Mary Schrag Archives - Missourinet

Missouri K-12 community waits its turn to get COVID-19 vaccination

January 15, 2021 By Alisa Nelson

The state is not quite there yet in offering the COVID-19 vaccination to Missouri’s K-12 school workers. It is working on a plan to get them vaccinated when it is their turn. During a state Board of Education meeting this week, Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Spokeswoman Mallory McGowin said supply continues to be an obstacle.

“The number of vaccines we have gotten into the state has not been what we were hoping at this point,” she said. “And so, that is affecting the timeline obviously for our K-12 audience.”

Missouri K-12 community waits its turn to get COVID-19 vaccination

Member Mary Schrag of southern Missouri’s West Plains said the medical community in rural Missouri is also lacking vaccine.

So far, the immunizations have been offered to Missouri’s health care workers as well as long-term care staff and patients. On Thursday, the state began offering them to first responders and remaining health care workers. Beginning Monday, individuals 65 and older and those with an increased risk of severe illness can get vaccinated.

K-12 school employees are next in line. Some board members, including President Charlie Shields, said the education community should be higher on the priority list.

“The faster we get the education community immunized, the faster we get back to in-person learning, which we have said as a board is a huge priority,” said Shields. “The more kids we have in school, the more parents we have able to re-enter the workforce, the faster the economy recovers.”

School nurses could help to vaccinate fellow employees. Some workers might end up going to a nearby Walgreens or CVS Pharmacy. Shields said hospitals “stand ready to help.”

“What we would do is set up in a large space be it a gymnasium or a cafeteria, have several people doing the immunizations, doing the registration, things like that. Then we need to be able to watch people for 15 minutes to make sure they don’t have a reaction,” he said. “So, it takes a lot of manpower to do these. But when you set them up right, you can do hundreds if not thousands a day. So, you can imagine it wouldn’t take very long to do an entire school district.”

Shields, of northwest Missouri’s St. Joseph, is the CEO of Truman Medical Center in Kansas City and serves on the Missouri Hospital Association Board.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine tracker shows more than 528,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been delivered to Missouri’s hospitals, health care providers, local health departments, or pharmacies. Gov. Mike Parson says Missouri has administered at least 190,000 doses of the immunization.

Missouri Board of Education has lengthy discussion about the state of charter schools

September 21, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

Robbyn Wahby

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s website says the state has had 28 charter schools close since 2005. Robbyn Wahby, executive director of the Missouri Charter Public School Commission, says most of the closures are due to poor academic performance.

“If families don’t choose to go to a charter school because it is not performing, they (schools) won’t survive. And we have seen schools close for financial reasons. Financial reasons have a lot to do with enrollment,” she says.

Charter schools are independently-operated public schools funded through a combination of state and private dollars. Opponents of charter schools contend that the schools compete with traditional public schools for state funding.

Many Republicans in the Missouri Legislature have made attempts over the years to expand charter schools statewide. Current Missouri law limits charter schools to St. Louis, Kansas City and any unaccredited school districts.

Carol Hallquist

During a Missouri Board of Education meeting, member Carol Hallquist of Kansas City says a group of urban leaders tell her the decline of traditional public school funding effects crime. Kansas City and St. Louis have some of the worst violent crime rates in the country.

“They were lamenting that we no longer have after school activities. There’s not enough students to fill a football team or dance squad or the chess club,” says Hallquist. “And that what happens is youth have to get rid of that stress and that’s a pathway to crime. You talked about having a high-parent involvement – a sense of community. I think all of our schools want that but when they continue to see an erosion of money and students, they can’t achieve that.”

Hallquist made the comments before the board voted in favor of allowing a new St. Louis elementary charter school to open in the fall of 2021 – Atlas Public School. The school will operate year-round with five weeks on and two weeks off. The opening will mean the school will get $1.2 million annually in state aid currently being provided to the St. Louis Public School District.

Peter Herschend

Wahby’s commission will serve as the sponsor of Atlas to oversee the health and performance of the school. She says there is no greater waste of taxpayer dollars than poor-performing schools.

“We don’t need any more poor-performing schools,” she says. “Nothing that Atlas is doing is preventing St. Louis Public Schools from putting out a high-performing school. And so, choices have to be made by districts too about how they spend their money.”

Member Peter Herschend of Branson says the board has a responsibility to Missouri taxpayers.

“We collectively, you, this board, needs to be very, very conscious that we aren’t draining one pot only to fill another pot,” he says. “At the end, it isn’t how many charters there are. It’s how well we are educating the general population – not just the kids who are in charters, not just the kids who are in public school.”

“The accountability to sponsors is part of it. Are we renewing poor-quality schools? And if that’s part of the competition, shame on us,” says Wahby.

Mary Schrag

Member Mary Schrag of southern Missouri’s West Plains says education is going in several different directions.

“It’s like we are not fixing the problems maybe as well as we need to be,” says Schrag. “We have several of the charter schools and private schools and virtual schools and all these other options coming into play. I’m concerned it’s tearing at the fiber of our educational system.”

“Where I think we have to really face though is that our alternatives of not trying to provide more quality schools are not simply going to make districts better. Us not doing charter schools is not going to have a benefit to the districts,” says Wahby.

Missouri currently has 36 charter schools.

Missouri temporarily allows reduced training option to become substitute teacher

August 18, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

The Missouri Board of Education has voted 6-2 today in favor of temporarily giving substitute teacher candidates an alternative to get certified. The proposal was offered to help reduce an expected shortage of substitutes during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Missouri temporarily allows reduced training option to become substitute teacher

Under the plan, candidates can go through 20 hours of state-approved online training or complete the traditional 60 hours of college credit hours. The cost is expected to be about $100 to $200 per candidate, plus another $50 for certification.

