Green Party Demands Charges against its Officer Be Dropped

For immediate release: October 7, 2003

The Green Party of St. Louis demands that all persons arrested at the School Board meeting tonight be released from jail and that charges against them be dropped. This includes Green Party Co-coordinator David Sladky, who was among those arrested.

The St. Louis School Board met to approve a $1/2 million give-away to McConnell, Jones, Lanier and Murphy (MJLM), which would be in addition to its first $1/2 million. MJLM is one of the management teams overseeing the closure of 16 schools, elimination of bus routes, and firing of custodians, secretaries and teachers aides. The actions began a few weeks before school opened, resulting in chaos in St. Louis schools.

The management teams were hired soon after the 2003 election of a slate of four School Board candidates hand-picked by Democratic Party Mayor Francis Slay. The Green Party has condemned the slate's actions as dishonest and deceitful, pointing out that the "…slate never hinted at any time during the campaign that it planned to hire a management team from outside the area at tremendous cost." While the School District has a supposed $90 million deficit, the new School Board majority approved giving over $5 million to management teams, one of which pays its chief executive over $600 per hour.

A crowd of over 200 at the October 7 School Board meeting vigorously objected to giving an additional $1/2 million to MJLM as school services continue to be slashed. The overwhelming majority of the audience was African-American, as are 83% of the students in St. Louis Public Schools. African-American parents are especially outraged that 14 of 16 closed schools are in Black neighborhoods while 6 of 7 School Board members live in predominantly white neighborhoods.

Though the School Board president opened the October 7 meeting with a warning to the crowd to stay quiet, the meeting was repeatedly interrupted by shouts. When a dissident member of the Board suggested terminating the contract with the management teams, the audience chanted "Terminate, terminate, terminate" for several minutes.

During the height of such active audience participation, Greg Johnson allegedly jumped on the table the Board was sitting around as others moved toward it. Mr. Johnson is a parent of children being victimized by the Board. Police handcuffed and arrested several people, including Green Party Co-coordinator David Sladky, who had been sitting near Mr. Johnson.

According to Green Party spokesperson Kim Jayne, who was at the meeting, "David Sladky was not doing anything when police handcuffed him. He might have been targeted because he was wearing a t-shirt with 'MISSOURI GREEN PARTY' in large letters and he had been passing out Green Party newsletters before the meeting began."

Ms. Jayne sees conflicts initiated by the School Board as reflecting much larger problems. She says that "The Democratic Party of St. Louis is carrying out an experimental program at eliminating public schools that politicians in other cities are watching closely. If they get away with it here, you can watch it spread across the country like a disease. Charges against everyone arrested tonight at the St. Louis School Board meeting should be dropped. The criminals are the School Board majority, their management teams and all the politicians who find unlimited money to fund sports stadiums and war for oil while attacking school children and school employees.