Greetings, Happy Wednesday and last week of March, everyone! May this blog post bring you what you need in the present moment. My love is extended to all who could use a little extra, and may my light exude positivity and kindness. Asé! Let's seize the moment!
Because of my busy schedule, my blogs will start aligning with "A Monday Moment with Mal," my live-streamed episodes on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. Check them out at the aforementioned links!
This week’s blog post was motivated by the fact that there is a local election next week on Tuesday, April 2, 2024. There are some incredibly important issues on the ballot, but the issue I’m talking about today is the importance of local school board elections. You know I love me a good definition, and I'm team #factsoverfeelings, right? So, let’s get into it!
Shoutout to usnews.com and xqsuperschool.org for enlightening us on school boards by presenting the following facts:
School board members are unpaid volunteers who embrace an active leadership role within their district’s schools.
All school boards are in charge of making the yearly budget for the school system, making rules for the school, planning the school calendar, and hiring, evaluating, and working closely with the superintendent.
School boards oversee over 14,000 public school districts across the United States.
There are nearly 95,000 school board members across the country.
Although school boards oversee a wide range of academic, legal, and financial issues, from approving curriculum to hiring the superintendent, the superintendent oversees the school district’s day-to-day operation.
The campaign a school board member runs is important, but getting elected is not as easy. Candidates must connect with the community. In my opinion, it’s a popularity contest.
School board members can be elected or appointed. If elected, they are elected in an election. If appointed, they are appointed by the mayor, county commissioner, city council, or a combination of them all.
The following definitions are important to a later analogy that’s pertinent to the discussion:
Legislative | having the function of making laws |
Executive | of, relating to, or suited for carrying out plans, duties, etc. |
So, essentially: Legislative is to Executive as Congress is to the President as The Board of Education is to the School District Superintendent. Just as Congress creates the laws of the land, The Board of Education maintains and modifies the school district's policies, affecting all stakeholders of the school district. Now, that's powerful.
And because I live within the boundaries of North Kansas City School District, let’s dive into some facts about the school district:
According to the website, NKC Schools serves more than 21,500 learners from PreK-12. The district is the 2nd largest school district and among the most diverse districts, with 22 elementary schools, two sixth-grade centers, four middle schools, and four high schools.
Even though the district sits at #5 for most diverse out of 453 Missouri school districts, NKC Schools has not always been diverse. The district sits north of the Kansas City metropolitan area, and according to locals, Black people knew not to travel north of the river because their LIVES could be in danger. It was not until 1955 that Brown v. Board of Education was passed, forcing the 100% white KCMO school district to integrate and causing the Great White Flight to suburban areas. And if you didn't know or forgot, the history of redlining started with JC Nichols right here in Kansas City, MO. Black people couldn't even purchase homes up north until way after the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The effects of redlining persist today. I just wrote a dissertation that included information about suburbanization in the Kansas City metro area.
During my time as a teacher in NKC, the demographics of the schools started to change drastically. I started in NKC in 2008, and the demographics began to shift from then on. This resulted in people purchasing land farther north and the district expanding north. There is an undefined district district dividing line… schools north of Highway 152 are demographically more white and affluent, and schools south of Highway 152 are more diverse and receive Title I funding. None of the schools that receive Title I funding are north of Highway 152. I even sat in conversations with teachers who self-admittedly moved their families farther north due to this shift.
Please believe that for me, this topic, this discussion, and this blog post have been a long time coming because, at some point in my doctoral program, I realized what the function of the school board is and its importance. It’s wild that it took me that long to figure it out, especially because of my history with public education.
Public education chose me and kept me before and throughout my K-12 experience. I’ve been in school since I was three. As a result of my experience, I chose a career in public education and served full-time for 14 years...even through the pandemic and post-pandemic.
Despite my separation from the school schedule, I’m still very much connected. I sub for North Kansas City Schools, Liberty Schools, and two public charter schools in the metropolitan Kansas City area. I send my 7-year-old autistic son to a neighborhood public school where he receives the greatest care and attention from his teachers and other staff members alike. I love that he’s there.
Despite all this experience, when I was old enough to exercise my voting rights, when it came to school board elections, I would just vote for someone because they were female or I liked their name. Seriously. I'd do no research to see how old they are, whether they even have kids in the school district, what they do for a profession, what they already do for the community, or anything else… just pure ignorance.
Now, as an informed voter, not only do I know the importance of researching the candidates we vote for, but it’s also important to decide if their policies match up with what’s important to me. I also consider the community. But since one's vote is one's vote, anybody has the power to decide to vote in the best interest of their family.
