I find it almost amusing that the six core values of the Columbia Public School District are trust, integrity, collaboration, transparency, empathy and grace. I discovered this list while perusing CPS’s website trying to make sense of the sudden departure of Superintendent Brian Yearwood. A curious sequence of events in early December surrounding his departure left most of Columbia scratching their heads. It was obvious that something was amiss, but unfortunately, the full truth behind these events will likely never be known.
If you were grading Columbia’s Board of Education on operating by their own core values of truth and integrity, the seven elected members would receive a very disappointing “F”… the lowest grade possible. Right out of the gate, they lied twice to their constituents telling us that Brian Yearwood was retiring from his position as CPS Superintendent. The actual truth is that he was unceremoniously fired by a unanimous vote of that board. And then they lied a second time when they reported that Yearwood would stay on as a consultant until the end of the year. The truth is that Yearwood was escorted out of the administration building by security. His email account was immediately seized and his access to his district computer was denied. Taxpayers may have paid him approximately $50,000 in salary and benefits through Dec. 31 but there were no consulting services requested or delivered.
When it comes to their core value of transparency, the school board earns another “F.” The secrecy surrounding Yearwood’s departure is not an admirable trait for a district that takes nearly 86% of all property taxes paid in Boone County. At a time when taxpayers are lining up at the County Collector’s office to pay our annual taxes, it’s especially insulting that board members are refusing to tell us why they felt compelled to pay Yearwood a lump sum of $667,209 — the equivalent of his salary for a period of 2.5 years. Seems like taxpayers would have a right to know why he deserves such a generous settlement. Earlier in the year, Yearwood received a contract extension and a pay raise. Some might wonder about his sudden fall from grace.
Speaking of grace, when it comes to the board’s core value of grace, they once again fail by any definition of the word. You don’t have to be a local historian to remember that Yearwood inherited one hell of a mess when he took the reigns of CPS in July of 2021. If you’re interested in facts, you must recognize that CPS’s proficiency and performance scores began their precipitous decline back in 2012 and continued to decline under the leadership of Superintendents Chris Belcher and his hand-picked successor Peter Stiepleman. In fact, when Yearwood became superintendent at CPS, the district was within mere decimal points of losing its accreditation from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
Within three days of firing Yearwood, the district announced that CPS’s test scores had skyrocketed from the bottom of the barrel to the top 20% of achievers in the State of Missouri. To be clear, under Yearwood’s leadership, CPS rose from nearly losing DESE accreditation to becoming one of the highest-performing districts in the state. That’s not the type of performance that typically causes you to lose your job.
The veil of secrecy and the odd juxtaposition of known facts surrounding Yearwood’s departure has fueled a vicious tsunami of unfounded rumors and supposition that is grossly unfair to a superintendent who may have saved our school district from national embarrassment.
In the end, those who know the school district best have surmised that Yearwood finally fell victim to the pressure placed on schoolboard members by a handful of disgruntled teachers and the whims of the local chapter of the National Education Association teachers’ union. To turn the trajectory of test scores around in CPS, Yearwood demanded a new level of accountability from the district’s teachers and administrators. This was not a popular move, especially for those teachers who enjoyed the district’s self-imposed months-long paid vacation due to the COVID-19 pandemic while surrounding districts continued in-person teaching.
Moving forward, it will be hard for many of us to have much confidence in our local board of education. As offensive as it may sound, CPS is a classic case of the inmates being allowed to run the asylum. Unfortunately, a whole generation of our children and grandchildren will ultimately pay the price for their incompetence.