During today’s board meeting, Paul Katnik, Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Educator Quality, said the training includes topics about:

1. Professionalism: Appropriate conduct, confidentiality, legal responsibilities
2. Honoring diversity: Basic terminology and appropriate actions
3. Student engagement: Basic definitions and appropriate strategies
4. Foundational classroom management techniques: Ways to control a classroom and diffusing conflict
5. Basic instructional strategies: Effective questioning, assessment methods, lesson plans
6. Supporting students with special needs: Basic terminology of disorders and characteristics and appropriate strategies
7. Working with at-risk youth: Learning traits, characteristics, and appropriate strategies

Katnik told the board the training must be aligned to Missouri teacher standards and include embedded assessments.

“So you can’t progress through the training unless you pass quizzes along the way that says ‘I learned what you just taught me,’” he said.

Katnik said data will also be produced about the effectiveness of each substitute’s training.

“Not only how did the individual do as they were trained and how well did they do when they started serving as a substitute teacher, but you have to offer up data that says school districts and teachers where this person worked can tell us how well they did at substitute teaching. I would just note, we don’t have that with 60 semester hours right now,” he said.

Member Mary Schrag of West Plains thanked Katnik for creating an accountability measure.

“I think for the rural areas in particular, it’s very helpful because finding subs is extremely difficult and even actually finding enough educators right now is a challenge,” she said.

Member Carol Hallquist of Kansas City, who backed the plan, said about 200,000 retired teachers or those who have left the profession could help. She questioned if the proposal is necessary.

“One of the substitute teacher providers checked in with their retired people and said ‘How willing are you to substitute teach?’ They said a great percentage of them said ‘not now.’ They’re going to be in a higher risk group. Those are going to be folks that are a little older and so the risks are going to be a little bit higher,” said Katnik.

Board President Charlie Shields of St. Joseph adamantly opposed the measure and said he is troubled by the message it sends.

“We have said as a board for as long as I’ve been on this board, that a post-secondary educational experience is important – that we believe nobody should stop at high school. So, I think this sends the message that it’s okay to stop at high school,” said Shields.

He also foresees the proposal becoming permanent.

“This idea that somehow we’ll go back after February, I’ve just watched it. There will be big time pressure put on us to continue to lower down the expectations of substitutes so we won’t go back,” he said. “So if you vote for this today, you’ll vote for something very similar for this in February. That’s just my experience of watching this on the board.”

Shields said the substitute shortage is about money.

“You have trouble getting substitutes for what you’re willing to pay substitutes,” he said. “They’re out there. You just have to find the right dollar amount to get them.”

Board Vice President Victor Lenz opposed the plan and shared a similar tone.

“How many people want to do it for what they’re getting for it? We need to elevate the teaching profession as is. Our teachers are not valued for what they are,” said Lenz. “A strong sub pool is deep with knowledge and ability and all that kind of stuff. What we’re talking about doing is making a big pool – a lot of people – but very shallow. I’m in a quandary with this whole thing because it is an emergency, but it’s not a total solution.”

Member Kim Bailey of Raymore said the proposal is probably economically-driven and fear-driven by the pandemic.

“I don’t know that we can fix either of those on an emergency basis,” she said. “I share your concern, Charlie, it’s a slippery slope and that we don’t want to slide down too quick and too fast on quality. And keeping in mind that we are in an emergency situation, I like the idea of cautiously moving forward and that there’s going to be measures on it.”

Member Don Claycomb of Linn supported the plan.

“The key word, I think, is emergency,” said Claycomb. “We’re in an emergency situation and when we’re in an emergency situation, I think we have to look at what is the lesser of the evils – granted that none of the options are perfect.”

Hallquist asked what would happen if a school runs short on subs and teachers. Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven said the school could move to online learning. Claycomb said additional kids could also be combined into other classrooms.

“What’s best for Missouri’s children,” asked Hallquist. “Is it to cram 45 into a class or is it to have someone who’s had some training handle that class?”

If the board is asked to make the alternative a permanent option like Shields predicts, member Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge of Pasadena Hills said members will need more information first.

“I don’t know about making this super permanent. I think this is something that could be perceived by some as watering down our quality pool,” she said. “So I would be happy with a balanced solution where we took this action but we monitored it very closely to make sure that we were getting the outcomes we wanted before we decided to make it more permanent. For me, it’s moving forward but moving forward cautiously to resolve the capacity constraints. If the data tells you this wasn’t a good move, we won’t over-commit and we can always correct.”

She said the longer-term measure would have to inject more quality in order for her to be comfortable with it.

“I think what we’re all struggling with right now is the short-term stopgap measure presented to us by Paul is meant to create a larger sub pool but we don’t feel good about the quality,” said Westbrooks-Hodge. “So, it’s quantitative and it’s not necessarily qualitative, which makes the monitoring and the short-term nature of this stopgap measure very real. For me, the monitoring of this short-term measure has to be there, but I don’t think long-term we can compromise the quality of the education that our students receive because we’re currently in crisis mode. I definitely understand the need to make an emergency short-term decision, but don’t think that we can compromise our children’s future long-term by making this permanent without a quality plan as well.”

The emergency rule is set to take effect on September 2 and expire at the end of February 2021.

Missouri has 555 public school districts and charter schools.

Earlier story:

Missouri Board of Education to consider proposal intended to boost substitute teacher population: https://wp.me/p16gMv-wQT