By WMAY Newsroom
Photo Credit: Facebook / Raina Kolba
Challenger Buffy Lael-Wolf has won the race in Springfield school board subdistrict 5, defeating incumbent Tiffany Mathis, who was seeking election to a full term after being appointed to the seat in 2019.
Mathis was one of the most outspoken advocates for getting students back into classrooms more quickly during the pandemic, while Lael-Wolf recommended a more cautious approach. Lael-Wolf received the endorsement of the Springfield Education Association.
In the other contested Springfield school board race, another SEA-endorsed candidate, Erica Austin, easily defeated challengers Tom Shafer and Michael Washington to win the open subdistrict 6 seat being vacated by Judith Johnson. Austin won more than 69% of the vote, compared to 17% for Shafer and 11% for Washington.
By WMAY Newsroom
(Springfield Education Association / Facebook)
The new president of the Springfield Education Association says she wants to make sure the next contract for Springfield teachers ensures fair and equitable pay, as well as safety for educators.
Angie Meneghetti has been elected to formally take over the job that she’s held in an acting capacity for the past two months, since former president Aaron Graves resigned after a domestic battery arrest. Meneghetti will dive right into negotiations on a new contract, since the current agreement expires in August.
She says she would like to see some element of remote learning as part of the district’s plan for the fall… as long as it is backed up by the necessary resources to make it work.
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For some, the pandemic has meant months of monotony. For others, those months have come with an onslaught of seemingly impossible decisions to make. Jennifer Gill, superintendent of District 186, falls into the latter category. On March 24, she announced the latest controversial move. Starting Tuesday, April 6, public school students in Springfield under the hybrid learning model – those attending some in-person classes – will start four-day weekly schedules in classrooms. Previously, hybrid students were broken into two different groups that attended either Tuesdays and Thursdays or Wednesdays and Fridays. The new Tuesday-Friday schedule will be maintained until the end of the school year. It will mean students who were once separated into two different groups for each class will be joined together. Both remote and hybrid students spend Mondays learning asynchronously – independently but with lesson plans to follow – which will continue.
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