Former district parent criticizes school district's regard for students

by Kirk Boxleitner

kboxleitner

@masoncounty.com

Karina Lea’s remarks about Jordan Christian at the Hot Springs County School Board’s April 18 meeting were followed later that evening by Angel Anderson, who introduced herself as “a concerned taxpayer,” since “I no longer have a child in your school district.”

According to Anderson, her daughter dropped out because of the bullying she experienced in two of the district’s schools, and she accused the district’s administration of doing “nothing.”

Anderson’s daughter is currently in the GED program, and set to obtain her high school equivalency certificate next month, and Anderson told the board, “I am so grateful she had the confidence to drop out, so she was not a suicide statistic.“

Anderson has “not been impressed” with the school district since moving here in 2016, as April 18 marked the third school board meeting she felt compelled to attend.

“My first meeting was during COVID,” Anderson said. “I was the unpopular one, suggesting mask mandates to keep my daughter healthy, after her heart surgery. That didn’t happen.”

Anderson’s second school board meeting was last month, “when I witnessed members of this board attack a concerned member of the public for voicing her concern about a budget discrepancy.”

Anderson described herself as “shocked at the childlike behavior and unprofessionalism exhibited” by the school board.

While school district staff had suggested Anderson email any questions she might have, she decided “I’m not comfortable with that, because then, the public won’t know my questions, or your answers.”

Anderson asked “why a member of the public has to point out a $600,000 mistake, that your auditor missed, and I hope you are planning to fire that accounting firm, due to their incompetence and unprofessionalism.”

Anderson also inquired about a budget item from the previous school board meeting, “to spend $1.2 million on new construction of three housing units for new teachers,” as this led her to wonder “if there are a lot of new teachers coming in, who want to be here,” and “why can’t existing properties be purchased for this.”

Anderson touted her own five-bedroom house, “that three or four people could live in comfortably, for much less than $1.2 million,” and she compared the Hot Springs County School District’s budgeting unfavorably to the budgets she oversaw for more than 20 years while working at the University of Missouri.

“One thing we were constantly having to do was justify every single thing we spent money on,” Anderson said. “It wasn’t just, ‘Here’s a bunch of money,’ (which is) what I feel like is happening here. You guys have so much money, you’re just freely handing it out.”

Anderson questioned claims she’d heard about bulletproof doors being installed at the high school, since “a bulletproof door does nothing if the gun’s inside the building.”

Anderson further took issue with the number of school district vehicles she’s seen in its fleet.

“I want to know what the vehicles are used for, and why so many are needed, because vehicles are expensive to maintain,” Anderson said.

School Board Vice-Chair Nichole Weyer, who was acting as chair for the meeting, collected Anderson’s phone number and pledged to get in contact with her regarding those issues.