilities, even with a MOScholars scholarship.

One person told the committee she believed that was an “equity issue.”

Representatives from conservative groups, like Lisa Pannett of ArmorVine and James Holderman of Stand for Health Freedom, also panned the legislation.

Holderman said he thought the MOScholars program could lead to government oversight of private schools, labeling it part of a “United Nations” and “globalist” agenda.

Pannett dubbed the legislation a “Democrat bill,” saying Senate Democrats — who unanimously voted against the bill — would have voted in favor of it “if they had to.”

Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, told reporters Thursday that his caucus does not agree with the expansion of MOScholars, which he called a “voucher system.

“We’ve seen these voucher systems be taken advantage of in other states and bankrupt public education systems, and doing all these other terrible things,” he said. 

In a compromise, Senators negotiated to boost public education funding.

“It’s a good compromise because everybody can find something they dislike in it, and everybody can find something they really do like in it,” Rizzo said.

House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat and gubernatorial candidate, told reporters that House Democrats have mixed opinions on the bill.

“Some of our members do support the voucher program, but I will tell you, personally, some of the concerns that I have is that we are taking away the cap of how much money we’re spending on (MOScholars),” she said.

The amount of tax credits allocated to MO Scholars expands and contracts proportional to the per-pupil funding of public school districts.

Quade said her focus is to maintain the investment in public schools as the House looks at the legislation.

The House’s Special Committee on Education Reform did not take action on the bill Thursday but is scheduled to vote on it Tuesday.

The Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, as pictured September 26, 2023 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Missouri lawmakers return to the Capitol Monday with a long list of policy priorities still in flux and only eight weeks to get it all done before the legislative session ends in May.

Yet despite a host of issues dominating debate during the first half of the session, the two top tasks lawmakers must complete before adjournment aren’t in question: Pass the state’s roughly $50 billion budget and renew $4 billion in medical provider taxes vital to sustaining Missouri’s Medicaid program.

A failure to do either would require a special session this summer. And factional infighting among Senate Republicans likely means neither will be easy. 

Senate leadership and members of the Freedom Caucus have squabbled all session, a continuation of the fissures within the Senate GOP that has mired the chamber in gridlock for much fo the last three years. 

The Freedom Caucus wasn’t impressed with the $52 billion budget proposal laid out by Republican Gov. Mike Parson, and only mildly less dissatisfied with House Budget Chairman Cody Smith’s $50 billion alternative. 

“There’s a real disconnect between the fiscal conservative promises that a lot of Republicans are making in campaign season and what they’re continuing to talk about when we come down to the Senate floor and actually debate policy,” said state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican and member of the Freedom Caucus.

Eigel, who is also a candidate for governor, predicted a long slog through the budget this year. 

“It’s going to take a lot of work,” he said. 

Potential trouble also lurks in the background across the rotunda in the House.

The GOP supermajority in the House is expected to work quickly through the budget this week, with the chamber avoiding the internal dissension that’s plagued the Senate. Yet hovering over the House as it heads into the session’s home stretch is the ongoing ethics investigation of House Speaker Dean Plocher, who is facing a litany of allegations of misconduct. 

The House Ethics Committee is scheduled to hold its fifth closed-door meeting Tuesday, with the timeline for issuing a final report unclear. 

Plocher has already faced calls for his resignation from some Republicans. If the committee concludes he engaged in unethical conduct, the fight over whether Plocher should keep his job could derail the session as lawmakers are trying to finalize the budget. 

Federal reimbursement allowance

Even if a budget compromise can be reached, the Freedom Caucus has also raised concerns about renewing the federal reimbursement allowance, or FRA — the taxes paid by hospitals, nursing homes, ambulance providers and pharmacies as a mechanism for drawing additional federal funds and boosting payments for Medicaid services.

A Senate bill to renew the taxes before they expire later this year has been stalled over Freedom Caucus demands that it include provisions excluding Planned Parenthood from providing Medicaid services.

Including that provision, GOP leaders have argued, could put the entire program at risk of running afoul of federal law. In an effort to tamp down resistance to passing a “clean” FRA, a separate bill blocking Planned Parenthood from being reimbursed by Medicaid was passed by the House earlier this year. 

“It’s a bipartisan belief that we need to pass (the FRA) clean,” Plocher told reporters, later adding:: “I’m an eternal optimist, and I believe we get it done.”

But time is running out, said Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat. The Senate should have taken up FRA legislation at the beginning of the session instead of waiting until the last minute. 

“I don’t understand why it hasn’t been brought up,” Rizzo said. “I don’t understand why it hasn’t had a really good debate. I mean, it seems like there’s a lot of things that have gotten a lot of time on the floor that are way less impactful than the FRA… Everyone in this chamber knows how essential the FRA is to health care, especially in rural Missouri.”

If the legislature is forced to hold a special session this summer to renew the FRA — which is how it was last renewed in 2021 — it will be the Senate’s fault, said Plocher, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. 

“It won’t be because of the House’s actions,” he added. 

‘Ballot candy’

Beyond the budget and FRA, Republicans are determined to make it harder to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process. 

A version of the proposal cleared the Senate last month when Democrats agreed to end their filibuster in exchange for Republicans stripping out provisions labeled “ballot candy.” 

The bill would require a statewide majority and a majority vote in five of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass a constitutional amendment resulting from an initiative petition or a state convention.

In addition to making it harder to enact constitutional amendments, the legislation included “ballot candy” that would bar non-citizens from voting and ban foreign entities from contributing to or sponsoring constitutional amendments. 

Democrats called the immigration and foreign entities provisions a misleading sleight of hand meant to confuse voters from the issue at the heart of the amendment. Republican leadership agreed to remove them, and the bill was sent to the House. 

But state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold who sponsored the initiative petition bill, urged a House committee to restore the “ballot candy.”  And she hinted at the idea that Senate Republicans were going to turn to a rarely used procedural move near the end of session to force the legislation through over Democratic opposition. 

Coleman’s bluster infuriated Democrats, who accused Republicans of going back on their word and undermining the negotiating process in the Senate. In response, Rizzo and his fellow Democrats used the filibuster to shut down Senate business for a day. 

Despite the setback, Rizzo said he hopes cooler heads will ultimately prevail. 

“I don’t harbor any ill will or animosity towards (Sen. Coleman),” Rizzo said. “Obviously, she made some mistakes in the House committee.”

Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughllin, a Shelbina Republican, said Coleman “maybe just didn’t think before she made the comments. I think maybe she just didn’t weigh out what the results of that would be.”

The House intended to restore the ballot candy, said state Rep. Peggy McGaugh, a Republican from Carrollton and chair of the House Elections Committee. But the specter of Senate Democrats upending the legislative session could change those plans. 

“They made it clear they don’t like the plan we’re working toward,” she said. “So there will be a lot of give and take there… and I don’t know exactly where we’ll end up.”

Education and child care

The most expansive bill to clear the Senate so far this year would expand the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program and allow charter schools to open in Boone County. The bill also includes provisions boosting public school funding and teacher retention efforts.

“This is a great package,” said state Sen. Andrew Koenig, a Republican from Manchester who is sponsoring the bill. “It’s a great package for parents. It’s a great package for kids.”

Meanwhile the House passed open enrollment legislation that would allow a school district to accept transfer students from outside its boundaries. Its sponsor, Republican state Rep. Brad Pollitt of Sedalia, has argued that open enrollment “offers parents the opportunity to select curriculum options to better align with their personal beliefs.”

How either bill will fare in the other chamber is unclear. 

“The House has focused the last few years on open enrollment,” said Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican. “The things that we’re focusing on are a little more involved or a little deeper or a little more holistic.”

One of the first bills to win House approval this year would create tax credits designed to make child care in Missouri more affordable and accessible.

The state continues to grapple with a child care crisis, with about 200,000 children living in parts of Missouri considered “child care deserts” because there are one or fewer child care slots available for every three children.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Brenda Shields of St. Joseph, would create three types of credits: for taxpayers who donate to support child care centers, for employers who make investments in child care needs for their employees and for child care providers. 

It won overwhelming approval in the House, and is a priority for both Parson and Senate Democrats. 

But the Freedom Caucus has poured cold water on the idea.

“What we’re focusing on is cutting the tax burden for everybody, not having targeted giveaways and tax benefits for certain groups of folks,” Eigel said. “I want to lower the tax burden for everybody.”

KCPS wants the Royals to fund the DeLano Youth Housing and Supportive Services project, which would rehabilitate the closed school to provide shelter to at-risk youth (Mili Mansaray/The Beacon).

The Royals, vying for support weeks before voters will decide whether to promise them decades of tax money, are finalizing terms to give Kansas City Public Schools money to offset the loss of property taxes.

The team’s plans for a stadium and entertainment district in the East Crossroads would swallow up six blocks of real estate that would otherwise represent nearly $1.4 billion in property taxes over 40 years.

The news of a deal between the team and the school district comes a day after the Royals promised millions in a community benefits agreement — a deal that some organizations say offers too little.

Jackson County legislators say an agreement to offset the loss of property taxes means the new stadium won’t hurt public schools or shift the district’s tax burden onto other property owners.

Yet school officials argue that the team needs to pay for other community benefits. They contend that public schools might come out even on the property tax loss, but that public schools don’t get anything out of a downtown stadium.

The Royals have yet to make similar promises to other taxing districts that support libraries and mental health care.

Is KCPS gaining anything with this deal?

In 2023, the land targeted for the stadium and entertainment district generated $1.4 million in property tax revenue. Land in the area that would generate an additional $500,000 a year already benefits from tax exemptions or abatements.

The former Kansas City Star building got tax abatements until it shut down in 2021, said Dan Moye, vice president of land development at the Economic Development Corp. of Kansas City. He said the property lost its tax abatement when it stopped functioning as a printing facility.

