Word: webster
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There is not much difference of opinion in Webster Groves over whether teachers deserve more money. At $42,400, their average pay is slightly lower than the St. Louis County average. But it's notably below that of peer schools in some other suburbs in the county, which are luring some of the best teachers and prospects away from Webster. Just a month ago, a 14-day job action, in which teachers refused to participate in after-school activities to protest their paltry pay scale, ended with a tentative agreement that earmarks $5 million more for teacher salaries over...
...Webster Groves' taxes, which pay three-quarters of the school's budget, are not that out of line with those of neighboring districts like Kirkwood or Clayton. (A 58-year-old, 5-bedroom home that sold recently for $289,000 has an annual property tax of $2,914.) But because of the community's historic resistance to commercial development, and thus the limited options for raising new revenues, the board has little choice but to count on the district's voters to see them through to fiscal equilibrium...
...help with that effort, the board has recruited Rod Wright, president of Attitude Research, a St. Louis polling firm that specializes in school-finance votes. Fortunately for Webster, he has kids in local schools and donates his time. The goal, he advises the board, "is to get people to vote their emotions and aspirations--and not their pocketbooks...
...confirm that observation, one of a handful of parents attending the meeting, Peter Bakker, who has four daughters in the system, rises to urge the board not to settle for a tax increase that would only raise teacher's salaries slightly, but instead to "make Webster one of the best...
...induce equity in school funding (state aid is capped at 1992-93 levels), the district is also hampered because Missouri requires a supermajority 4-out-of-7 vote on all school bond proposals. Then there are the unfunded government mandates, like the Americans with Disabilities Act, which forced Webster Groves to spend more than $1 million in the past three years on compliance...