Debbie Fort's tornado statement nowhere to be found in Joplin Globe coverage

No statement drew as much attention Monday night during the Joplin R-8 Board of Education Candidate Forum than Debbie Fort's response to incumbent board member Randy Steele's attempt to blame high teacher turnover in the Joplin School District on the tornado.

"I am sick to death of blaming the tornado," she said.

While her statement was specifically in response to a question about teacher turnover and she offered other, more logical causes for the mass exit of teachers from the district, Debbie Fort said the words that many people have been thinking for a long time- it is time to stop using the tornado as a crutch for everything.

It has been used as an excuse not only for high teacher turnover, but also for incredible overspending of taxpayer money and for sweeping changes that seem to be designed more for show than for actual educational value.

With that one sentence, Debbie Fort sounded a "stop the nonsense" rallying cry that was easily the top moment in the one hour forum.

Naturally, the quote did not make today's Joplin Globe coverage.

To be fair, reporter Emily Younker did hit some of the other high points of the forum, including Board President Jeff Flowers' comment "I think we're open and honest in everything we do," and David Guilford's retort that the board's policy on public comment is "closing the door completely on the taxpayer. I think it's wrong and it's very detrimental to our district and our students."

So why didn't Debbie Fort's comment make the pages of the area's newspaper of record?

Sadly, no entity has been move invested in prolonging the story of Joplin's continued suffering from the tornado than the Joplin Globe.

My guess is Emily Younker had no idea how Debbie Fort's line would resonate with the public.

Hedging their bets? Joplin Progress Committee endorses five R-8 Board candidates

The Joplin Progress Committee, the group of business leaders who want the city and the school district to continue in the path it has gone in since the May 22, 2011, tornado, is now endorsing five of the eight candidates for the R-8 Board of Education.

The committee has added Linda Banwart and Jeff Koch to its list of candidates.

Last week, the committee announced it was endorsing two incumbents, Board President Jeff Flowers and Randy Steele, and Shawn McGrew. At that time, the committee had not interviewed either Mrs. Banwart or Koch.

The only candidates who did not get the committee's stamp of approval were former Irving Elementary Principal Debbie Fort, Dave Guilford, formerly a building engineer at the old South Middle School, and Shane Reed.

As noted in earlier Turner Report posts, Joplin Progress Committee has stated its intention of making contributions to candidates that meet with its approval. Three R-8 candidates, Flowers, Steele, and McGrew have already formed the campaign committees required by state ethics laws for candidates who plan to accept more than $1,000 in contributions, or more than $325 from any one source.

Koch has indicated he will not accept contributions from the committee.

The damaging effect of Joplin's high teacher turnover

I imagine there are Turner Report readers who are tired of hearing that more than 200 teachers left the Joplin R-8 School District over the past two years.

That is especially true when the situation has been explained by Superintendent C. J. Huff and others with these three scenarios:

-The teachers were suffering from the traumatic effects of the tornado

-Their spouses landed jobs in other towns.

-And the most recent one, which was posed by an anonymous commenter on this blog- The teachers left because they are afraid of technology.

Anyone who is close to the situation knows you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of teachers who left because their spouses were hired for out-of-town jobs.

I still have not heard the name of one teacher who left because of the tornado. On the contrary, I know many who resolved to stay because they wanted to help the students get through the recovery process.

As for the technology nonsense, teachers have always adapted to the technology, even when the addition of such technology and the requirements for implementing it do not make any sense.

You are always going to have some turnover in education. It is a stressful job and there are people who realize they are not equipped to handle the stress or who find that their interests lie in other directions.

With that being said, the biggest problem with high teacher turnover is the effect it has on the students.

When that many teachers are leaving, whether it be by choice or coercion, with them goes experience that cannot be replaced. There will always be teachers retiring and beginning teachers being added to schools. It is when veteran teachers who are nowhere near retirement age are leaving that you have a serious problem.

The Joplin R-8 School District has a serious problem.

The district is running through principals at an unheard-of pace and when you have lost more than 100 teachers in each of the past two years, you are talking about a crisis situation.

Where there has not been high turnover in the past few years are two areas- the top two administrators in the district, which has remained the same for six years until Angie Besendorfer's resignation takes effect next month, and the board of education.

If Ashley Micklethwaite had not taken a job out of town, we would have the same board members during that entire time. It is almost unheard of for a board of education to stay together for that long.

One way that has been accomplished is through public relations machinery that has convinced the public there are no problems in the school district. It looks as if that public relations machinery has had a breakdown. For the first time, other than two previous candidacies by David Guilford, who was close enough to the situation to know the problems that exist, there are challenges to the incumbents, including former Irving Elementary Principal Debbie Fort, Jeff Koch, and Guilford.

One major issue will be the spending spree that has put the district on the brink of financial chaos.

The biggest issue, however, is the incredible amount of turnover in the district. When McKinley Elementary has only a couple of teachers remaining from the 2012-2013 school year and the principal is rewarded with a job in upper-level administration, you have a serious problem.

When that principal is replaced, in a school that now has an entirely new faculty, including many young teachers, with a leader who not only is taking her first principal's position, but who is not qualified for that position, you have a serious problem.

When you have a board of education that has rubber-stamped the bloodbath that the Joplin R-8 School District has seen the past couple of years (always by 7-0 votes), you have a crisis.

And the ones who are paying the most for that crisis are the children.

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WWNO, the public radio station in New Orleans, has a revealing report on the effects of high teacher turnover, which includes this passage:

The changeovers impact students and families in that there is less continuity. There's less of a chance for teachers and administrative staff to get to know students and their families well, and so families may not have someone at the school they know they can talk to if there's a problem. Instead they're dealing with new people all the time.