KCPS got $850,000 in property taxes from the six-block area in 2023, according to a statement released by the district.

At least four of the six city blocks targeted for the ballpark district would be owned by Jackson County, which doesn’t pay property taxes. If voters approve a 3/8-cents sales tax extension on April 2, the county would purchase the land and the Royals would sign a lease with the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority. Officials involved with the project remain unsure whether the two blocks the county wouldn’t own would be assessed property taxes.

If the stadium were built on privately owned land — say, if the Royals paid for the project on their own — county records suggest it would pay KCPS $16 million in property taxes the first year and $745 million over 40 years.

In a statement on Thursday, KCPS said it landed a guarantee that the district would not lose property tax funding and that the team would give paid internships to three to five students a year for 10 years.

Yet the district wanted more. It called for the Royals to fund its literacy programs and the cost of running the  DeLano Youth Housing and Supportive Services project. The DeLano project would revamp a former KCPS school building to provide shelter, transitional living and support services to youth ages 14 to 21.

“We are disappointed that we have been unable to secure any direct long-term benefits to the district,” the district’s statement said.

What will KCPS get from the county Community Benefits Agreement?

The day before this announcement to offset the loss of property taxes on a downtown stadium, the team committed to a community benefits agreement with the Jackson County-backed Community Benefits Coalition. While the coalition negotiated its own CBA with the Royals, KCPS has been advocating for a separate benefits agreement targeted at public education.

The Chiefs and Royals have committed to providing $260 million over the next 40 years to support Jackson County residents and workers. The Royals pledged $140 million over 40 years, or $3.5 million a year.

Initially, the coalition’s community benefits draft proposed both teams pay $1.4 billion in community benefits, including $120 million for education over 40 years. When their housing demands got slashed, leaders representing the Missouri Workers Center and Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom left the coalition.

“What the Kansas City Royals released today is far from reflective of any ‘significant input’ they claim to have gathered,” the organizations said in a joint statement. “The Royals have given themselves outsized power in making appointments to the ‘CBA Board’ responsible (omitting) a clear indication that community members will have any meaningful say.”

Leaders with the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (MORE2) also left the coalition.

Lora McDonald, executive director of  MORE2, said that her organization pulled out because she had to watch the negotiations on a television in a separate room.

“The people convening the table for Jackson County in this process wanted me, representing forty congregations and non-profits, to be sidelined,” she said in a statement. “I hope the Royals … can reach an agreement that somehow benefits the community. I can watch television at home.”

The terms of the official CBA haven’t been released, but Jackson County Legislator Manny Abarca said the team is offering “a historic level of benefits.”

Abarca said the school district is being promised more money than needed.

“The Royals told me they’re standing by figures I would even say are unreasonable based on incorrectly assessed values of 2023,” he said.

What about other tax jurisdictions?

Meanwhile, the Royals haven’t promised money to public libraries or mental health services that would lose revenue when more property in the proposed ballpark district becomes tax-exempt.

In 2023, Kansas City Public Library drew $90,000 in property taxes from the area. Without the existing tax abatements, the six blocks would have generated  $120,000 for libraries.

“We’re talking about a 40-year agreement at a minimum of $120,000 (a year),” said Debbie Siragusa, the library district’s assistant director.

That, she said, is the equivalent of hiring two workers.

Over 40 years, the library district would receive nearly $72 million from the ballpark if it was privately owned. The libraries get 95% of their money from property taxes. Siragusa said her office has not heard anything from the Royals.

“No one has reached out to us either from the Royals or the county,” she said.

She said the library district will be reaching out to the team this week, but developers going through tax incentive agencies are typically required to approach taxing districts.

“For a significant tax incentive, this is not how it would normally happen,” Siragusa said. “We have worked very hard with the city to make sure the taxing jurisdictions, including the library, have an opportunity to talk with developers and incentive agencies so we have input early on.”

The Jackson County Community Mental Health Fund is fully funded by property taxes. Bruce Eddy, the executive director, also hasn’t heard from the team. It stands to lose $350,000 a year, or $14 million over 40 years.

“I don’t know if there’s an intention of paying all of it, some of it, or none of it,” Eddy said.

The abatement the property receives from being leased with a government entity makes the stadium deal unique, said Dan Moye with the EDCKC. Although he is not involved with the deal, he said tax incentive agencies are subject to specific rules.

“A public agency will own the new stadium,” he said, “so it won’t go through the traditional abatement process.”

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

(Getty Images).

For many students, the excitement of deciding where to attend college is being met with concern over whether they’ll receive the financial aid they need. This year, FAFSA delays have left guidance counselors, students and administrators wondering whether financial aid offers will be received before deciding where to go for college.

“If I fill out the FAFSA now, my information is only getting sent in May,” said Lindsey Brink, a senior at Battle High School. “I’m supposed to be registering for orientation and doing all those things.”

FAFSA, which stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is usually launched on Oct. 1, but last year the U.S Department of Education announced that the application would be available on Dec. 31.

This was due to a bumpy rollout of a new, simplified FAFSA form mandated by Congress in 2020, according to Federal Student Aid . The overhauls were intended to make the application easier and expand access with fewer questions, allowing users to transfer tax data directly from filed IRS forms and make more students from low-income backgrounds eligible for more aid. However, some changes to the application unintentionally made the process more challenging.

The U.S. Department of Education announced Feb. 27 that since the form went live, fewer than five million forms had been submitted. As of Monday, the total submitted was 6.3 million. That’s a fraction of the almost 18 million forms previously submitted by students during the 2020 to 2021 application cycle, according to Federal Student Aid data.

Keri Gilbert, director of financial aid at Stephens College, said not many students have been filing the FAFSA and the steep decline is “concerning.”

“We do know that nationally, FAFSA filing is down about 42%, and in the state of Missouri, it’s down about 38%. So, we know that not as many students are filing the FAFSA,” Gilbert said. “That could absolutely end up impacting all across the nation how many students end up going to college next year.”

Melissa Patterson, a college and career counselor at Battle High School, worries that underrepresented populations will be disproportionately affected financially.

“We have a population of first-generation students that are underrepresented, and the FAFSA is really how they can pay for school,” she said. “The delays in processing the application have really caused a lot of anxiety for our students.”

On top of causing uncertainty, they’ve also had trouble filling out the form. Some students had trouble understanding the wording of certain questions, getting in touch with the FAFSA help center and making changes or edits on completed forms.

“I have not had any students successfully reach the FAFSA support by phone,” said Anna McMillen, director of counseling at Douglass High School. “You call, it goes through a menu, and then it tells you, ‘We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes, please try again later,’ and hangs up on you. There isn’t even an option to wait in line on hold or get a return call.”

Students with parents who don’t have Social Security numbers are also having trouble receiving financial aid. They are able to submit the form without their parents’ information but are later required to go back and edit that information before actually receiving aid.

“It is very complex and complicated, and they have not announced necessarily when the actual fix in the FAFSA form will be available for those students,” Gilbert said.

Patterson emphasized that better communication from Federal Student Aid would have been “helpful.”

“The process as far as what students need to do, being able to make changes, that kind of thing, that was not communicated very well,” she said. “That’s something we just kind of find out when you start filling out the application.”

Christian Basi, university spokesperson at MU, said the FAFSA delays will not impact university operations such as housing, parking, orientation and scheduling of events. Currently, deposits for the upcoming school year are up 9% over the same time last year, according to a Monday email to the MU community.

“The only thing the FAFSA is impacting is our and every other universities’ ability to get out to students their financial aid packages for the upcoming year prior to our deposit deadline, so that those students can make a decision on where they want to go to school,” Basi said.

Students and families can access the net price calculator to get a personalized estimation of their financial aid to attend Mizzou.

Emmalee Djerf, a psychology major at Stephens College, said she’s worried about the possible amount of student loans that she has to take out with the delays.

“I already have several loans from being here in my undergraduate,” Djerf said, “so I’m hoping for something that would reduce the amount if I did need to take a loan out.”

While Djerf said students are in limbo over these delays, it’s important to not put blame on college financial aid offices.

“Students I’ve talked to on campus or heard about online, they’re really struggling because they don’t know when they’ll receive the information from the school because of the delay, and (it’s) causing kind of an uprise within students,” Djerf said. “So, I just hope that financial aid offices aren’t flooded with tension towards them because it’s not something they can handle themselves.”

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online.  It has been updated since it was initially published with more recent submission numbers.

Missouri State Sen. Lauren Arthur, D-Kansas City, and Sen. Doug Beck, D-Affton, kick off a filibuster of a bill that would expand the state's K-12 tax-credit scholarships (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Missouri Senate Democrats ended their filibuster Tuesday of a bill that seeks to expand the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program — agreeing to let the legislation come to a vote after Republicans added provisions boosting public school funding and teacher retention efforts.

The bill receiving first-round approval by a 20-13 vote in the Senate Tuesday evening is the second version to come to the floor this week. The original 12-page bill ballooned to 76 pages before expanding to 153 pages Tuesday after negotiations.

“There are plenty of things (in the bill) that I dislike,” Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, told the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Andrew Koenig.

Koenig, a Republican from Manchester, acknowledged the compromise. 

“That makes two of us,” he said.

“I know that there are things you wish you could change, and there are things that I wish I could change. At the end of the day, I think we’ve gotten to that right balance,” Arthur said.

Republican Sens. Justin Brown of Rolla, Mike Moon of Ash Grove and Elaine Gannon of DeSoto joined Democrats voting against the bill.

Gannon has spoken against the bill at the committee level and told The Independent that she fears tax-credit scholarships pull money from public schools.

“If you want choice, pay for it. If they’re not happy, there’s other options out there, like charter schools and private schools.” she said. 

On the Senate floor Monday evening, she spoke about six counties who removed tax-credit scholarships from their local Republican Party platform.

