Judge considers fate of St. Louis schools; state set to take over Friday

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- With little time to spare, attorneys for some St. Louis school board members tried to persuade a judge Wednesday to stop a state takeover of Missouri's largest district.

Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan heard arguments in a crowded courtroom, with Superintendent Diana Bourisaw watching, in a case seeking to keep an appointed board from running the district starting Friday.

The judge, who did not immediately rule on whether to block the state takeover, scheduled further arguments for today.

The State Board of Education voted in March to strip the St. Louis district of accreditation, saying it came up short on academic and financial standards. A three-member board -- appointed by the governor, mayor and alderman president -- is to manage the schools.

Board of Education president Peter Herschend said the takeover was in students' best interest.

"I saw no reasonable alternative to protect the academic interests of those youngsters," he told the court.

He said the board delayed that switch until mid-June in part to give the new board time to prepare to run the schools.

Under questioning by an attorney for St. Louis board members, Herschend said he hasn't spoken much with the governor's appointee, homebuilder Rick Sullivan, doesn't know who the other two members are and has seen no plans for how the district will be managed.

"I have seen nothing official. They are not obligated to report to the [state] board," he said.

Much of Wednesday's arguments focused on how state education department staff determined the district met just four of 14 performance standards. St. Louis disputes the state finding in two areas -- college placement and career education.

To remain provisionally accredited, as the district had been, St. Louis schools needed to meet six standards.

The lawsuit said state officials unfairly required more data to prove the district had met some requirements after the district changed its method of gathering information, and did not give enough time before voting to strip its accreditation.

Rebecca Kemna, state coordinator of school improvement and accreditation, said data submitted by the district showed such marked improvement in college placement that the state asked for details to back it up.

She said staff took the same action with other districts, including Springfield, when their data was inconsistent with a trend over time.

In St. Louis, "they were significantly increased from what they had reported in the past," she said.

The lawsuit makes more than two dozen claims, basically arguing that the state acted unconstitutionally in removing accreditation and setting up an appointed board. Without loss of accreditation, the appointed board would have no power and serve merely in an advisory role.

Among other points, the lawsuit argues that the district was treated differently from others with similar performance and that an appointed board denies city residents' rights to vote for the local governing body.

Attorneys for the district also spent part of Wednesday's hearing running through a list of other districts -- including some in the St. Louis area -- that met even fewer state standards in their latest annual report but have not been stripped of accreditation.

Kemna explained that generally districts are reviewed every five years, but they can be considered more often if requested by the state board, as in St. Louis' case. The agency also reviewed Wyaconda in an off year and is doing so now with Riverview Gardens, she said.

The district noted that the nearby Wellston School District lost accreditation and had two years to improve before being taken over by the state. Then, after a year of state management, the state education board created a new category of "interim" accreditation for Wellston.

At the time, state officials said they worried about Wellston's financial picture if students were allowed to continue transferring elsewhere, with Wellston footing the bill.

Kemna said Wednesday that Wellston was a special case because some of its old data was found unreliable. So it's essentially on probation until state education officials have enough data to determine whether performance is good enough, she said.

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On the Net:

Case Tracking: http://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet/base/welcome.do

St. Louis Schools: http://www.slps.org

State Education Department: http://www.dese.mo.gov