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Kansas City Star. April 26, 2023.
Editorial: Missouri school’s first Black coach forced out. Was it his style — or is race involved?
How does a successful basketball coach — the first head coach of color in any sport at Warrensburg High School, according to the booster club — lose his job after only two seasons without any justifiable reason?
So far, officials at the school district about an hour southeast of Kansas City are silent. But in correspondence we read, the reasons for not renewing the contract of girls basketball head coach Melvin Myers seem to be more about personal grievances over playing time and coaching style than about malfeasance.
Some players feared the coach, while other team members could do no wrong in his eyes, upset parents told school leaders, according to documents we viewed. He yelled too much and was an imposing figure on the sideline with a bad rep with game officials, others claimed.
For good measure, another parent griped that Myers didn’t discipline his players enough, especially African American student athletes.
No record of discipline against Myers or his staff is on file. The only negative marks we saw were complaints from parents perturbed about diminished floor time for their children.
Did beefs from sports dads and moms play a factor in Myers losing his job? And was there an additional element?
“Let’s just call it what it is,” said Shawnacy Johnson Sr., treasurer of the Warrensburg High School booster club and a pastor at Bibleway Community Church in Jefferson City. “Racism.”
By season’s end, three freshmen and a fourth received more playing time than older teammates. Those players were all African American — like Myers and his top assistant, O.J. Rhone.
In that light, the optics of forcing the coach out are bad, Johnson said. He has a point.
There are no accusations of bullying, inappropriate conduct with students or cheating, those close to Myers contend. He is not under any criminal investigation and is still employed by the district, officials confirmed this week.
So why is Myers no longer the girls basketball coach at Warrensburg High?
Superintendent Andy Kohl, who is retiring at the end of the school year, didn’t reply to messages seeking comment, nor did activities director Keith Chapman, who is responsible for hiring and firing coaches. Principal Bret Pummill also didn’t answer questions.
Citing privacy issues and personnel matters, the school officials we did speak with wouldn’t comment on why the successful Black coach isn’t being retained.
MINORITY LEADERS HELD TO DIFFERENT STANDARDS
What should have been a dream job for Myers turned into a nightmare, his supporters said. He is reluctant to comment for fear of damaging future job prospects.
People of color in leadership positions are often held to a standard different from their white counterparts, scholars have found. It’s a disturbing trend that should concern us all.
In professional sports, coaches of color are fired or not retained at higher rates than the average. We know these inherent biases creep into amateur and high school sports, too.
It appears Myers got a raw deal. And district officials must do all they can to clarify and then rectify the issue. If racial bias is found to have led to Myers losing his job, implementing mandatory unconscious bias training for all teachers, staff and administrators would be a good way to keep it from happening again.
Years ago, Myers moved his family to Warrensburg to be the head coach for girls basketball. In just two seasons, he moved the girls basketball program from last to first or tied for first place. Now, under a questionable narrative, Myers’ career has been uprooted.
How is that fair? Let us help: It isn’t.
Booster club treasurer Johnson is also a member of Warrensburg’s community change committee. He challenged district officials to give the public an unambiguous explanation about why Myers was relieved of his duties.
Johnson’s request is reasonable. It remains unanswered by school officials.
Myers’ hiring two years ago should have been a watershed moment for the school. The student body is about 78% white, according to the latest data from the state. Talk about taking one step forward toward diversity, equity and inclusion and two steps back.
In March, when Myers was told his contract as girls basketball coach would not be renewed, he was told he could stay on as a physical education teacher and assistant football coach, though. How does that even compute?
“It doesn’t,” said Myers’ assistant Rhone, who is also booster club president and a former Kansas City Royals draft pick and minor league player.
Rhone is also owner of the Youth Excited About Sports complex in Warrensburg. He has trained athletes in many sports. He bristled at complaints that Myers and staff did not properly develop players.
School officials knew of the experience Myers, a former assistant head coach at Jefferson City High School, brought to the school in rural Johnson County. He is a proven winner.
But if a few disgruntled parents forced him out after leading the girls basketball program to two winning seasons in two years on the job, that is beyond foul. District leaders should be embarrassed if they let a trailblazing hire slip away because a few adults wanted to act like spoiled children.
Jefferson City News Tribune. April 30, 2023.
Editorial: Eureka! Direct access signed into law
The shortest path between two points is a straight line.
Archimedes first articulated the Law of Straight Lines around 200 B.C.
Last week, the approach was deployed again when Gov. Mike Parson signed a bill into law allowing patients direct access to professionals who could help them move their bodies better, strengthen their weakened muscles or relieve pain.