“These six counties feel if they take public dollars, the government’s going to come in and regulate those parochial schools and private schools,” she said.

Currently only available in charter counties and cities with at least 30,000 residents, the legislation that won initial approval Tuesday would open the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program, MOScholars, statewide.

It would also increase the salary one can make to qualify for the program as low-income from 200% of the amount used to determine reduced lunch to 300%. The income cap, for a family of four, would be $166,500, under this school year’s reduced lunch eligibility.

The bill would additionally increase the amount awarded to those with limited English proficiency, those who qualify for free or reduced lunch and students with individualized education plans.

MOScholars currently has a ceiling of $50 million in tax credits, which it has not reached in its first couple years of the program. The bill seeks to raise the cap to $75 million, with an adjustment tied to the “percent increase or decrease in the amount of state aid distributed to school districts.”

Koenig has launched a campaign for State Treasurer, the office that oversees the MOScholars program.

The bill also would permit charter schools to open in Boone County. Currently, charter schools are only allowed in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, who is in his last year in the Senate, spoke in favor of adding a charter in his home county.

“We’re just trying to give another option for Columbia,” Rowden, a Republican from Columbia, said on the Senate floor.

These provisions were in place as Senate Democrats led a filibuster lasting roughly four hours before the chamber adjourned at 8 p.m. Monday. After closed-door negotiations, Koenig’s bill was amended to impact 24 additional sections of state law.

The changes include incentives for school districts in charter counties or cities with 30,000 or more residents to have instruction five days a week, changes to the state formula that funds public schools and boosting the minimum teacher salary to $40,000.

The foundation formula, which currently has a multiplier of student attendance, would shift to enrollment in its place. A study by Bruce Baker commissioned by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education suggested the switch last year.

“It is well understood that average daily attendance rates tend to be lower (relative to enrolled, eligible pupils) in districts that are higher in child poverty and in minority concentrations. As such, when state aid is calculated based on average daily attendance, that aid is systematically reduced in higher poverty, higher minority concentration districts,” Baker wrote.

A fiscal note has not been completed for the current version. Koenig said the changes to the state-aid formula, which would be ushered in 10% increments, would cost $70 million for each 10%.

Also added to the bill is the proposed creation of a literacy fund that could receive up to $5 million from the state’s general fund to provide grants for weekly reading programs.

Other additions include a proposal to permit school districts to pay teachers more who fill roles in “hard-to-staff” schools and areas, a boost to the career ladder program and additional pathways to teaching certifications.

One piece of the bill discussed Tuesday would allow people with bachelor’s degrees to complete an 18-hour teacher training program for credentials to teach in Missouri private schools.

Public schools could get more teachers into classrooms through a provision giving bachelor’s degree recipients “subject-area certifications” only for their areas of expertise. The bill also would strike an entrance exam to receive training in education.

Debate ended at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, with Senate leadership promising to send the bill to fiscal oversight in the morning. It needs to be approved by the Senate one more time before being sent to the House.

The ornate interior of the Missouri State Capitol building (Getty Images).

Pausing to take a breath, Sarah Love, a University of Missouri senior, held back tears as she recounted the story of Danny Santulli, a former MU student.

Santulli, who was starting his freshman year of college in fall 2021, was a pledge for the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, commonly referred to as Fiji. As part of the initiation process, he and several other freshmen were allegedly forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol, which led to Santulli losing his ability to walk, talk and see.

“If this law existed on Oct. 19, 2021, Danny could have very well been here, enjoying his last two years of college today,” Love said.

Love’s testimony was offered in support of House Bill 1443, which would guarantee immunity from prosecution to anyone who is the first to call 911 or campus security when someone is in need of medical assistance due to a hazing incident.

HB 1443, if passed in its current form, would also require the person calling for medical assistance to give their name, stay on-site with the injured person and fully cooperate with law enforcement and medical personnel.

The bill received a public hearing in the state House Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee on Thursday.

HB 1443 emerged out of a desire to ensure that anyone who is injured because of hazing while joining a fraternity gets medical help without fear of prosecution, said Rep. Travis Smith, a Republican from Douglas County and the bill’s sponsor.

“Because of hazing laws right now that we have, the way they have it set up, no one called 911,” Smith said of the incident involving Santulli. “Today, unfortunately, because no one called 911, this young man is incapacitated and will need life-long care.”

Some legislators voiced concern that the protection from prosecution wouldn’t apply to others involved once someone else calls emergency services. They discussed changes that could be made to the bill to ensure protections to anyone who tries to help someone injured as a result of hazing.

“Two people are there that started this, one of them is the one that makes the phone call, the other one does CPR,” said Rep. Barry Hovis, a Whitewater Republican. “The one that made the phone call is the one that gets the exemption out, the one that does CPR to try to save his life does not. We could probably find a better way to do that.”

Santulli sustained brain damage as a result of the incident. His blood alcohol content level was 0.486%, six times the legal driving limit, which led to cardiac arrest and damaged his occipital cortex. He went home to recover with his parents in Minnesota.

University officials shut down Fiji in the aftermath of the hazing incident. Eleven people were charged, ranging from alcohol-related misdemeanors to felony hazing. Several accepted plea deals, pleading guilty to lesser charges and serving short shock detention periods in jail.

The Santulli family settled civil lawsuits with 23 defendants. MU disciplined 13 unnamed students, including suspensions and expulsions, according to previous Missourian reporting.

“As the mother of three college-age men, I understand this is a major issue,” said Rep. Jo Doll, a Democrat from St. Louis. “It’s really important to give kids the ability to call 911 without being afraid of the consequences to them.”

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

State Sen. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg, speaks in the Missouri Senate during the 2021 legislative session (Senate Communications).

A Missouri Senate committee Tuesday morning debated a bill that would ban school districts from discussing any topic or curriculum “similar to critical race theory or the 1619 Project.”

Last year, bills that sought to ban critical race theory spurred a Democratic filibuster in the Senate as opponents predicted “unintended consequences” that would remove parts of history from the classroom.

The bill discucssed Tuesday, sponsored by Warrensburg Republican Sen. Denny Hoskins, would allow Missouri’s attorney general to investigate compliance and would revoke half of a district’s state funding if a violation were found.

Hoskins, who is running in the Republican primary for secretary of state, told committee members his bill is not “trying to erase history.”

“We’re not saying that you can’t talk about history,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is say that, ‘Hey, just because you’re white, or you’re Black, that doesn’t make you automatically a racist. That doesn’t automatically mean that you think one way or another way.’”

Critical race theory, Hoskins argued, would label each of the white committee members and those that testified “a racist” and “an oppressor” because of their skin color.

Critical race theory, according to a Columbia News article, is the study of how racism has affected United States society and law.

Hoskins’s bill bars instruction of “divisive concepts,” which it defines as concepts that teach that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist.” or that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.”

No one testified in support of the legislation at Tuesday’s hearing.

Sharon Geuea Jones, a lobbyist for the Missouri NAACP and the LGBTQ advocacy group PROMO, tied similar efforts in recent years to increased violence toward Black students.

“We have to have these hard discussions. We have to have them in our educational sessions, and they have to be done in a way that is sensitive to everyone involved,” she said. “I don’t want any children, white, Black or otherwise, to feel like they are targeted by their peers.”

State Sen. Doug Beck, a Democrat from Affton, said he doesn’t like “the entire bill,” but noted that he had a particular qualm.

“My biggest issue right now is the last page of it giving the attorney general any type of power because the last two attorneys general have abused their office,” he said.

Beck said he was worried it would fuel attacks against public schools on social media.

Otto Fajen, a lobbyist for the Missouri branch of the National Education Association, said the bill could have consequences for already strained teacher recruitment and retention efforts.

“It is not so much the specifics of the bill itself, but the collateral damage it causes to, first, the desire to be in that space, to be a classroom teacher to devote your life to that while knowing that you’re going to have state laws basically communicating that the legislature has concerns about your professional judgment,” he said.

Fajen said education is important to democracy, and he worries teachers may pull back on more curriculum than the bill requires.

“This causes teachers to look at the topics that are most central to our public schools being a place where these informed discussions can be had,” he said, “and says, for fear of your livelihood, for fear of retaliation, for fear of all sorts of things that might happen: don’t delve deep into these discussions.”

The committee did not take action on the bill Tuesday.

Public Service Loan applications are processed by federal agencies before reaching the Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri, or MOHELA. The loan servicer says the two-step process can "take months" (Getty Images).

A Missouri-based loan servicing organization pushed back Friday on allegations that it mismanaged a federal aid program, arguing the U.S. Department of Education is partially to blame for complaints included in a recent report.

The Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri, better known as MOHELA, said in an emailed statement to The Independent that the company follows all guidelines laid out by the  U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid. That, the company said, may cause delays for borrowers.

“MOHELA does not have authority to process loan forgiveness until authorization is provided by FSA, which can take months to occur,” the servicer wrote.

MOHELA is currently the defendant in two class-action lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri — one of which also cites the Department of Education as a co-defendant. The lawsuits contend MOHELA’s “failure to timely process and render decisions for student loan borrowers” impacted people nationwide.

And on Wednesday, the American Federation of Teachers and the Student Borrower Protection Center published a 47-page report detailing what they referred to as MOHELA’s “servicing failures.”

MOHELA labeled the investigation a “PR campaign.”

MOHELA faces accusations it mismanaged federal student loan forgiveness program

“It is unfortunate and irresponsible that information is being spun to create a false narrative in an attempt to mislead the public. False accusations are being disingenuously branded as an investigative report,” it said.

The organizations behind Wednesday’s report began publishing information on MOHELA after the servicer was brought into a U.S. Supreme Court case that eventually struck down widespread student-loan forgiveness. MOHELA said the investigations make it seem as though it played an “active” role in the case when in fact Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey brought MOHELA into the case without its cooperation.

