Schools

Rockwood Patrons Voice Concerns

A variety of issues and requests were voiced by Rockwood School District parents and taxpayers at the board of education meeting Thursday, including a call for the resignation of Superintendent Bruce Borchers.

A variety of concerns were voiced by parents and taxpayers during the patrons' comments portion of the board of education meeting Thursday at Crestview Middle School in Ellisville. It was the second board meeting at which the patrons' comments intentionally were moved by the board of directors to close to the meeting's beginning so that attendees could be heard sooner, rather than later.

One Rockwood resident, Dale Redhage, likened concern about the leadership of the district to other types of leaders and organizations. "A person cannot be an effective leader when they lack the respect of the people they are leading," he said.

"Just ask any war veteran who is willing to talk about their service how bad things can get if the commanding officer does not have the respect of those under their command. Ask a winning quarterback how well his team would have done if the players didn’t have enough respect for him to run the plays he called and decided to run their own. Ask a World Series winning baseball team if they think they would have won if none of them had respect for their manager. They will probably look at you like you’re crazy."

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Redhage said he had no idea why Rockwood's board of directors chose to hire a person with no experience (Bruce Borchers) as a superintendent "from a poorly performing Minnesota district" to be Rockwood’s superintendent, or why they thought it was OK to increase the position’s salary from the previous one by $40,000 or Bruce Borchers prior salary by $100,000. 

"I can tell you the stunt Dr. Borchers pulled to pay his friends $60,000 for a few days of part-time consulting work to help reorganize a district they’ve never been a part of, then to get them hired on full time at huge salary increases over their prior positions, has caused everyone working and living in this district to lose any respect they may have had for him or them," he stated from the podium.

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Redhage said the administrative hiring was done while cutting student services, laying off teachers and raising fees, which he said shows that neither Borchers nor the directors have respect for the teachers, students or taxpayers of this district. 

"The fact that nothing has been done about this situation except for two condescending letters being sent out apologizing to us for our 'misperceptions' makes the whole thing even worse," he said.

Redhage, quoting a message he said he received from an undisclosed Rockwood teacher about Superintendent Borchers, stated:  “I think his continuous improvement program is nuts, given that Rockwood was already performing quite well—much better than his old district. I don't understand what he was trying to do in the first place. The restructuring was change for the sake of change, and I don't get it. Then to hire two more people from his unimpressive district—that is absolutely awful! They are going to be completely ineffective as leaders, because everyone already has no respect for them. This district is going downhill fast, and I think he's just leading the way down.”

Redhage said he did not want to see the Rockwood district destroyed in the next three years, or be made the laughing stock of Missouri. "It is for this reason that I am asking for resignations from Dr. Borchers, Mr. Smasal, and Ms. DuBois. Thank you," he ended.

It is tradition that Rockwood's board of directors do not comment or respond during the patron portion of the meeting.

Another Rockwood taxpayer and board member of the grassroots coalition Rockwood Stakeholders for Real Solutions (RS for RS), Rob Thoele, said he thought the school board's mission of fiscal responsibility should be to taxpayers, but "it seems to be put employees first."

Thoele, a graduate who now lives in Ballwin, said from serving on the district's long range finance committee for several years, he expressed his concerns about always giving raises. "But we kept hiring and kept giving generous benefits, and quickly got into trouble," he said.

Rockwood's Guiding Change process was just selling the tax levy, said Thoele. "So far, it's been about take-aways from students and parents."

He asked why a new Rockwood superintendent was hired for $50,000 more than the retired superintendent, and why Borchers was given a car allowance and bonus potential on top of a higher salary.

Thoele also asked why consultants were paid $60,000 for 17 days of work. "Then we paid $260,000 to hire them. Did we pay to move them here, too?"

Now we have taxpayer bailout, without talking about personal property taxes also going up, he said. "Not everybody lives on Wild Horse Creek and makes $250,000."

Eileen Tyrrell, cofounder of RS for RS and resident of Eureka, asked where taxpayers' input was to the finance discussions, after listening to the work session prior to the board meeting. "You don’t really know your audience. You discussed still giving raises to teachers in the future, but never talked about the salaries the teachers are making," she said.

"Our family salary has gone down by $45,000 in two years. Our property values also have gone down. Gas and food have gone up. We love our teachers, but it doesn’t take money to cut back."

Tyrrell said that when she attended middle school orientation at this year, guidance counselors were not available to discuss student schedules with families. "There were three principals available, but they couldn’t help with or change the schedules. It's the teachers and counselors that make a difference. But you cut first there. To discuss salary increases at this time is ludicrous. Why don't you bring us together and work together to identify what next to do?"

Ellisville resident Debra Gross said she no longer had kids in Rockwood because hers were in college. But as a single mother with no job presently, she wondered if the board of directors had any idea what unemployment was like within the district's residents.

"The average unemployment rate for the United States is 10 percent or more. Underemployment is another 15 percent. So that's 25 to 30 percent and that doesn’t touch on retired individuals. I don’t believe teachers are going to leave their jobs just because they don't get a raise every year," said Gross.

She said she had been looking for a job for more than a year. "The situation is dire. The teachers are going to stay. Therefore, my recommendation is to cut the costs; that's what everyone else has to do. And that may mean we have to eat Ramen (noodles) for lunch every single day, I’m not kidding. I wouldn’t want to cut teachers. It is the overhead that we all disagree with, and needs to be cut."

As if to counteract the negatives emphasized at the meeting, board of director Keith Kinder said during an unscheduled part of the agenda that Rockwood's accomplishments, as Missouri's third largest school district, were not being portrayed. "We still are getting to new heights," he said.

"Upon joining the board, I saw an early deterioration of celebrating our positives and outstanding accomplishments of Rockwood students and employees," said Kinder.

"It's time for me to do my part in communicating about Rockwood successes that distinguish us from other districts."

Kinder emphasized three district recent accomplishments:

  1. Rockwood graduates earned $33 million in scholarships.
  2. Relay for Life districtwide teams representing 50 teams and 16 schools earned $100,000 for the American Cancer Society. 
  3. The in Eureka earned the national, silver level certification for at-risk students, becoming the first in Missouri to do so.

Editor's Note Aug. 23:  Eileen Tyrrell, representing the coalition, asked that the new entity be referred to as "RS for RS," rather than RSRS as Patch originally had included it on second reference.


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