DeSpain focuses on moving forward

Karla DeSpain knows what it’s like to be busy. For the past six years, her schedule has included two terms on the Columbia School Board and working part time in her husband’s dermatology practice. Her younger daughter, Ryanne, just turned 14 and plays two sports, and 16-year-old Caitlin will soon get her driver’s license.

DeSpain frequently checks a full-screen calendar on her kitchen computer, where each square lists her daughters’ activities — dance classes, band practice, soccer games, track meets and church events.

DeSpain, who has been board president for the past year, hopes to land a third term in the April 3 election. She’s running against William Woods education professor Michael Tan and retired Hickman media center director Jan Mees for one of two seats.

Seated at the head of her kitchen table on a recent Friday, DeSpain reflected on her board service so far. She said she’s helped make the district’s budget process much more open. Administrators now seek everyone’s input — from parents to principals to teachers — before presenting the budget to the superintendent.

DeSpain also said she had a big hand in the 2003 hiring of Phyllis Chase as superintendent, calling it the biggest achievement the board has had. Chase has changed the way the district looks at student achievement data, DeSpain said. “Everything has stemmed from there,” she said. “(Chase) brings a wealth of knowledge.”

DeSpain, who has been married to John DeSpain since 1979, became involved in the Columbia Public School District through the Fairview Elementary School PTA. Both of her daughters attended the school. Now, Ryanne is an eighth-grader at West Junior High School, and Caitlin is Hickman High School sophomore.

In part because Caitlin will have graduated and Ryanne will be a year away from graduation by the end of the 2007-2010 term, DeSpain said this next term, if she is elected, will be her last.

In addition, DeSpain said, a diversity of thought among board members is necessary. “I really, truly believe we need a mixture of experienced and new people on the board,” she said.

Neighbor and former colleague Jill Cox said DeSpain’s strength on the board is evident. “She’s a very level-headed person,” Cox said. “She looks at all aspects of a situation and she looks at the big picture to see what’s best for the students.”

DeSpain, 49, is quick to point out that her background is in business, not education. She worked for 10 years at Boone County National Bank, where she began as a teller and later became assistant vice president and director of personnel and training. She left banking to work part time as financial officer of her husband’s dermatology practice, DeSpain Dermatology Center, and has since divided her time among the practice, her family and volunteer organizations.

For example, DeSpain is a board member at Broadway Christian Church and an associate member of the Assistance League of Mid-Missouri, a philanthropic organization that helps meet specific needs of Columbia residents.

She also enjoys walking her Labrador retrievers Lacey and Nikki; and she also loves water sports, cycling and singing.

DeSpain said one thing she has enjoyed about being a board member is talking with other parents. She said she wishes she could have the kinds of meaningful conversations with parents that she has during the campaign season all year long.

“The board has tried different avenues to engage and work with our community, but we don’t get much dialogue,” DeSpain said.

This election seems to have almost no controversy. DeSpain favors voter approval of a $60 million school bond issue to fund new construction and repair school facilities, as do the other candidates. The district’s growth necessitates the bond issue, she said.

At forums during this campaign season, DeSpain has urged residents to approve the bond issue. She said that if it is approved, she looks forward to breaking ground on new schools as quickly as possible.

She said board members hope to convene community focus groups about the bond issue to understand the public’s wants and how to balance them with the district’s needs.

“We don’t want to have the money approved and not get things done,” she said.

DeSpain also said she would also like to find common ground with administrators and teachers on salaries. She wants to make sure the district remains competitive enough to find and keep new teachers in Columbia’s schools.

“We’re suffering from a nationwide trend of attrition during the first five years. We need to support our teachers,” she told residents at a League of Women Voters coffee forum March 8.

“I definitely don’t think the teachers are paid what they should be,” she said later at her home.

DeSpain’s banking background lends itself to an understanding of the specifics of the district’s salary structures. She would like to collapse portions of the structure to make raising teacher pay less expensive.

“Coming from the private sector,” she said, she favors merit pay. But she said merit pay is difficult to achieve because of the disparity in student learning levels and where those students are clustered. This creates challenges in determining how much enrichment a teacher has provided, she said.

Closing the student achievement gap in Columbia’s schools has long been one of the board’s, and DeSpain’s, primary goals. In conjunction with the Achievement Gap Task Force created by Chase, board members look to West Junior High School’s model program to determine specific ways to close the gap.

“In order to maximize our resources, we’ve gotten feedback from each building,” DeSpain said. By developing a hierarchy of needs, she said administrators can determine common needs and can see “what we can do with what we have.”

If re-elected, DeSpain said that in the next three years, she hopes for improvement on key issues and progress for the district as a whole. “I want to see us continue to move forward,” she said.

“A strong school system makes us a strong community,” she said at the March 8 forum.

As policy makers responsible for the education of the community’s children, she said, the board needs to “continually focus on how we can improve the delivery of the education we can provide.”