“The campaign claims that MOHELA was an active part of a legal challenge before the Supreme Court that challenged President Biden’s student debt relief proposal. This is false. MOHELA was not an active party in the case,” MOHELA wrote.

The report alleged MOHELA wrongfully denied Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) applications and padded its pockets doing so, which MOHELA denies.

“All borrowers entitled to PSLF are expected to receive it,” its spokesperson told The Independent. “Loans that are eligible and qualified for PSLF forgiveness are provided to MOHELA by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid for final processing and approval.”

FSA’s latest report on the status of PSLF applications, dated June 2023, says almost 890,000 applications are in “active processing.” A year prior, a month before MOHELA took over servicing of PSLF loans, the backlog was about 316,000 applications.

Borrowers have complained about long waits to receive approvals or denials, and receiving information from MOHELA can be frustrating because of a communication strategy that diverts them to the website.

In 2023, MOHELA fielded 1.3 million calls focused on Public Service Loan Forgiveness, according to its spokesperson. The servicer’s website currently warns of “high call volume.”

Democratic U.S. Senators, in a letter sent to MOHELA in July, said they were concerned that some callers waited up to nine hours to reach a customer-service representative.

In an expected surge of calls when student-loan-payments resumed in September, MOHELA unleashed a series of “call-deflection” messages, as they are called in the servicer’s communications playbook.

MOHELA said “call deflection” was a term used by FSA as it advised servicers to push customers to self-service options.

“MOHELA was directed by FSA to refer borrowers to and encourage the use of self-service options, whenever possible, to help manage the anticipated surge of millions of borrowers returning to payment at a time when all federal loan servicers were mandated by FSA to cut costs and limit customer service hours despite the anticipated high demand,”  it said.

“‘Deflection’ was used by FSA in its overarching Return to Repayment Playbook for servicers,” the statement continued.

MOHELA warned senators in August that rigid funding from the FSA would prohibit it from adding staff specifically for the surge.

It earned $68.7 million in PSLF servicing fees in fiscal year 2023, according to its financial statements.

The Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri (MOHELA)'s Columbia operating center, as photographed Feb. 28 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A quasi-governmental organization based in Missouri that services student loans is facing lawsuits and a scathing report from a pair of education organizations accusing it of gross mismanagement that needlessly resulted in borrowers losing thousands of dollars.

The accusations against the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, better known as MOHELA, were laid out in a 47-page report released Wednesday by the American Federation of Teachers and the Student Borrower Protection Center, which alleged four in 10 of MOHELA’s borrowers have been affected by “servicing failures,” such as a backlog of unprocessed loan-forgiveness applications, payment miscalculations and wrongfully denied applications.

The accusations are echoed in a pair of lawsuits. The first, filed in December, names only MOHELA as a defendant, while a second class-action suit filed in January targets both MOHELA and the U.S. Department of Education, citing “delays” from both entities.

Both lawsuits, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, claim MOHELA’s  “failure to timely process and render decisions for student loan borrowers” impacted people nationwide.

MOHELA’s executive director did not respond to a request for comment.

The problems plaguing MOHELA has been documented in reports to U.S. senators, punitive action by the U.S. Department of Education and borrower complaints.

Many complaints focus on MOHELA’s handling of Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a federal program contracted to MOHELA in 2022 after the previous servicer FedLoan Servicing didn’t renew its contract.

Missouri company plays central role in downfall of Biden loan forgiveness program

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF, forgives the student-loan debt of borrowers who work in public service and have made 10 years of payments.

 The program had flaws well before MOHELA’s involvement. In 2019, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that 99% of applications were denied, and wrote that the Department of Education “does not provide enough information on program requirements.”

President Joe Biden’s administration has promised to revamp the program, publicizing “regulatory improvements” and a limited PSLF waiver in 2021 and 2022 that allowed borrowers to receive credit for payments not typically eligible for the program.

In December, the Department of Education announced that 750,000 had their debt relieved through PSLF, writing that “only about 7,000 borrowers had received forgiveness through these programs at the start of the Biden-Harris Administration.” PSLF was created in 2007 under President George W. Bush’s administration.

MOHELA, prior to taking on the federal PSLF contract, had almost 2.5 million borrowers. But after taking the role as the only PSLF servicer, its portfolio ballooned to nearly 7.8 million borrowers.

In an August letter to six Democratic U.S. Senators who were trying to determine if MOHELA was ready to resume payments in September, the loan servicer admitted it would not be able to hire additional staff specifically for the surge of activity it expects, blaming a fixed-rate government contract. It earned $68.7 million in PSLF servicing fees in fiscal year 2023, according to its financial statements.

“While we continue to provide various self-service options and work to ensure as many as possible customer service representatives are ready and able to answer borrowers’ inquiries, we are limited in the funding available,” MOHELA wrote in its Aug. 8 letter. “Unfortunately, we are anticipating extended wait times and servicing delays as a result.”

MOHELA reported an average wait time of less than two minutes to connect with its customer service representatives via telephone in July 2023. Complaints referenced in the class-action lawsuit say wait times reached up to nine hours in 2022.

In October, the U.S. Department of Education withheld $7.2 million in payment from MOHELA after hearing about widespread issues.

“The Department found that MOHELA failed to meet its basic obligation by failing to send billing statements on time to 2.5 million borrowers — some within only seven days of their payment date — and over 800,000 borrowers being delinquent on their loans as a result,” the Department said in a press release.

The Democratic senators wrote to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in December with concerns about several student-loan servicers, including MOHELA.

“A Marine Corps veteran shared his experience of repeatedly trying to contact his loan servicer, MOHELA, to inquire about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, but was told his estimated wait time was over 140 minutes,” they wrote the secretary. “Another public servant reported that it is ‘virtually impossible’ to reach her servicer to resolve a time-sensitive issue that, if not resolved by the end of 2023, would make her ineligible for PSLF.”

When asked by the senators, MOHELA reported it had received 36,309 complaints in a year, of which almost 4,000 were still marked “unresolved” in its internal system.

The latest PSLF report, dated June 2023, by the Office of Federal Student Aid shows the servicer has a backlog of almost 890,000 applications.

While borrowers wait for an acceptance or denial, they still receive bills. Some may qualify for forbearance, or a pause to payments, but receiving the information requires traversing long wait times and a “call deflection” strategy.

MOHELA’s multi-stage call-deflection plan is outlined in a communications playbook created around the time student loans were set to resume. The strategy diverts callers to the website — where they aren’t able to complete every task.

Complaints compiled by the American Federation of Teachers and the Student Borrower Protection Center question the decision-making process behind PSLF application denials — a problem Politico reported on in 2021 before MOHELA serviced the program.

“Other denials were due to minor paperwork mix-ups, such as ‘improperly formatting the date.’ Another reason MOHELA listed for denial was that the borrower used an expired version of the application form. Other denial codes include: missing borrower date of birth, missing borrower signature, and missing signature date,” the AFT and SBPC’s report says.

A spreadsheet obtained by the organizations show MOHELA denied Public Service Loan Forgiveness to employees of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, Parkway School District, City of Lamar and other employers that should qualify a borrower for the program. MOHELA redacted the column showing the reason for denials.

MOHELA is currently in contract with the Department of Education through the end of 2024.

Washington University in St. Louis has quadrupled its portion of Pell-eligible students in the past decade (James Byard/Washington University).

Washington University in St. Louis — criticized a decade ago for rock-bottom low-income enrollment — says it has carved out spaces for economically disadvantaged students as part of a new plan to increase need-based aid.

Late last year, the university announced that 21% of its freshmen were Pell eligible, meaning they showed financial need after filling out a federal student aid application, and 17% were the first in their families to attend college.

Currently, Pell-eligible students make up around 18.5% of Ivy League students and 40% at other institutions, according to a study by policy analysts at the HEA Group.

Washington University recently shifted to “need-blind” admissions, meaning financial status is not considered in a student’s application, and replaced any need-based loans with scholarships.

In 2013, The New York Times quoted former Chancellor Mark Wrighton saying need-blind admissions were “not our highest priority.” That year, 6% of its first-year students were Pell-eligible.

Now, with nearly a four-fold increase in Pell-eligible students, current Chancellor Andrew Martin is seeing a change in the campus.

“We were basically ignoring a lot of our lower income students in the past because we were on a limited financial aid budget and so the quality of the student body is better,” he said in an interview with The Independent. “The socioeconomic diversity also provides geographic diversity and greater racial and ethnic diversity. 

“It is just a much more interesting student body. And that diversity helps create a much richer learning environment for everyone.”

Martin believes the university’s strategy could apply to other colleges hoping to increase socioeconomic diversity.

A new start

Martin took over as chancellor in 2019, and said he made education access “one of the three pillars of my leadership.”

“It is so important for us to go and find students with incredible talent wherever they happen to be,” he said. “There are a lot of talented students, particularly across Missouri and around the country who can’t afford a Washington University education, so we need to make it possible for them to be able to afford it.”

During the 2019-2020 school year, Washington University students paid an average of $27,233 after grants and scholarships, according to data reported to the U.S. Department of Education. A decade prior, students paid an average of $31,391, or $37,355 adjusted for inflation.

Based on this data, the average cost of attendance has decreased 27% over 10 years. Still, administrators have continued to unveil new options for students with financial need.

The “WashU Pledge,” announced during Martin’s inauguration, provides funding for any costs not covered by federal grants for students whose families make $75,000 or less a year. Students from Missouri and from 51 counties in the southern Illinois region are eligible.

“We had been hearing that some of the best students, that are lower income students, from the state were choosing to leave the state to go elsewhere,” Martin said. “And we thought that that was a real missed opportunity.”

Martin said universities interested in adopting a similar model should look into how many low-income students they can fund.

