Teacher groups vet school board hopefuls

Mar. 1—Next Monday afternoon will see the third official St. Joseph Board of Education candidate forum, with teachers leading the conversation about April 2's elections.

The forum is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. March 4 at the Troester Media Center, 3401 Renick St., the same place where the three eventual winners will conduct most of their business starting in mid-April. The Missouri State Teachers Association is hosting the forum. Anchoring the questions will be topics like staff morale, working conditions, the district's long-range plan, improving student outcomes and more.

"Most of our questions are going to be focused on the future of our district, how they believe that their role on the board is going to impact the future of the district and how they can act professionally to be able to help our district move forward," said Kelly Bristol, St. Joseph regional president for the MSTA. She works at Truman Middle School.

Candidates will take turns to respond. Those on the ballot are Steven Carrillo, Ronda Chesney, Kenneth Reeder, Kim Dragoo, Sean Connors, LaTonya Williams, Mike Moore, Jacob McMillian, Warren Ingram III and Tami Pasley. Each participant is able to write out answers to three given questions, and up to three surprise questions will be posed to each candidate, subject to changes to allow for the event to conclude in a timely manner.

Bristol said MSTA members will contemplate an endorsement of one or more candidates following the forum. They may elect to endorse no one at all, or up to three, as the top three vote-getters competing at large will earn seats on April 2, for three-year terms.

For its part, the Missouri National Education Association elected not to hold a candidate forum this year, citing how the establishment of five other official forums (including the MSTA forum) left MNEA members to conclude there is no need for an additional event of their own. St. Joseph MNEA president Lynnea Wootten, who works at Central High School, said the NEA has already endorsed Sean Connors and LaTonya Williams.

"We had a one-on-one with each candidate on Feb. 15 for our members," Wootten said. "There's so many forums, so we went for this option. We had seven of the 10 speak with us; all filled out our survey."

How many people the MSTA and the MNEA represent isn't clear; there are about 850 total teachers in the district at any given time. The two groups are rivals for enrolling new members and each declines to say how many are active members. They also influence the perspective of various retirees, family members, and other voters of the community.

At any rate, an MSTA or MNEA endorsement can be powerful in school board races. Lori Witham (2020), LaTonya Williams and David Foster (2021), Isaura Garcia and Kim Miller (2022), and Rick Gehring (2023) each won seats on the board after being endorsed by one or both teacher groups. More often than not, the groups have predicted the first-place candidate.

Marcus Clem can be reached at marcus.clem@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowClem