JEFFERSON CITY  •  Rep. Rick Stream, R-Kirkwood, served on the Kirkwood School Board for 12 years and has worked closely with public education leaders for years. But his patience with what he calls the "education establishment" is wearing thin.
In an interview last night, Stream said he will file a "comprehensive" bill this week to address problems plaguing the troubled Normandy and Riverview Gardens school districts, where 2,200 students have left for better, nearby public schools.
Among the provisions Stream said he will push:
-- Letting unaccredited school districts immediately terminate contracts with tenured teachers instead of having to get rid of the newest teachers first.
-- Capping the tuition payments that school districts are paid by unaccredited districts for transfer students. Those payments reach $20,000 now. Stream would cap them at 70 percent of the regular amount, which he said would be "very fair" to receiving districts because they generally are not adding classrooms or teachers.
People are also reading…
-- Providing more school choice options, such as additional sponsors for charter schools and state payments for children in unaccredited districts to transfer to private, nonsectarian schools in the same county or neighboring counties.
Stream called the proposed transfer fix put forth by the Missouri Association of School Administrators "a joke" because some of their changes would take 10 years.
"These kids will be out of school by then -- or in jail," he said.
"I get very frustrated with these people who claim to be helping the kids but they won't think out of the box at all," he said. "The education establishment, they're not really for any change. If we're going to help these kids in Normandy and Riverview Gardens, we're going to have to make some serious changes."
Earlier Monday, at a meeting of the House Budget Committee that Stream chairs, state Budget Director Linda Luebbering presented the Normandy School District's request for a $5 million emergency appropriation to finish this school year.
She said the district expects to have $46 million in revenue and $49 million in expenses, not counting paying for transfer students. The transfers will cost $15 million, leaving an $18 million shortfall.
Normandy will use nearly all of its reserves, has made budget cuts and plans to sell $2 million worth of district property to cover all but $5 million of the deficit, Luebbering said.
"Their math seemed reasonable and their explanation seemed reasonable," Luebbering said, adding that she did not have authority to audit the district's books.
Several bills dealing with school transfers already are in the hopper in the Senate but Stream's is likely to be the vehicle for debate in the House. Legislators are feeling pressure to address the issue this year because the Normandy and Riverview Gardens districts are going broke paying for transfers, leaving thousands of students behind in failing schools.