Parson signed Senate Bill 51 which removes referral and prescription requirements for those needing physical therapy services. Physical therapists use targeted techniques and treatments to restore mobility, improve range of motion, decrease pain and improve physical function of patients.
Beginning Aug. 28, physical therapists in Missouri with a doctorate or five years of clinical experience can evaluate a patient and initiate treatment, and offer educational resources and training, and fitness and wellness programs regardless of whether the patient has symptoms.
From a consumer standpoint, direct access is an important win for patients and therapists. By removing the physican-referral system, patients are provided convenient, easy and early access to services while reducing the cost of care by not requiring a referral from a physician or referring provider office.
The new law mandates physical therapists to consult with an approved health care provider within 10 visits or 30 days of starting a patient’s treatment. Therapy can continue if the patient shows measurable signs of improvement but must cease if they don’t, in which case the patient must be referred to a health care provider.
For the sponsors of the legislation, its passage was personal.
Rep. Brenda Shields, R-St. Joseph, who carried the legislation in the House, had a stroke about seven years ago and recovered through occupational and speech therapy.
“If it wasn’t for his care, I wouldn’t be here today,” Shields said of her therapist who was at the signing ceremony. “I will tell you what I know about physical therapists: they can help you and encourage you when you’re the most discouraged, they can be your cheerleader and they can really make you work when you don’t want to work.”
The signing of the bill truly was a win-win situation.
The real question is why it took so long to get passed.
At the signing ceremony, Parson pointed out he had carried similar legislation more than a decade ago when he was a legislator in the General Assembly.
Calling upon his experience as an out-state legislator who represented a rural constituency, Parson underscored the importance of this legislation.
“One thing we’ve learned is how important health care is, no matter where you live in the state of Missouri and how many opportunities people have to get it,” he said. “By doing this bill, we’re going to expand that to many more people and cut a lot of bureaucracy out of the way.”
He added: “Physical therapy is going to be much easier to be offered, especially, I’m going to say, in rural areas, maybe some of your areas where you don’t have the medical services they do. There’s no reason we cannot make sure that that’s available to the people of Missouri.”
Passage of direct access again reminds one of how Archimedes discovered the law of buoyancy.
When stepping into a bath, Archimedes noticed the water level rose. He suddenly understood the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged.
Upon that discovery, he reportedly proclaimed, “Eureka! Eureka!”
Upon seeing passage of direct access, we proclaim, “Eureka!”
St. Joseph News-Press. April 27, 2023.
Editorial: Nothing stops districts from raising salaries
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who believes that a starting salary of $25,000 is acceptable for those charged with teaching our children.
The question isn’t whether Missouri’s embarrassingly low salary floor should be raised, but by how much and who should shoulder the burden. Legislation to boost the minimum to $38,000 is long overdue, but advocates tend to gloss over a stubborn reality of how education is funded in Missouri.
It’s the local taxpayers, not Uncle Sam or Jefferson City, who provide the bulk of support for local schools. The St. Joseph School District, on its website, gives the public useful and easy-to-digest information on its budget, its tax rate and its major sources of revenue. The district in St. Joseph gets 44% of its revenue from local taxes, compared to 31% from the state and 22% from the federal government.
Given this ratio, and the way that federal and sometimes state money comes with strings attached, it stands to reason that it’s local taxpayers who have the greatest responsibility to ensure that teachers are getting a decent wage. In short, there’s nothing to stop a district, either through a levy issue or some sort of reallocation of priorities, from raising teacher pay well above the $25,000 threshold.
This is what happens in St. Joseph, where recent board action put the minimum teacher salary at $38,700, or in Kansas City, where the salary minimum is $46,650. Whether that’s enough is a matter of debate, but it’s unclear how much the state minimum is going to come to the rescue for these districts.
Smaller districts, many in rural areas, should pay their teachers more but would have trouble with a state mandate that carries little in the way of long-term funding support. But taxpayers in Kansas City or St. Joseph would be right to question state aid that boosts the minimum in some districts while others provide more support on their own. A major contributor to lagging teacher salaries isn’t state income tax cuts, which is the argument du jour, but depopulation and eroding tax base in rural areas and some cities.
The biggest income tax cut in Missouri history took effect in January, yet teacher pay is a problem that has existed for decades, including several years with a Democratic governor who didn’t share Mike Parson’s penchant for cutting revenue. While Missouri lawmakers would be wise to assess the longer-term impact of the 2022 tax cuts before engaging in another round in 2023, it’s also worth noting there are seven states that have no income tax.
All of them manage to have a higher minimum teacher’s salary than Missouri.
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