“If you don’t do it in a financially sustainable way, it’s obviously not going to last for the long term,” he said. “It is harmful for a university to bring in a large group of lower income students in one year and then the following year, say, ‘We can’t admit that many, so we’re gonna have to pull it back.’”

It may mean taking a slower approach, he said.

Martin also recommended having “comprehensive student support” for first-generation and low-income students.

“This isn’t about remedial coursework,” he said. “This is about taking incredibly talented students, some of whom have had limited opportunities, and how do they navigate a place that’s foreign to them?”

Washington University has a center, established in 2014, that seeks to do just that.

Mark Kamimura-Jiménez, the university’s associate vice chancellor for student affairs, works with students in the Taylor Family Center for Student Success — a key part of the university’s strategy for retaining low-income students.

There are a few cohorts catered to low-income and first-generation students, one being the Taylor Stars program. Kamimura-Jiménez said these cohorts allow students to connect with one another and university-provided resources, like guidance counselors specific to them.

There is also a physical space for students to study, talk, play games and build relationships in the center. Kamimura-Jiménez told The Independent it is like “another home space for them on campus.”

“It is a dedicated space for them to be able to ask questions that they may not feel as comfortable asking in other spaces,” he said.

Mentorship and tailored academic advising, he said, is integral to lowering attrition rates.

U.S. Department of Education data shows that 93% of Washington University’s students graduate within eight years of beginning classes, including 87% of Pell-eligible students. Martin said his goal is to get those rates to be as close as possible.

The goal of bringing first-generation students through graduation is growing nationally, with more philanthropy being devoted to this population.

Nick Watson, senior program officer for college program success at Bloomberg Philanthropies, said graduation rate is a focus of the nonprofit’s work through a program called the American Talent Initiative.

The American Talent Initiative seeks to graduate low- and moderate-income students at top universities through its 135 affiliated public and private colleges. Washington University is the only Missouri school in the program and has additionally launched into a related program, the Kessler Scholars Collaborative.

“The American Talent Initiative, in some ways, is a macro project of how do we get more students to college from lower income backgrounds,” Gail Gibson, Kessler Scholars’ executive director, told The Independent. “The opportunity for the Kessler Scholars project to work within that is more of this kind of micro examination of once we have low-income and especially first-generation students into institutions, what’s the experience of those students on the ground?”

Kessler Scholars Collaborative began at the University of Michigan, thanks to the generosity of alumni Judy Kessler Wilpon and Fred Wilpon, with its first set of students in 2017. By 2020, the scholarship program partnered with Bloomberg Philanthropies to expand.

Washington University welcomed its first Kessler Scholars last fall as one of 16 campuses accepted into the collaborative program.

The students are grouped into a cohort and equipped with mentors, career advising and a stipend.

“Research in higher ed has shown us that students who are part of a sort of smaller subset like a cohort based community do tend to perform better over time,” Gibson said.

Although Washington University already promises students they shouldn’t need to take out a loan to afford school, the Kessler Scholars program still provides money to its cohort. Gibson said participating campuses sometimes change the usage of the stipend, but it typically funds study-abroad expenses and internships she says first-generation students often miss out on. It can also be used as an emergency fund in some situations.

“Michigan found that actually if they were to offer these kinds of emergency grants for students to not miss opportunities, they actually would persist and graduate at the same rate of higher income peers,” Watson said.

Kessler Scholars participants at the University of Michigan graduated at nearly the same rate as peers whose parents had a bachelor’s degree, with 83% of Kessler participants graduating in four years compared to 84% of students not identified as first-generation.

Gibson said the program plans to publish its findings on best practices to improve these rates in hopes that more colleges will adopt policies to embrace first-generation and low-income students.

Beyond Washington University

Watson said a “perfect storm” of three factors may spur more need-based aid: a new federal student aid application, the redefinition of federal student aid and the end of affirmative action.

He said some colleges predicted the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down race-based admissions and were proactive.

“I do think a lot of particularly selective institutions got smart and started thinking about what would happen if we can’t use race in how we make holistic decisions around admissions right. So people started to look at other proxies, whether that was Pell and eligibility or whether that was first-generation status,” Watson said.

But the idea of meeting financial needs isn’t groundbreaking, he said.

“If you ask me if need-based aid is anything new? I don’t think so at all,” Watson said. “I think it is getting more attention because all these perfect storms are coming together.”

Gibson also predicts an increased focus on family income in coming years.

“First-generation status is not a perfect proxy for race or ethnic minority status. But it is one way to assure that your campus reflects more of a community and that it is a more diverse place than it otherwise would be,” Gibson said.

Watson said universities that want to support first-generation students and add socioeconomic diversity must make the mission a financial priority.

Washington University funds its need-based aid through its endowment fund, expendable gifts and the operating budget. Martin told The Independent that the university spends 4-5% of its endowment for grant programs, and he spends time traveling and promoting philanthropy.

“​​In terms of our operating budget, this is just putting our money where our mouth is,” he said. “We talk a good game about supporting first-generation, lower income students. By allocating our existing resources for that purpose, as opposed to other purposes, is us living up to that commitment.”

The net cost of attending a public, four-year college increased at a rate of 4.7% between 2019 and 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. The price of going to a not-for-profit university rose 4.8% in the same period.

The net cost rose more than the price of tuition and fees, showing a trend of declining aid nationwide.

Washington University is a private college, so it does not receive money from the state budget. Public universities must operate by a different set of rules, including a dependence on state lawmakers to allocate funding. 

Missouri’s higher education budget shakes down to around $5,944 per full-time-equivalent student, according to an analysis of state budgets by the National Science Board. Missouri ranks 38th in higher education funding on a per-pupil basis in this report.

Emily Haynam, executive director of student financial aid at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said donors are more likely to give to need-based aid than merit-based.

“They want their scholarships to help students who otherwise might not be able to afford to attend the college or help them ease the burden of attending college and provide more access and affordability to more students,” she said.

The university doesn’t have any specific grants for first-generation students, but it does consider Pell eligibility.

In 2018, the University of Missouri-Columbia added the “Missouri Land Grant” — unaffiliated with its federal funding as a land-grant university — that covers up to five years of tuition for Pell-eligible students from Missouri.

Haynam said the University of Missouri, like Washington University, has been “steadily growing our expenditures of scholarships.”

But admissions look different at the two colleges.

Martin said Washington University receives over 30,000 applicants for 1,800 seats.

“There are some colleges and universities that need to offer merit aid in order to be able to attract the very best students,” he said. “For those institutions, it’s really important that they continue to do that. We don’t need to do that in order to be able to recruit the very best.”

Christian Basi, director of public affairs at the University of Missouri-Columbia, told The Independent part of the college’s recruitment process is traveling to high schools statewide.

“You’re talking about everything from rural to urban and everywhere in between, our admissions team, it’s their job to make sure that we’re reaching a broad student body that would consider going to Mizzou,” he said.

Basi said the university has made small tweaks over the past eight years to lower the cost of services like dining and books.

“That kept us much more affordable than many of our other competitors that students were looking at either in-state or out-of-state,” he said.

Martin said he recently talked with a student from out of state who wasn’t considering a college education until a high-school counselor showed him colleges with extensive financial aid.

“He has been quite successful in our business school, and it’s life changing,” Martin said.

He feels excitement from students in need-based programs, saying many delve into their studies.

“It really engendered a lot of excitement among our student body and our entire community because we’re all pulling together,” he said. “This administration and the students and the faculty and the staff and our donors all piling on resources and focusing on a single goal is really paying off in terms of the quality of students we are able to recruit.”

Desiree Pezley demonstrates cursive writing Feb. 8 at Hallsville Intermediate School. She shows students how to correctly form letters for words such as “grim,” “flat” and “cash" (Rilee Malloy/Missourian).

For six straight years, Democratic state Rep. Gretchen Bangert has filed a bill that would require cursive handwriting to be taught in Missouri public schools.

The bill has failed each time, never making it out of the House and only twice getting initial approval. Yet Bangert, of Florissant, isn’t letting the issue go.

In December, she pre-filed the bill for the seventh time, her final attempt before she leaves the House due to term limits, and earlier this month testified in a public hearing before the House Special Committee on Education Reform in a final bid to convince lawmakers to support the measure.

“Learning cursive is important because our primary source documents, many historical documents, notes and letters were written in cursive, including our Constitution,” Bangert told the committee.

Bangert’s one-page proposal would make it a requirement for public school districts and charter schools in Missouri to teach cursive writing by the end of fifth grade and ensure students pass a test demonstrating competency in both reading and writing cursive.

Teaching cursive in Missouri isn’t required by law. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education sets instructional guidelines for local districts, known as the Missouri Learning Standards, but schools have ultimate control over curriculum and which material is being taught.

Twenty-three states instruct schools to teach cursive. The Missouri Learning Standards, approved in 2016 by the State Board of Education, highlight the ability to write legibly in cursive as a goal for second and third graders. However, this is merely an expectation, not a requirement.

But Bangert wants to make it a requirement.

A few years ago, Bangert said she gave an intern a handwritten note with a task she wanted him to complete. When she returned two weeks later to check if he completed it, the intern said he didn’t do it because he couldn’t read the note.

“I realized, my kids had cursive handwriting but then a lot of other kids had not had it,” Bangert said.

A study conducted at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found that cursive handwriting enhances learning by activating more of the brain. Another study showed children ages 3 to 5 enjoyed better letter recognition when they wrote them by hand as opposed to typing.

The same study also found that note taking by hand is superior to typing when measuring for learning outcome.

“I type 95 words a minute, I can type all day long from a dictaphone,” Bangert said. “But am I really remembering everything? If I have to bring it all together and summarize it and then write it at that point in time, that makes you slow down and really think.”

Kari Yeagy, director of communications for Hallsville School District, where cursive is being taught in third-grade classrooms, believes teaching cursive to students is important.

