A slim, three-member audience listened in to the June 24 meeting of the Centralia R-VI School Board.
Personnel, politics and construction were on the agenda.
They began with a presentation by Mary Decker, district director of special education, who discussed three people who helped give the District’s Special Needs students important experience:
• Chris Crocker, manager of Prenger Foods.
• Michael Marcellus, an amazing student to partner with to help as a peer-model.
• CHS Physical Science Teacher Jay Hill is another,” she said. He just went out of his way to do it with awesome attitude and a great collaborative spirit.”
They also heard from Cheri Toalson Reisch, District 44 representative. Among other things, she said she had found unclaimed funds for the Centralia R-VI Band and the Centralia Panther Boosters.
She also brought spare Missouri and USA flags for the district.
Reisch discussed school-related legislation and said Columbia Schools were about to become provisionally unaccredited. She said she had filed a stand-alone bill to expand charter schools to Columbia. “It is no secret I am not a fan of the Columbia School district. They can’t read, write or do arithmetic.” She said as part of the compromise to get the bill passed in the senate, “Columbia,” had been changed to “Boone County.” She said Centralia and Hallsville schools had nothing to worry about. “If and when a charter school is built in Columbia, it is taxpayer funded. But your parents will not take their kids to school in Columbia. Why would they? Why would their parents want to do that to them?”
She said the transfer bill would not affect Centralia because of the quality of the school district. “I hope your school still does not have furries. I hope none of that is going on here… You are my favorite school.“
For the complete article, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard.
