Educational Stakeholders Do Not Support the MSBA’s Decision to Withdraw from the National Organization

By Amber Benge, Leadership Team, Missouri Equity Education Partnership

“There’s something wrong with the world today, and everybody knows it’s wrong.” - Aerosmith

There is uneasiness and palpable anger that currently permeates almost all of society. The anger and rage have meandered their way into our safe places, such as schools and churches. My concern is that societal anger and rage are infiltrating our schools on a blitzkrieg mission for destruction. This concern was further exacerbated by the Missouri School Board Association’s (MSBA) recent decision to withdraw from the National School Board Association (NSBA).

The withdrawal was in response to the NSBA letter sent to the Biden Administration requesting help for the countless amount of threats and violence happening at school board meetings across the country. In the letter to the Biden Administration, the NSBA stated that they believe in transparency and open public discourse in a safe environment in a peaceful manner. The NSBA said the request for federal and local collaboration was born out of the acute threats and acts of violence perpetrated on school board members, parents, and members of the community. Due to this request by the NSBA, the MSBA withdrew from the national organization. In an October 2021 letter to its members, the MSBA stated that they do believe that school board members or educators (including their families) should not have to endure threats of violence and intimidation. But they said the remedy should stay at the local level and not escalate to the federal government. The MSBA said that because the NSBA is not aligned with the mission of addressing problems through local channels, Missouri will withdraw its standing with the national organization.

“If the MSBA is not careful, Missouri school boards will be overrun with fringe parent groups winning seats.”

This decision has left many Missouri school board members, educators, parents, students, and community members feeling abandoned. The Missouri Equity Education Partnership wants to stand up for these stakeholders. Our concerns have grown because local law enforcement is not doing much to stop all of the vitriol at school board meetings. The Missouri legislature is not protecting public schools and their educators from the threats of violence. There are certain Missouri state legislators like Sen. Bob Onder, Rep. Nick Schroer, Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin, Rep. Phil Christofanelli, and Sen. Andrew Koening that are heavily involved and in continuous deep conversations with the aggressive parent groups, encouraging them to show up at school board meetings and “take our schools back.” (Please see image gallery below for evidence of this.) These are the same legislators who show up to community meetings to “inform” and “educate” parents about what is “really” happening in public schools. Their presentations are wrought with misinformation and cherry-picking from various districts across the state.

Having attended several of these town halls and informational meetings myself as a MoEEP member, I have witnessed a pattern of behavior that is consistent among all parties involved. All of the rhetoric and vitriol is not out of concern for what I call educational stakeholders (parents, students, educators, community members) but for concern of money. This was made obvious when Sen. Koenig and others began including school vouchers in these discussions of Critical Race Theory. The same local politicians who decry defunding police are the same ones who want to defund public school education.

Though the educational stakeholders in Missouri understand the hard position the MSBA is in currently, what we at MoEEP do not understand is the MSBA’s inept excuse of taking care of things “at the local level.” We have been shown here in Missouri that our local governments will do nothing to combat aggressive parents at school board meetings because our local and state politicians are part of the vitriol. Educational stakeholders feel abandoned by the MSBA. The majority of educational stakeholders across this state find the decision to withdraw unacceptable.

If the MSBA is not careful, Missouri school boards will be overrun with fringe parent groups winning seats. The hate groups will win seats because nobody wants to serve in an unpaid position and put up with threats of violence and attacks. They will win seats because local and state politicians are propping them up to do so. If these fringe parent groups take the school boards, the Missouri public education system will fall even further behind. Falling further behind means our Missouri students will not be prepared to enter a global workforce.

Educational stakeholders are left pondering where to turn if the local and state governments remain complacent in handling these violent fringe groups. If powerful groups like the MSBA can’t back our educators, what is the future of public education in Missouri?

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