How Jeff Flowers and the Joplin R-8 Board of Education shield themselves from the people

(The following post originally ran on the August 22, 2013, Inside Joplin website. It came shortly after the Joplin Globe ran an article rubber stamping the hoops that the C. J. Huff Administration and the Joplin R-8 Board of Education make people go through in order to address problems.)

The Joplin Globe uncovered one of the biggest stories going on in Missouri education in its Sunday edition, but apparently never realized the importance of what it found.

In a story buried toward the back end of section A, the Globe proved that the people’s access to school boards all over this area (and it is also true across the state) is extremely limited and often non-existent.

Of course, that evidence came up in what appeared to be a Globe effort to show that the barriers the Joplin R-8 Board of Education and administration place in front of those who want to address the board are not unusual (everyone does it), so there is no problem.

Brent Ghan of the Missouri School Boards Association, which provides help to districts in forming policy, said that is the way things should be done.

That is the problem. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Joplin Globe to do any more stories on this astounding discovery. It is not going to happen. Now that the Globe is satisfied that the R-8 Board of Education is right in the hoops it requires citizens to jump through to talk to the board, it will likely not be mentioned again, or only mentioned in passing.

To review, this is what you have to do to talk to the board:

1. You have to register in advance.

2. You can only talk about items that are already on the agenda and are up for a vote.

3. Even if you meet those criteria, You still have to be approved by the president of the board of education and Superintendent C. J. Huff.

4. If you do manage to get on the agenda, you are limited to three minutes, which can be a daunting chore if you have an opposing point of view to something being pushed by an administrator who just took 20 minutes explaining a subject. And you will be cut off if you reach the three minutes.

Consequently, you do not hear many citizens addressing the board unless they have been invited to talk about something that will impress the audience that catches the meeting on Jet 14 or YouTube.

Does it make for faster, more organized meetings? Certainly. Those with problems and those who have dissenting views from those held by the board and administration could easily throw a monkey wrench in the way of perfect planning.

But contrary to the impression the board gives and one that is pushed by the Missouri School Boards Association, the Joplin R-8 Board of Education is not the board of directors of a Fortune 500 business. Its time belongs to the people.

In the Globe article, Board President Jeff Flowers noted that all of the board members’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses are listed and they are all accessible to the people. This is the same Jeff Flowers who told the district’s principals last spring that they were not to bring any problems to him. If they had problems, Flowers said, the principals were to take them to “that man,” referring to C. J. Huff. Statements were also made following the board’s recent retreat that that it had emerged determined not to get involved in day-to-day problems of parents and just stick to policy making.

It was noted in the Globe story that people with problems should take them through channels. That is the proper approach in most cases, but if you have talked with a teacher, a principal, and C. J. Huff and you are still not satisfied, you should have access to the Board of Education. And what if your problem is with C. J. Huff?

Undeniably, being on a board of education is a thankless job and those who volunteer their time and run for a seat should be commended. That being said, somewhere along the line, in an effort to remove the possibility of board members who meddle in everything and those who are pushing their own agendas, Missouri school boards, most especially the one in Joplin, have created clubs that meet once a month to rubber stamp whatever their administrators put before them.

The story that should have been in Sunday’s Joplin Globe was the start of a movement to take back the people’s agenda, something that should be taking place not only in Joplin, but across this state. The Globe noted that the movement was started by high school students, but what it failed to note, surprisingly, since the reporter interviewed some of the parents who attended last Friday night’s meeting, was the parental involvement.

Of course, if the involvement of parents had been mentioned, the Globe might have had to concede that there truly is a problem in the Joplin R-8 School District, and as we have seen in other recent articles, including the one on the large number of teachers who are leaving the district, the Globe wants to make sure that everyone knows things are running smoothly at 32nd and Duquesne.

Perhaps the Joplin R-8 Board of Education is not the only entity that needs to have its agenda examined.