screengrab via YOUTUBE
School board member Jessica Clark has called Rockwood parents "libtards" and previously hosted sugar baby workshops and gatherings.
The Rockwood R-6 School District is one of Missouri’s best, ranking fourth among 455 districts in the state — and in the top 3 percent nationally — according to the 2023 rankings at niche.com.
But Rockwood holds another distinction that has not been officially measured: From all indications, the students’ proficiency in reading and language arts exceeds that of the school board. And perhaps it’s even higher than some of the parents reciting wingnut talking points into drool-drenched microphones at school-board meetings.
Suddenly dominated by clownishness, Rockwood’s school board appears intent on achieving a top 3 percent ranking in MAGA culture war headlines. The board and parents use volume to compensate for the absence of collective wisdom one might otherwise associate with an elite school district.
These bozos leapfrog from one noxious cause to another: from banning books to eliminating respected programs helping minority students to invoking apocalyptic imagery in rooting out nonexistent “critical race theory” curriculum to protecting girls' athletics from the hypothetical but otherwise imaginary threat posed by trans kids.
It’s all part of a statewide GOP attack on education that has been spoon-fed to obeisant legislators by national MAGA puppet-masters. The culture war is expected to culminate — possibly as early as this week — in a so-called statewide “Parents’ Bill of Rights.”
It is a hodgepodge of measures — dutifully replicated from national scripts — that would empower parents to sue or otherwise torment teachers and administrators they don't like. And that’s just for starters. One thing is clear: Not teaching critical race theory is no excuse for a district if someone decides to accuse them of so doing.
It's nothing less than a broadside attack from people who want to destroy public education. But Rockwood is a special case because it isn’t waiting for state stupidity to reverse the district’s record of achievement.
The hatred advanced by parents, and now school board members, is already having the intended effect. The Post-Dispatch reported the resignation of two more Rockwood administrators, “the fourth and fifth high-profile leaders to leave the district in the last two years.”
One was Aisha Grace, director of educational equity and diversity, who resigned after less than a year on the job, the daily reported. And there was this:
“Brittany Hogan, Grace’s predecessor, resigned in the spring of 2021 after one year on the job. Former Superintendent Mark Miles retired at the end of that school year, after two years there. And Terry Harris, former executive director of student services, resigned in December after 17 years with the district.
Harris and Hogan, who are both Black, had said they were subjected to repeated threats and taunts, the Post-Dispatch reported, adding “Harris, whose department oversaw the empowerment programs, was a Rockwood product: a St. Louis city kid, he graduated from Lafayette High School through the region’s voluntary desegregation program.”
Harris’ departure is precisely the sort of “progress” the MAGA mob has sought to achieve. You know, so that the “real Americans” in the district can own “the libtards” — to borrow parlance from one of the most recently elected school board members, Jessica Laurent Clark.
She embodies — and celebrates — the sort of change that can only reverse Rockwood’s achievements over time. You heard about Clark last year as the school-board candidate who was best known for teaching others how to be a “sugar baby” on social media before thinking better of making it her educational calling card.
Statistics aren’t available for what percentage of school board members formerly served as sugar babies. Or what percentage of sugar babies serve on school boards. But it’s incredible that moralistic MAGA zealots are just as cool as can be with Clark’s past activity as long as she tells them what they want to hear.
For the unaware, here’s Wikipedia's definition of that activity:
“Sugar dating, also called sugaring, is a relationship of an older wealthy person and a younger person who is in need of financial assistance. This sometimes achieves mutual benefits, but is often abused to take advantage of and coerce poor people. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term ‘sugar’ is slang, but is often used as a modifier to ‘sweeten’ something or as a euphemism for money.
“Payment can be received by way of money, gifts like designer goods, jewelry, support or other material benefits in exchange for companionship or a dating-like relationship. The person who receives the gifts is called a sugar baby, while [the] paying partner is called a sugar daddy or sugar momma.
“Sugar dating is especially popular in the online dating community due to the easy access to specific niches and desires.”
It must be noted that, in this context, the reference to “specific niches” is thoroughly unrelated to niche.com, the respected source of school-district ratings. Niche.com provides neither listings nor analysis related to sugaring.
Now, far be it from me to suggest that Clark's having excelled as a sugar baby should be underestimated as a skill set. I suppose the case could be made that we need to rectify the under-representation of sugar babies on school boards.
But Clark no longer lists her credentials as a sugar baby on her vitae. Instead, at her very first board meeting September 1, she was dished upon for having been captured on video offering up this spoonful of MAGA sugar, as reported by the Post-Dispatch:
“In a speech at a Real Talk Radio event last month, Jessica Laurent Clark said teachers are indoctrinated with liberal viewpoints in college and decried ‘transgender crap’ and ‘tyranny’ in schools.
“As a school board member, it’s scary. They’re fighting hard to take control of our children,” Clark said. “They come to the school board meetings with their gay flags and their masks. They come in with the kids in the wheelchairs and everything. ... Whatever, you are a libtard and I mean it and I stand on it.”
That got Clark kicked off a committee assignment or two in record time. But in fairness, her MAGA credentials were not all talk. Clark joined fellow board member Izzy Imig in the instant torching of three programs that were working to empower African-American students, mostly from the city.
“I don’t feel like they serve all of our students,” Imig said at a meeting. Of course she doesn’t. Imig’s culture-war credits also include encouraging parents to report school librarians to Child Protective Services.
The school board members advancing the hateful MAGA agenda — with the full-throated backing of some of the most mean-spirited parents on record — are achieving a level of success that should concern people for whom the district’s home in Eureka is known only for Six Flags. It’s a place associated with screaming and wild rides.
Which is the last thing that public education in Missouri needs right now.
Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at [email protected] or catch him on Donnybrook at 7 p.m. on Thursdays on the Nine Network.
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