The Road Back: St. Louis Public School Governance

On April 16, 2019, the Missouri State Board of Education (SBE) voted unanimously to return governance of St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) to the locally-elected board. Following years of financial struggles, instability in leadership, and the State Board’s decision to classify SLPS as unaccredited in 2007, the district was placed under the governance of a state-appointed three-person board. In this policy brief, we take a look back at SLPS’s history moving into and back out of state oversight, how the district’s performance changed over this time period, how the approach in SLPS differs from other state takeovers, and how stability in district leadership provided a path forward for SLPS to return to its locally elected school board.