St. Louis Public Radio
Karen Hall, center, watches Maplewood Richmond Heights high schoolers in 2018. Hall retired this school year after taking over as MRH s superintendent in 2012.
After more than a year of having to be educators, public health experts and, at times, politicians, at least 43 school superintendents in Missouri are calling it quits.
The list includes six from the St. Louis region. The overall turnover rate among top school administrators is on par with last year but up from 2019, according to a statewide superintendent organization.
School leaders say the past year has been particularly grueling as the pandemic brought new challenges, tough decisions and increased scrutiny. And since leaders around the state have faced the same challenges, there was nowhere to turn for advice.
Teachers and staff in a St. Louis-area school district say opponents of the district’s new diversity and equity programs are posting threats of violence on
You can read Superintendent Miles full letter to the Rockwood community below: As we enter into the final weeks of the school year, I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank you for your outstanding work with our students. To say this has been a challenging year is certainly an understatement. Recently, Rockwood has been the subject of local and national media attention, as well as countless social media posts, and it has unfortunately cast a negative light on our work and our community. I am so very sorry for the distraction from our true task, which is providing an outstanding educational experience for our students.
St. Louis Public Radio Amy Ryan, a Rockwood parent, reacts Friday during a parent-organized forum on the district s diversity curriculum.
What started as a tense debate over whether Rockwood’s schools should reopen in person last fall has descended into schoolyard bullying among the adults.
Politics didn’t used to enter the schools. The elementary recitals and high school football games were where parents could put conservative versus liberal views aside, don the school colors and root for their kids.
But without that common social fabric in a year of social distancing, the Rockwood School District community is ripping at the seams, frayed first by the pandemic’s closure of schools and then shredded by a fight over whether and how to teach diversity in classrooms. The district’s superintendent and diversity director are both walking away, but educators in the district continue to feel under siege from a group of parents leading a charge against a diversity curriculum t
St. Louis Public Radio
Amy Ryan, a Rockwood parent, reacts Friday during a parent-organized forum on the district s diversity curriculum.
Politics didn’t used to enter the schools. The elementary recitals and high school football games were where parents could put conservative versus liberal views aside, don the school colors and root for their kids.
But without that common social fabric in a year of social distancing, the Rockwood School District community is ripping at the seams, frayed first by the pandemic’s closure of schools and then shredded by a fight over whether and how to teach diversity in classrooms. The district’s superintendent and diversity director are both walking away, but educators in the district continue to feel under siege from a group of parents leading a charge against a diversity curriculum they say is “indoctrinating” their children.