This area’s two Missouri House representatives found themselves on opposite sides of a tightly split vote last week on a bill that would create a new school choice program.

The bill, proposed by Rep. Phil Christofanelli of St. Peters, would create a scholarship program to help disadvantaged students seek alternative education outside their local school district, if their parents so choose. The scholarships would be funded by donations and administered by special nonprofits. Those who donate would receive tax credits.

The bill was contentious, passing with an 82-to-71 vote. Several provisions were added to limit the scope of the bill:

1) The scholarship program would only be for students who live in cities with more than 30,000 people. This is because representatives from rural areas are hesitant about the impact of school choice programs on their public schools.

2) The program would be paused if state funding for school transportation is below a certain threshold. School officials say this is a frequent challenge.

3) School districts that lose students because of this program will still be able to count those students toward their state funding allocations for the next five years, delaying any impact to public school funding.

Even with those limitations in place, Rep. Jeff Porter, R-Montgomery City, and Rep. Richard West, R-Wentzville, found themselves on opposite sides of the issue.

West, whose House district also includes Wright City and Innsbrook, said he thinks families deserve a chance to seek alternate education if their school district isn’t meeting their children’s needs. For example, he said his constituents in Wentzville were dissatisfied with how their schools had reacted to COVID.

“A lot of parents were upset that the kids didn’t go back to school right away, and when they did it was just discombobulated how they did it,” West commented, adding that all of the schools within his House district are overall high quality.

West said he wishes the scholarship program would apply to any students, rather than only those in high population areas like Wentzville. 

Rep. Porter, whose district includes Montgomery County and a large portion of Warren County, voted against the school choice bill. Porter believes bill ignores the real issue for schools.

“It’s not fully addressing the problem, which is ‘Why is that school bad?’” Porter said. Instead of looking for ways to move students out of underperforming public schools, he said the state should be figuring out how to improve those schools so students can stay.

“I think we need to go back and talk to DESE (the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) about a lot of things,” said Porter, adding that most school leaders he talks to are worried about how the program would impact them in the future.

Local superintendents said they don’t see any benefit for Warren County students from this proposal. At best, they said the House bill would hand out tax credits for a scholarship program that doesn’t benefit any Warren County small-town students.

“It takes tax dollars from Wright City patrons and pays for tax credits for students in towns of 30,000 or more,” said Wright City R-II Superintendent Dr. Chris Berger. He said district leadership is never in favor of any program that might take money from public education and potentially give it to a private entity.

Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith, superintendent of Warren County R-III, said he’s afraid that if the state government loses revenue because it’s handing out new tax credits, the state’s budget committees will remove that lost revenue from what they give to public schools.

“In the Warren County School District, we’re already having some financial challenges,” Klinginsmith said. “To me this is not a good bill, particularly for Warren County residents.”

On the Senate side of the Legislature, a similar bill is being debated that would also expand charter schools in those same cities with 30,000 or more people. Charter schools receive a portion of a public school district’s funding when they take in that district’s students. Charter schools are currently only allowed in St. Louis and Kansas City.

Local representatives said they haven’t yet dug into the details of that bill because it hasn’t advanced in the Senate.