By Antonio D. French
Filed Tuesday, July 18, 2006 at 5:04 PM
A story on the website of the St. Louis American this morning suggested that folks upset at the recent moves by four members of the St. Louis Board of Education might be laying the groundwork to recall one or more of the members. But a quick check with the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education suggests that is not possible. Labels: Media_Watch, Schools
The city and the school district are separate political subdivisions. While the city's charter outlines the procedure for recalling city elected officials, DESE officials believe it has no bearing on the school board.
"There is not a general provision in state law that allows for the popular recall of school board members in local school districts," said Jim Morris, a DESE spokesman.
But Morris said there is, however, a provision of law that applies to SLPS (as a metropolitan school district). Section 162.631 gives the circuit court jurisdiction over the school board and spells out a process by which board members may be removed.
However, it is unlikely that a judge would see the firing of a popular basketball coach, or even the recent resignation of Superintendent Creg Williams, as grounds to remove any one member from the board.
As a side note, that story on the American's site carried a photo taken by this reporter and used without permission. We wrote the paper's editor, Chris King, to inform him of the faux pas. We checked the site later in the day and the photo was gone. In its place was another school board-related photo and story. The first paragraph of that story reads:
"A crowd of more than 50 people picketed outside the home of School Board President Veronica O'Brien on Monday night calling for her removal from the board and the rehiring of basketball coach Floyd Irons."
Except for the word "tonight" being replaced with "on Monday," this was lifted word-for-word from our story yesterday on the incident.
Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but twice in the same day is just ridiculous.
4 Comments:
That is precisely why we hit PUB DEF first, Antonio.
7/18/2006 5:41 PM
Exactly!
Their Political Eye page hasn't been updated in more than a month and most of the web page is never current.
You do an excellent job (especially considering everything that's happening....and happening so fast) of keeping up the good work.
Thanks Antonio.
7/18/2006 6:47 PM
Plenty of people wanted to recall Vince Schoemehl when he was pitching water and fists at people. But no one recalled Vince. You can't go down that road the way school boards are charterd.
Who ever wrote that article in the american has no sense of history/possable plagerist/has an agenda agenst the new board majority.
Is Ann Coulter working at the American now?
7/18/2006 8:43 PM
No, Coulter is not working there but maybe Michael Savage, or Matt Drudge.
It seems that every news outlet in STL really likes your content Antonio.
Funny that they have not offered you a job! Weird how reporting works in St. Louis.
If they would rather steal your information, then perhaps you could go the route of books. I am sure you have plenty of content to author a 2-3 hundred page book.
7/19/2006 8:35 AM
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