Before serving in her current role, Yeagy taught second and third grade at Hallsville schools for seven years. She said she packs her daughter’s lunch each school day and puts a note written in cursive in her lunchbox.

“I feel that it’s a skill that she needs to at least to be able to read cursive so that when she does receive mail from her grandparents, she is able to read it,” Yeagy said.

Yeagy added that she doesn’t want her students to feel disadvantaged because of an inability to read and write cursive.

“I think that if our ultimate goal is to raise educated, well-rounded students, then we need to make sure that they are capable learners,” Yeagy said. “And if that involves them being able to read cursive or read an analog clock or be able to code, you want to make sure that they’re at least exposed to everything.”

Springfield Public Schools, the state’s largest school district with more than 24,000 students, teaches cursive to elementary students. In an email, Teresa Bledsoe, the district’s director of communications, said cursive is being taught in the second, third, fourth and fifth grades.

“The expectation is that students will be able to write legibly in print and cursive,” Bledsoe said.

Similarly, Columbia Public Schools teach the “elements of cursive” in third grade, according to CPS spokesperson Michelle Baumstark.

Baumstark said CPS currently includes cursive instruction “because it’s a skill set students still need to be exposed to learning.” She said CPS will continue to monitor Bangert’s bill.

During the public hearing, no one testified in opposition to Bangert’s bill. No one testified in opposition last year either. But arguments against teaching cursive do exist.

Most frequently, opponents cite increasing reliance on digital technology as a reason to put less focus on cursive, advocating for typing as a better, more efficient way of taking notes.

Rep. Doug Mann, a Columbia Democrat, supports Bangert’s bill, but said he is sympathetic to the fact that classrooms are constrained by limited instruction time, which may become hampered by teaching cursive.

“Putting more things on the teachers to do can be burdensome,” Mann said.

Mann speaks from experience. Before being elected to represent District 50 in the House, Mann taught history and civics to high school students.

“There were plenty of things that I was asked to do as a teacher that got in the way of instructional time and really doing the things that I signed up to be a teacher to do,” he said.

Though he admitted that teaching cursive isn’t the first thing on his mind when it comes to changes in education, Mann, who sits on the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee, said teaching cursive in classrooms is “probably a good idea.”

“Being able to read those primary sources, being able to operate in a world where you are likely to run into cursive at some point in your life is beneficial,” Mann said.

Teaching cursive used to be a frequent part of public education — before it was pushed aside when the Common Core State Standards were rolled out and adopted by nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia. But as the number of adopting states grew, focus shifted from cursive to keyboarding.

The Common Core standards are a set of guidelines released in 2010 meant to establish instructional cohesion in English language arts and math among K-12 students regardless of where they live.

Missouri adopted the standards but replaced them in 2016 with the Missouri Learning Standards. Several other states have either dropped or replaced the Common Core standards, including Florida, Tennessee and Arizona.

If Bangert’s proposal gets across the finish line, it won’t have any fiscal impact on the education department, according to the bill’s fiscal note.

Bangert said she is hopeful the bill will pass.

“I have an early start like I did last year,” Bangert said, “so I’m feeling positive about it and I’m just going to talk to everybody that I can.”

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online.

CAPTION: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on canceling student debt at Culver City Julian Dixon Library on Feb. 21, 2024, in Culver City, California (Mario Tama/Getty Images).

President Joe Biden expanded his push to eliminate student loan debt Wednesday, saying during a speech the initiative is part of a campaign promise to address the “broken” system.

“While a college degree is still a ticket to a better life, that ticket is too expensive,” Biden said. “And too many Americans are still saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for a college degree.”

Biden, who made his remarks while on a trip to California that also included fundraising for his 2024 campaign, argued that canceling student loan debt not only helps those who receive the benefit directly, but those in their communities.

“When people’s student debt is relieved, they buy homes, they start businesses, they contribute, they engage in the community in ways they weren’t able to before and it actually grows the economy,” Biden said.

The latest round of student debt forgiveness includes nearly 153,000 borrowers and a total of $1.2 billion in debt, according to a fact sheet from the White House.

Those receiving loan forgiveness are enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education or SAVE repayment plan, have been paying back their loans for at least 10 years and originally took out less than $12,000 in loans.

This week’s actions bring total student loan cancellation by the Biden administration to $138 billion for nearly 3.9 million people, according to the fact sheet.

Repayments tied to income, family size

The so-called SAVE Plan allows borrowers to set their student loan repayments based on their income and family size, not the amount of student loan debt they hold.

“The SAVE plan ensures that if borrowers are making their monthly payments, their balances cannot grow because of unpaid interest,” according to the White House’s fact sheet. “And, starting in July, undergraduate loan payments will be cut in half, capping a borrower’s loan payment at 5% of their discretionary income.”

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said on a call with reporters Tuesday there are about 7.5 million people enrolled in the SAVE Plan and that 4.3 million don’t have a monthly payment.

“Many SAVE forgiveness recipients come from lower- and middle-income backgrounds,” Cardona said. “Many took out loans to attend community colleges. Some were at high risk for delinquency and default. That’s why the actions we’re announcing today do matter.”

Cardona said those eligible for this round of student debt cancellation would receive an email from Biden telling them about the move.

New FAFSA rollout criticized

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said in a written statement the latest round of student loan forgiveness is misguided.

“The Biden Department of Education has been unable to fulfill their basic responsibilities mandated by Congress and essential to families, like implementing FAFSA,” Cassidy said, referring to the application college students fill out to access student aid, including grants, scholarships and loans.

The Biden administration’s efforts to revamp the form have been marred by delays and errors. 

“Instead, they have spent a considerable amount of time prioritizing their student loan schemes to shift someone else’s debt onto taxpayers that chose not to go to college or already paid off their loans,” Cassidy added. “This is unfair, manipulative and a cynical attempt to buy votes.”

Cassidy is the ranking member on the U.S. Senate’s Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, often referred to as the HELP Committee.

Supreme Court decision

Biden, speaking at the Julian Dixon Library in Culver City, California, criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for blocking his original student loan forgiveness plan. 

“Early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt,” Biden said. “But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”

Biden said the justices’ opinion in that case led him to “pursue alternative paths” for student debt relief, which includes the announcement he made Wednesday.

Canceling some student loan debt, Biden said, is about giving people a chance.

“That’s all we’re doing … giving people a chance, a fighting chance to make it, because no one who is willing to work hard in America should be denied the opportunity to have that chance.”

Law enforcement responds to a shooting at Union Station during the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl LVIII victory parade on February 14, 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri. Several people were shot and two people were detained after a rally celebrating the Chiefs Super Bowl victory (Jamie Squire/Getty Images).

For starters, experts suggest, get the kids back into school. Routines matter in the raw aftermath of trauma.

Child health experts say the shooting that killed a mother and wounded several children at the close of Kansas City’s celebration of the Chiefs’ latest championship likely left kids traumatized. Whether they were near Union Station or, for some, just hearing the news.

Schools quickly made social workers and counselors available Thursday and put out advice to parents on how to help children return to a sense of normalcy and safety.

Some children, the experts say, need to talk about their concerns. That, the experts say, needs to be balanced against dwelling too much on what happened or trying to force conversations that could go wrong.

Wednesday’s violence came after clinicians saw a troubling mental health hangover from the pandemic.

“Rates of anxiety and depression doubled for young people,” said Dr. Shayla Sullivant, a child and adolescent psychiatrist with Children’s Mercy Hospital. “Now we have more kids that have experienced trauma.”

Multiple school districts told The Beacon that they’re turning to what’s familiar — like going right back to school — to help restore calm after a calamity.

When disaster strikes, “it comes from a place that we didn’t expect, and we don’t know how to deal with that,” said David Smith, a spokesperson for the Shawnee Mission School District. “Being able to connect people, kids, to the familiar, to the routine, can be helpful and give them a comfort that the world is returning to the world that they know and (where) they feel safe.”

Adults matter, too. Parents and teachers, Smith said, need to recognize and seek support for their own distress “in order for us to be there for our kids.”

The shooting marked a “community-level trauma,” said Damon Daniel, president of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, even in a city that saw a record 182 homicides last year.

“We live in a city where we’re not strangers to violence,” he said.

His group worked with prosecutors and other organizations to offer counseling on Thursday at the Kansas City United Church of Christ in Brookside. He said it’s time to talk with professionals and not to lean on isolation, substance abuse or more violence to cope.

“It’s a very complex problem. It’s not one solution,” Daniel said. “There’s no silver bullet to this.”

For starters, public places might never feel the same to some people after the Union Station shooting. Chris Williams, a counselor with Heartland Therapy Connection, said teenagers and young adults might be particularly damaged by the trauma.

“There are no public places they can look at and be, like, ‘I’m safe here,’” he said. “More and more children are on guard, looking out.”

He said survivors can experience extreme post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, such as paranoia or fear of loud noises, and will look to adults for assurance.

“We’re losing that ability to tell them it’s gonna be OK,” Williams said. “There are no safe spaces.”

After Kansas City mass shooting, Missouri Democrats demand stricter gun laws

Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Jennifer Collier emailed parents urging them to address the trauma directly.

“While our instinct may be to shield them from the harsh realities of the world,” she wrote, “it’s essential to proactively address their concerns, especially with our older students who are more likely to seek information independently.”

The district was still sorting out Thursday how many students were close to the shooting even as it suggested parents limit their children’s exposure to news coverage.

Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools also enlisted counselors and social workers and told parents that their kids need someone to turn to.

“People deal with pain and tragedy differently,” district spokesperson Edwin Birch said. “The main thing is just being available.”

At Wichita’s USD 259, the largest school district in Kansas, administrators strove to return to the routine.

“Children are pretty quick to move on to the next thing,” said Stephanie Anderson, who works in the district’s counseling services. “They don’t dwell on stuff like this, unless they hear adults dwelling on it.”

