By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A long-range plan proposed by the administration
for the St. Joseph School District would make drastic changes throughout the
district in an effort to recruit teachers, shore up academics, and better use
buildings.
St. Joseph School Superintendent Gabe Edgar
states in the introduction of the long-range plan that the district stands on
the brink of opportunity.
“We have issues with academics. We have issues
with attendance rates. We have issues with graduation rates,” Edgar tells
KFEQ/St. Joseph Post during an interview in his office. “What I meant was, on
the brink of opportunity was, something has to give or it’s time for change.
So, I think we’re right there to make good things happen here in St. Joseph.”
This is the first of a two-part series on the St.
Joseph School District long-range plan.
Edgar says the long-range plan grew out of eight
straight months of discussing school boundaries without reaching a conclusion. Edgar
says it also grew out of the Vision Forward process in which the district
sought public input on its future.
“Recruiting and retaining quality staff was something
that was talked about the whole time, throughout the Vision Forward process,
all 18 months,” Edgar says. “So that’s the first piece of this document, the
long-range plan document. The second piece was the academic challenges that we
face.”
The long-range plan highlights some challenges the
St. Joseph School District faces in educating approximately 10,500 students.
Nearly three-quarters of the students attending St. Joseph schools qualify for
free or reduced lunch, a poverty rate of 73.4%, far above the average of 47.4% for
Missouri schools. The St. Joseph School District has a growing Hispanic
population. The long-range plan document pegs the percentage of Hispanic
students at 9.4%, but Edgar tells us that has grown to more than 10% since that
plan was printed. Slightly more than 65% of the student population is white
with 7.1% black. More than 13% of the student population is multi-racial.
The document contains three objectives: retaining and hiring high-quality staff,
improving student performance, and supporting facilities for learning.
One aspect of the long-range plan sure to stand
out in St. Joseph is Edgar’s call to switch from the three high school system
under which the district currently operates to a two high school system. Each
high school, under the plan, would educate an equal number of students.
“It right-sizes the district all the way down,” according
to Edgar.
And, Edgar says, it makes sense.
“Right now we have 13 elementary schools. We don’t
need 13 elementary schools. We need 10,” Edgar says. “But we can’t get to 10
without right sizing the problem at the top.”
The long-range plan also has proposals to help
get and keep quality teachers, which Edgar says is vital to the district
raising academic scores.
Click HERE for a link to the long-range plan.
We explore those and more during part two of this
two-part series.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.