School Board Candidate Equity Grades: April 2022

Equity Score Notes

A few things we would like you to know about our process:

  • As can be seen by the map, not all districts are represented - school districts are only presented here if at least one candidate running in the district responded to our survey.

  • Though we attempted to reach every candidate in every school district in Missouri, we recognize that we may have missed some. Any misses were inadvertent and in no way intentional. Candidates were under no obligation to participate in our process. We are grateful for those who did.

  • All scores represent the opinion of MoEEP and should be considered final.

In the interest of maintaining our ability to grade candidates in the future, and to protect internal conversations about and with candidates, there will be some pieces that remain confidential. However, in the interest of transparency, we would like to share our process and principles.

In a series of meetings in November and December 2021, we settled on key principles:

  1. Reach out to as many school board candidates as possible.

  2. Find out where they stood on equity issues.

  3. Communicate that information as clearly and simply as possible to voters to help them make their decision before voting.

Candidates and email addresses were identified by reaching out to superintendents for names and contact information, as well as manually searching for candidate websites.

We developed a brief survey of short answer questions to send to school board candidates. The questions were intentionally general in order to avoid asking leading questions and provide opportunity for candidates to demonstrate the degree to which equity issues were at the forefront of their minds with respect to education issues affecting their local districts.

Survey questions asked:

  • Please explain why you decided to run for school board in your district.

  • What is your vision for education in your community?

  • What attributes are essential for successful school board members?

  • What kind of relationship should a district/board have with its community? With its parents and families?

  • What do you see as the two major issues facing your school district? What solutions do you have for addressing those issues?

  • What should your school district do to better prepare students as citizens?

  • As a school board member, what are the most important factors to consider when setting budget priorities? Why?

  • Identify the elements of a teacher's typical day that you believe are most impactful for students.

  • Is there any additional information you would like to share that would help us in our assessment of your candidacy?

To evaluate the responses, we developed a detailed scoring rubric addressing DEI principles through the components of knowledge, curriculum, vision and goals. The rubric addressed a variety of DEI principles including race, LGBTQIA, representation and equity vs. equality. Each response was evaluated by at least two graders. If scores matched, the score was considered matched and final. Differing scores were reevaluated at least one more time.

Before sharing scores publicly, we shared the letter score results with candidates. At this point we realized the process did not meet our expectations and goals of helping voters, so as is common in classrooms everywhere, we refined the process further to ensure our communication was clear. As such, we moved away from letter grades and instead to reporting categories that are more descriptive of our opinion of where candidates stand regarding equity: Pro-Equity Leader, Pro-Equity, Indifferent, and Anti-Equity. We also sought more information from candidates with discrepancies in scores to be ensure we placed people appropriately.

This scorecard is the result of hundreds of hours of work by dozens of committed volunteers and we stand behind the results. Any candidate who is not satisfied with their score is encouraged to learn more about equity issues and how they connect to their district.

This was our inaugural year and we very much appreciate the candidates that chose to participate.

MoEEP does not endorse any candidates for office. We hope that this resource will help you - the equity-minded voter - make your decisions for voting on April 5, 2022.