That, she said, needs to be paired with candor.

“(Don’t) sugarcoat it or don’t create fear,” Anderson said.

She and other experts suggest parents look for routines breaking down in the aftermath of the Super Bowl parade. Is your child having trouble sleeping? Has their appetite dwindled? Are they crankier than usual?

An adult’s ear can prove especially helpful, said Tori Cordiano, a clinical psychologist specializing in children and adolescents at Laurel School’s Center for Research on Girls in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

She said trusted adults — family, mental health professionals, school staff — need to be available. Cordiano said younger children may prefer to process their emotions about the parade shooting through art, and older children will need someone to confide in.

“When they have those places to talk,” Cordiano said, “it can help them cope.”

The more comfortable kids feel to talk, she said, the better to keep them grounded and feeling safe.

“When we shut it down,” she said, “it makes it too big or scary.”

Yet exposure to gun violence leaves some psyches damaged for a lifetime. Starsky Wilson, president of the left-leaning Children’s Defense Fund, said gun violence can heighten children’s risk of abusing drugs and alcohol or weigh them down with depression and anxiety.

“The normalization of gun violence in society can desensitize children to the impact of violence and contribute to a sense of helplessness or resignation about the problem,” he said in an email to The Beacon.

Wilson said, in turn, that can make it harder to feel secure, form relationships or thrive in school.

“When exposed to violence,” he wrote, “school-aged children tend to exhibit lower academic grades and increased absenteeism.”

This story was compiled by Scott Canon based on staff reporting. Suzanne King contributed.

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Legislation seeks to use financial penalties to apply pressure to districts that aren’t pursuing bullying incidents in the way required by law (Getty Images).

Missouri school districts would have 10% of their funding revoked if they failed to report an incident of bullying under a bill heard in committee Wednesday.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. John Black of Marshfield, seeks to use financial penalties to apply pressure to districts that aren’t pursuing bullying incidents in the way required by law.

“There are a lot of laws already on the books that try to keep bullying from occurring,” Black said. “But the laws that we have on the books right now don’t seem to be effective in some cases.”

Multiple Democratic lawmakers said that while they encourage legislation that would limit bullying, they worry the punishment envisioned by Black’s legislation that could endanger already-limited funding for schools.

“What stuck out to me at first was that 10%,” said state Rep. Marlene Terry, a St.Louis Democrat. “Because most of the time we’re in here fighting for schools to achieve … and teachers getting raises. So we definitely don’t want to take anything from the schools because of the bad behavior of others.”

Terry suggested that expulsion policies are effective punishment enough.

State Rep. Kathy Steinhoff, a Democrat from Columbia, was also surprised by the language that would withhold schools’ funding. Steinhoff herself was an educator for 34 years prior to joining the legislature. She also served in the past as an officer for the Columbia chapter of the National Education Association.

“You cannot control behavior, but you can certainly attempt to guide students,” Steinhoff said, “I think that’s what our current bullying laws do: guide students who are misbehaving in order to make sure everyone is safe. I just think it goes too far with the penalty provisions.”

However, Steinhoff said it’s possible that some anti-bullying legislation makes it out of their committee due to Black’s willingness to revise his bill and the general interest in the subject matter.

An important piece of the legislation is expanding the law’s definition of bullying to explicitly include the use of “notoriously offensive racial epithets.”

Black shared an anecdote involving multiple students who bullied their classmate using such abusive language, which escalated to destruction of the victim’s property and physical violence. According to Black, teachers and administrators at the school failed to act in defense of this student.

While Black admitted the law’s current definition of bullying would probably encompass the use of racial epithets, he said that it’s worth putting it explicitly in the law’s language.

But fellow Republicans criticized this addition for creating a subjective environment with an unclear explanation of what falls under the definition.

“This is a very wide definition, when it talks about notorious offensive racial epithets. Who would be the arbiter of what is notoriously offensive?” Rep. Ben Baker, R-Neosho said.

With this legislation, Black said he wanted to remind Missourians that legislators are interested in providing a safe environment for their children.

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

Missouri State Reps. Doug Richey, R-Excelsior Springs, and Brad Hudson, R-Cape Fair, present bills to the House Special Committee on Education Reform Monday afternoon (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Organizations representing homeschool families raised concerns about legislation debated Monday seeking to expand a tax credit program that helps pay for students to attend private and religious schools. 

A dozen bills proposing changes to the tax-credit program, dubbed MOScholars, have been filed this legislative session in both the House and Senate. On Monday, a House committee debated four of them, each seeking to make the program more accessible to students across the state.

The program was created in 2021 and is currently only available to students identified as low-income qualifying for special education in charter counties or cities with at least 30,000 residents.

Three bills heard Monday would expand which areas of the state could participate. Two of those also increased the size of the program, and another lifted restrictions on how long a participant needed to have been attending public schools prior to receiving a scholarship. 

Sheryl Schmidt, a lobbyist for the homeschool organization Families for Home Education, said she watched other states tie oversight of homeschool families to educational-scholarship-account expansion.

She was opposed to all four bills debated on Monday, calling them “dangerous for Missouri homeschool freedoms.”

Two days prior to the hearing, Families for Home Education sent out a flier to families, asking them to testify in opposition of bills expanding MOScholars.

“What school choice really means is the government is paying for not only public and charter schools, but also for private and home schools,” it says. “Where there is ‘free’ money there is also a ‘poison pill’ of accountability (restrictions and regulations).”

Homeschooling families complained about potential for government oversight in a Senate committee hearing on a bill that would allow home-educated athletes to participate in public-school teams and clubs but define two categories of homeschooled.

Schmidt has reiterated a desire for privacy in her public testimony.

Three others representing homeschooling families took a similar stance Monday.

Danielle Dent-Breen, president of Kansas City Homeschool Connection, said homeschool families with MOScholars funding must submit to more oversight than self-funded peers, including standardized testing.

She said there are just 14 homeschool families using MOScholars, according to information she received from the State Treasurer’s Office. The Independent received a count of 13 homeschooled students, as of November 3.

The legislation

A bill by state Rep. Mark Matthiesen, a Republican from O’Fallon, would allow students who are currently enrolled in a private school to receive a MOScholars scholarship. The program currently requires recipients to have attended public school “for at least one semester in the past 12 months” or be of kindergarten age.

“My extremely simple bill simply eliminates the section that is an obstacle for students who might otherwise qualify for this,” he told the committee.

State Rep. Brad Hudson, a Republican from Cape Fair, wants to expand the program statewide rather than limiting scholarships to students living in the state’s most populated areas.

“What my bill does is it takes the current statute and it removes the geographic limitations that were approved in 2021 so that the program is open up to families and students statewide,” he said, briefly describing his two-paged bill to the committee.

Hudson’s and Matthiesen’s bills are expected to have no fiscal impact, since they do no not expand the amount of money that the program could accept.

Bills sponsored by Republican Reps. Phil Christofanelli of St. Peters and Doug Richey of Excelsior Springs propose a larger expansion of K-12 tax-credit scholarships at an estimated cost of $9.2 million.

Their legislation would allow for the program to amass $75 million in tax credits instead of the current $50 million cap and approve the appointment of an additional educational assistance organization once organizations can meet $25 million in tax credits annually.

Christofanelli and Richey also call for the end of geographic restrictions.

“I’m not a fan of telling someone that lives right across the county line that you don’t get to benefit from this when they have the very same interest that parents who live in the neighboring county do,” Richey said.

Christofanelli sponsored the bill that created the current program. He told the committee that negotiations led to the geographic restraints, among other things.

“That has been one of the most frustrating parts of the bill,” Christofanelli said. “There’s really no good reason to have those geographic restrictions in place.”

His legislation also calls for higher scholarship amounts for students who speak English as a second language, qualify for free or reduced lunch or have an individualized education plan. The increased amount follows multipliers used to give public schools more money for educating these student groups.

It would also remove background checks for homeschool families participating in the program.

“This legislation ultimately is where we want to go. It is where many other states have gone in providing a universal school choice option for every student that wants to avail themselves of one,” Christofanelli said. “It sets the balance between where I’d like to be and what I think we could practically accomplish in this legislative session.”

Advocates for public education believe the program takes away funding for public schools.

“Further expansion of vouchers in Missouri is detrimental to the public school system,” Nancy Copenhaver, legislative director for the League of Women Voters of Missouri, told the committee. “Which is severely underfunded, as shown by the ranking near the bottom of the country in beginning teacher salaries and average teacher salaries.”

According to the Missouri National Education Association, a teachers’ union, the state ranks 50th in average starting teacher pay and 47th in average teacher pay.

The committee did not take action on the bills Monday.

A tax-credit-scholarship expansion bill sponsored by state Sen. Andrew Koenig, a Manchester Republican, is currently being held for discussion in the Senate. The bill seeks to raise the income cap to be eligible for MOScholars, among provisions similar to Christofanelli’s and Richey’s bills.

A Senate committee is set to debate a pair of bills identical to Koenig’s Tuesday.

One bill, sponsored by Parkville Republican Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, mirrors the base bill. Legislation sponsored by Sen. Curtis Trent, a Springfield Republican, also includes provisions authorizing charter schools in three counties to match an approved committee substitute for Koenig’s bill. Luetkemeyer and Trent filed their bills last Wednesday.

Koenig said his bill was not ready for floor discussion when it came up on the Senate’s calendar last Wednesday.

Rep. Ed Lewis, R-Moberly, speaks in a House Elementary and Secondary Education hearing in April 2023 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Legislation boosting teacher recruitment and retention in Missouri is once again a priority of the Missouri House, with a hearing Wednesday morning on a pair of Republican-backed bills.