🎵That’s your prerogative🎵.
For me, four pressing factors are assisting me in choosing who I will vote for on April 2, 2024:
Age is on the ballot. A board member doesn’t need to have teaching experience, but you have to be connected to kids somehow. You have to have children who currently attend the district, and/or you have to have spent time in a classroom or other spaces interacting with students in some capacity. You get extra credit points if you have interacted with post-pandemic students because they are different, and you get extra credit points if you know how to do GRID multiplication without looking it up.
Race is on the ballot, especially in a diverse school district like North Kansas City Schools. It’s important for stakeholders in a district to have people that look like them representing them. One of the board member candidates who was recently interviewed for a local newspaper spoke about the NKC librarians encouraging book offerings that serve as windows and mirrors for ALL students. It’s wonderful that books serve as mirrors for all students, but representation matters in every way. Every leadership level, from top to bottom, should have mirrors for other stakeholders in the community they serve. Unfortunately, the demographics of NKC Schools board members do not mirror the current population of students being served in the history of the board and school district. The public at large must do better, but you know who’s voting? The people who have owned their homes for years no longer have students in the school district. Just thinking about my neighbors adjacent to me, none of them have kids in the district, but they will most DEFINITELY show up to the polls. I’m the only one with a board member sign in my yard and a child that attends NKC Schools, but they don’t have to publicize who they will vote for. It’s their right to vote for anyone they want to, but I feel they will vote for their mirrors, which don’t look like the mirror I look in. And for one of the persons of color on the ballot, he can’t even campaign door to door in some of these neighborhoods where I live because in 2024, it’s STILL not safe for Black people to go door to door. I’ll never forget that Ralph Yarl was shot less than 10 minutes away from my doorstep trying to find his siblings, which brings me to my next point...
For me, where the candidate chooses to live, and the businesses they support are also on the ballot. It matters to me if you choose to live in a diverse area of the district. There are more schools in the southern tier of the district than in the northern tier of the district, and even though there are pockets of affluence in the southern tier of the district, there are still neighborhoods that don't look like the students that attend many of the schools in our district. It matters because you can better speak to the issues of your neighborhood if you live there. It matters because people want to feel that you understand what it means to live like them. And I want to know if you’re relatable, approachable, and can listen to others with a lens of experience or, if it’s not experience, authentic empathy.
Lastly, are the policies that the candidates support data-driven or opinion-based? This is important because people often vote for the person, not policies. I want you to remember this when the other elections come around, too. We must look at the policies that people are supporting. And they shouldn't be able to represent if they’re not pushing data-driven policies. As a society, we have multiple examples of people functioning in leadership with feelings and not facts... or prioritizing someone else’s opinion because they have donated graciously to the campaign they ran.... 🙄 Candidates on any level functioning like that don’t work for all people. They just work for the people who can fund their campaign in exchange for their opinion to be put into policy.
My call to action for you this week is to VOTE! Show up and show out! Look at your county’s Board of Elections Website to see where you can vote early if you can’t vote on the election day. I will most likely vote early because my Tuesday schedule is insane! If you need to fill out an absentee voting application, I’m a notary and will gladly help you. I perform remote online notarizations, which means I don’t have to leave my home, and you don’t have to leave your home to get your absentee ballot notarized. Visit my website, mallorymotary.com, to schedule an appointment with me.
Furthermore, when you vote, be an informed voter. I know that Question 1, referencing the Chiefs and Royals stadium, will bring many people out to vote on April 2, but school boards are also on the ballot. Don't choose one issue over the other. Because your taxes pay for all issues, be informed about all the issues!
Thoroughly vet who you’ll be voting for because it’s not a vote for you…it’s a vote for your kids or other people’s kids! If you’re a registered voter with no kids in the district, you could even ask your neighbors who have students in the local district who they'd want to represent their children. If we are a village, everyone must do their part!
And to wrap up, I leave you with a quote and a list of affirmations:
Before I go, please help to support the arts by purchasing a ticket to the Youth Chorus of Kansas City’s Gala this week! If you don’t want to attend, you can always bid on items for our Silent Auction. Proceeds go toward providing quality music education to the kids! Worth it, right?! Visit youthchoruskc.org for more information.
Well, that's all for me this week! April is Autism Acceptance Month, and Autism has become a part of my everyday life, so in recognition of Autism Acceptance Day on April 2nd, I thought I’d spill my thoughts about our journey, starting with me! So, tune in next week for a show entitled “Our Autism Journey.”
Alexa, play the chorus of "The Choice Is Yours" by Black Sheep! You can get with this, or you can get with that! 💯
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