Board Member Cites Deficit Concerns in Opposition to Administrative Raises

Newly elected in April, Jeff Morrell said he doesn't want to worsen the district's budget gap by "stepping on the gas."

Eureka Senior Takes First Place in Congressional Art Competition

Lindsay Weinrich's artwork will be on display in the nation's capital for one year.

Eureka High School Senior Lindsey Weinrich will have her art work displayed at the U.S. Capital Building in Washington, D.C this fall after taking first place in the 2013 Congressional Art Competition. Weinrich’s piece, entitled “Working Man,” emerged on top out of 55 entries from 17 area high schools. It will hang in the capital building for one year and represent Missouri’s 2nd district, which covers St. Louis, St. Charles and Lincoln counties. “Lindsey is an outstanding artist and individual,” said her teacher, Diane Bashirian, in a press release from the Rockwood School District. “Any teacher who knows her would describe her as sweet, responsible, hardworking kind and polite. It’s wonderful for her achievements in the arts to receive …

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Rockwood Board Member Cites Deficit Concerns in Opposition to Raises

Newly elected in April, Jeff Morrell said he doesn't want to worsen the district's budget gap by "stepping on the gas."

Updated May 8: The board member behind the single "no" vote on a pay plan that will increase the average salary for Rockwood Administrators told Patch Wednesday that his opposition is based on concerns over the district's deficit. Jeffrey Morrell said he agrees, in principal, that the district's employees need to be paid a fair and competitive salary, acknowledging a find by a Rockwood committee that its administrators ranked 21 out of 22 in terms of average total compensation among St. Louis County school districts.  However, given the district's project $11 million deficit, Morrell said those raises need to be paid for with an equal amount of cuts so that they don't add to the red ink. "If we were going to go give them a raise, what …

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Cynthia C.

11:47 am on Friday, May 17, 2013

So, the teachers just got a pay increase. What? No outcry about more deficit spending now? No outcry that "the discussions weren't done in public"? If the logic is that administrators shouldn't get raises, as some believe, then logic should follow that no one should get raises in the district. However, if the logic is that teachers should get raises, then it follows that everyone deserves to have…   more ›

What Kept Lafayette, Rockwood Summit High Schools off U.S News Rankings?

The school district's Executive Director of Secondary Education believes some demographic fluctuations may explain why.

When U.S. News and World Report unveiled its annual list of Missouri high school rankings last week, the magazine placed two of the four high schools in the Rockwood School District in its top five.  District officials said they are honored to have Eureka and Marquette high schools recognized, but cautioned that the data used in the rankings are only one way to measure student performance. “It’s a piece of data that show our schools performing well, that’s always a plus,” said Jim Wipke, Executive Director of Secondary Education. “However, the way they measure things is not the way we measure ourselves.” So, what kept Lafayette and Rockwood Summit high schools out? District officials said they have similar scores in terms of college …

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Education Notes: Rockwood Teacher Honored, Students Participate in Leadership Program

Check out Patch's round-up of news about students and teachers in the Eureka and Wildwood area.

Eureka High Teacher Off to a Good Start Eureka High School Language arts teacher Symphony Stevenson may be just getting started with her educational career, but the Webster University graduate is already earning recognition.   According to a press release from the Rockwood School District, Stevenson has been named an Outstanding Beginning Teacher by the Missouri Association for Colleges of Teaching Education. On April 25, she was among 64 new educators from school districts across the state recognized for excellence in serving children. Award recipients were based on evaluations completed by their college or university, and recommendations from the school district which deemed the teacher as highly effective in their first two years in the…

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Rockwood Now Anticipating $11 Million Deficit for Next Fiscal Year

The board gave the informal go-ahead to a slate of capital projects that would cover what were described as the district's "most critical" needs.

After at least three years without any red ink, the Rockwood School District is moving ahead with a proposed budget plan that will produce an $11 million deficit. The plan included $4.6 million worth of items that would have been included in the $38.4 million Prop S bond issue, had it passed. District CFO Tim Rooney presented the recommendations to the board at a meeting Thursday night and said they represented the district’s most critical needs. “We had a tough task,” he said. “We were really looking at what, if it would fail, would cause the most disruption.” The move was not a formal adoption of the fiscal year 2013-14 budget, which will occur later this summer, but provides guidance to district staff so they can begin coordinating the …

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Rockwood Considers Change in Awarding Construction Contracts In Response to State Audit

Also: How to realign the district's spending after the failure of Proposition S?

The Rockwood School Board will meet tonight at 7 p.m. following a closed session at 6 p.m. at the Crestview Middle School at 16025 Clayton Road in Ellisville. Here's a preview of some the items on the board's agenda.

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County Police Chief: Fearing Bad PR, Schools Don't Report Crime Aggressively

In his blog, St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch specifically referenced his home district of Rockwood as an example of how bad publicity can doom a bond issue.

In the wake of an attack on a Chesterfield student on the campus of St. Louis Community College-Meramec and its subsequent mishandling by the university, St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch is urging schools to be more aggressive in their treatment of suspects in criminal incidents. Writing in his blog, Fitch said that part of the problem is that educational institutions often would rather handle crimes as "school violations" instead of notifying police.  “This goes on more than you realize,” Fitch wrote. “Schools, like most instiutions that rely on public support for funding, do not want to look bad or admit they have problems for fear that their next bond issue or tax increase might not pass.” Fitch then specifically referenced his …

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Safety Plan in Works at All STLCC Campuses in Wake of Attack

The announcement comes in the wake of the sudden resignation of the president of the Meramec campus, which resulted in the president of the Wildwood campus being named interim in Kirkwood.

In an announcement to the St. Louis Community College community posted today, college chancellor Myrtle E.B. Dorsey announced a range of safety measures in the wake of an attack on a female student from Chesterfield in a Meramec campus bathroom.  In the announcement, also posted to the college's Facebook page today, Dorsey noted that she had accepted the resignation on Monday of Meramec campus President George Wasson and named Wildwood campus President Pam McIntyre as interim at Meramec.  "I want all of you to know how seriously we take safety and security," Dorsey said in her statement. She outlined three immediate steps: RELATED ARTICLES Meanwhile, according to a report by the Meramec campus newspaper, The Montage, students and staff …

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