Rep. Ed Lewis, a Republican from Moberly, is sponsoring legislation based on the findings of the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s blue ribbon commission. It is the third year he has sponsored legislation on teacher recruitment and retention.

“The problem is obvious to all of us at this point,” he told the committee. “We don’t have enough teachers for our public schools and, to some extent, for the private and parochial schools as well.”

After three years in a Missouri school district, an average 43.3% of teachers leave, according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

According to the Missouri National Education Association, a teachers’ union, the state ranks 50th in average starting teacher pay and 47th in average teacher pay.

Lewis’s bill seeks to raise the base teacher pay, allow differentiated salary schedules for hard-to-staff areas and increase scholarships to recruit teachers, among other provisions.

Missouri state commission told low pay, lack of support is fueling teacher shortage

Rep. Ann Kelley, a Republican from Lamar, asked whether support staff could be added to the bill.

“The schools cannot be successful without the support staff, and the salaries of the support staff and retention and retaining those support staff is vital,” Kelley said.

Lewis was hesitant to increase the potential fiscal impact.

“We’re gonna have a hard time getting anything across the finish line on the other side,” he said, referring to the Senate.

Last year, he filed the teacher pay-raise proposals as separate bills before the committee combined them into one bill. The House overwhelmingly approved the legislation on a 145-5 vote, but filibusters in the Senate ran out the clock before it could be debated in that chamber.

Rep. Willard Haley, a Republican from Eldon, is also sponsoring a bill to raise teachers’ minimum salary — though his ask is a bit different. He hopes to raise the base to $46,000 by the 2027-28 school year. Fully implemented, the bill is estimated to cost up to $17.5 million.

“I just insist that it’s time that we start paying our teachers what they deserve,” Haley said.

He said teenagers with a high-school diploma can make more working at a local factory than some teachers do.

Currently, state statute allows schools to pay teachers as little as $25,000 or $33,000 for those with a master’s degree and 10 years of experience.

The state has a grant program, which is up for renewal annually, to raise teacher base salaries to $38,000. In the current school year, 310 school districts are using the grant for a total of 4,806 teachers, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education told The Independent.

Gov. Mike Parson has requested an increase to this program to raise the base to $40,000 for the next fiscal year.

Lewis doesn’t like relying on the annual appropriations for teacher salaries. He said he worries, with an upcoming gubernatorial election, the next governor may not fully fund the base-salary grant. 

“I don’t think we should legislate through the budget. I think that the policy should go first and the budget should follow,” he told the committee.

Haley’s bill prescribes a fund that would match district’s contributions 70/30 to get salaries to his preferred base.

Rep. Kathy Steinhoff, a Columbia Democrat, said she wanted a “broader” change.

“I look at our large school districts… 52% of our districts will see no impact from state dollars towards teacher salaries,” she said. “I feel pretty confident if we ask those districts ‘Are you having a retention problem?’ They would probably all say yes.”

Rep. Dan Stacy, a Republican from Blue Springs, asked if a base-pay increase could be tied to a decrease to another part of the budget. Haley said his bill is “top priority.”

“This is such a priority item that we must handle this,” he said. “We must fulfill this funding even at a cost to some other things. But education is that important to me.”

No one testified in opposition to the legislation Wednesday.

Perry Gorrell, interim legislative liaison for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said raising the base teacher pay is the Commissioner of Education’s top priority.

“We know that the greatest impact on student achievement is having highly qualified teachers for students. These two bills helped to ensure that,” he said.

Otto Fajen, lobbyist for the Missouri branch of the National Education Association, said the teachers’ union would like lawmakers to consider small schools with under 100 kids when looking at funding.

“While not that many of our members are going to benefit directly from the increase here, it sends a message that the legislature believes that entry pay and, overall, the earnings for teachers should resemble similar professions to make it a more viable choice going forward,” Fajen said.

Steve Carroll, a lobbyist representing the Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City and St. Louis Public Schools, said he woke up at nearly 4 a.m. thinking about these bills.

He felt like his anxiety was pointless because the bills “probably won’t even make it across the finish line because of what’s going on in the Senate.”

But he saw the salary of a baseball player in a news article and marveled at society’s “priorities.” He believes teachers are the ones more deserving of higher pay.

U.S. Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri delivers remarks during a House Oversight Committee hearing on September 28, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve a $78 billion tax package that would expand the child tax credit and reinstate some tax incentives for businesses.

The 357-70 vote sends the bill, dubbed the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, to the U.S. Senate, where lawmakers are expected to vote on it at some point, though passage isn’t guaranteed.

House debate on the 84-page measure was broadly bipartisan, with both Democrats and Republicans backing the agreement between Missouri Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chairman of the House’s tax-writing committee, and his Senate counterpart, Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

Members of both political parties also spoke against the bill, with several far-right lawmakers arguing the expansion of the child tax credit would broaden the “welfare state” and progressive Democrats saying the bill didn’t go far enough to provide relief to low-income and working families.

“Each of these policies will help American business, grow, create jobs and sharpen their competitive edge against China,” Smith said.

The child tax credit expansion, he said, continues provisions that Republicans put into the 2017 tax law they passed during the Trump administration, while updating some of the language.

“We maintain work requirements while enhancing the benefit to support families crushed by today’s inflation and remove the penalty for families with multiple children,” Smith said.

Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the tax- writing committee, said the expansion of the child tax credit would immediately help 16 million children throughout the country.

“This is not the bill I would have written, but this is sensible policy,” he said of the overall package.

Neal sharply criticized the far-right Republicans who spoke out against the measure during floor debate and called the CTC “welfare.”

“I can’t believe that we would stand here tonight and hear that addressing childhood poverty is welfare,” Neal said.

Immigrants and child tax credit

Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good of Virginia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Chip Roy of Texas were among the Republicans who argued against passage during floor debate.

They all expressed frustration that child tax credit payments could go to undocumented immigrants, even though a provision from the 2017 GOP tax law requires the child to have a Social Security number. And several criticized the tax credits for businesses as well.

“Little kids don’t get the checks sent to them even though they have a Social Security number. But their parents, who are here illegally, do,” Perry said.

Georgia Republican Rep. Drew Ferguson vehemently rejected the criticism, saying he didn’t worry “one single bit about making sure that American business is more competitive on the global stage.”

“This is not about giving business a tax break, this is about investing in America and American jobs,” Ferguson said. “And the complete mischaracterization about the child tax credit is the most intellectually dishonest conversation that I have heard on this floor in a very long time.”

“This is about making sure that people that work and their families have the ability to get ahead,” Ferguson added.

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, one of the more progressive members of the House and a longtime advocate for the CTC, also said she couldn’t support the bill, arguing it was a “mockery of who representative government works for.”

“I cannot vote for a deal that so lopsidedly benefits big corporations while failing to ensure a substantial tax cut to middle- and working-class families,” DeLauro said. “The deal is inequitable at a time when we’ve seen a rise in inequality.”

Should Congress clear the bill, President Joe Biden is likely to sign it.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in mid-January the legislation was a “welcome step forward.”

“And we believe Congress should pass it,” she said.

What’s in the child tax credit?

The bill would expand the current child tax credit, which is up to $1,600 per child, to a maximum of $1,800 in 2023, $1,900 in 2024 and $2,000 in 2025. The expansion would expire after that.

The three-year expansion of the child tax credit would not reach the level Congress approved during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it reached a maximum $3,000 or $3,600 for children under 6 years old.

The bill includes several tax incentives for businesses, including a provision that would immediately allow businesses to deduct research and development investments made within the United States.

The bill would “​​strengthen America’s competitive position with China by removing the current double taxation that exists for businesses and workers with a footprint in both the United States and Taiwan,” according to a summary of the legislation.

The legislation would help make housing more affordable through an enhancement of the low-income housing tax credit and other provisions.

Parts of the legislation are intended to help communities recover from natural disasters, including tax relief for families harmed by hurricanes, wildfires, flooding or the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

The legislation would be paid for by ending a tax break for businesses that kept their employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, known as the employee retention tax credit. The law would end the ability for businesses to file new claims on Jan. 31 instead of April 15, 2025.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted 40-3 in mid-January to send the legislation to the floor.

‘Kids that need diapers and shoes’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Wednesday he supports the tax bill and will be working to figure out when and how it should move to the floor for a vote.

Wyden, chairman of the Senate’s tax-writing committee, said he’ll be talking with Schumer to determine if there will be amendment votes on the package. But he said he wants to see it get a vote “as quickly as possible.”

Wyden also rejected some criticism of the bill not having a more significant expansion of the child tax credit, noting that it lasts for three years and Congress will need to renegotiate on tax policy after that.

“We got kids that need diapers and shoes and paying for essential (and) small businesses that are trying to compete with China,” Wyden said. “I gotta say, ‘Get on with it,’ ‘Get it done.’”

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she hopes the Finance Committee holds a markup before the bill moves to the Senate floor.

“I think they need to move it through Finance and have an amendment process without having everything all pre-decided,” Capito said. “That’s what bothers people when they’re trying to make policy, they don’t have any opportunities to weigh in. So I’m for the committee process. Bring it over and let it go through committee.”

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he has several concerns with the bill, including that it’s “not comprehensive enough.” He said he hopes leaders will hold amendment votes on the floor.

“I’ve been saying it’s a mistake. I also think the pay-for is fake,” Tillis said. “I mean, it’s a program that we didn’t pay for when we were doing the COVID bills that we’re now considering a pay-for. And most of that is actually clawing back fraud and abuse.”

“Here’s a concept — why don’t we just send that back to the Treasury and start filling in the $34 trillion hole we have,” Tillis said, referring to the national debt.

Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young said he and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, the top Republican on the tax-writing committee, are hoping to make changes to the legislation once it arrives in their chamber.

“We’re still hoping to make improvements,” Young said, though he declined to detail what changes he wants to make to the tax package. “I’m not going to elaborate.”