Maplewood Richmond Heights school district residents will vote to fill three board of education seats seats in the April election.
40 South News previously reported on sit-downs with candidate Katie Kaufmann, running for the first time, and incumbent Francis Chmelir. Dan O’Sullivan is also running, though he hasn’t responded to a request for an interview.
Incumbent Maria Langston spoke with 40 South News the same time as Chmelir. This will focus on Langston’s views.
Langston has been on the board since 2008. She was involved with the PTO and passing school bond levies before that.
“The Langston family fell in love with Maplewood 16 years ago and when we moved here we jumped right in headfirst,” she said. “I want to see improvement, and know there’s more improvement to come.”
The Langstons have a freshman and a fifth-grader at MRH.
She was with Children’s Miracle Network about 12 years, including four as executive director. She left in August, 2013, to be executive director for the Missouri Credit Union Charitable Foundation for the state.
“The work they do is closely aligned with the social justice programs that we support in the district, so it’s kind of a natural fit that my night job, as school board, compliments my day job,” she said.
Langston said student population growth will be one of the most important priorities for the next few years.
She said the board worked on the problem two or three years ago, but the recent influx of new MRH students plus the transfers have changed the variables.
“It will be a very well thought out solution before we bring it out for any kind of approval, but we do have to do some short-term things now,” she said. “We have a lot of kiddos here.”
Like Chmelir, Langston said Managing all the data-collecting that’s needed the Common Core State Standards Initiative is a challenge.
“Especially without losing the focus of students-come-first, and we’re such a student-come-first district and board it’s a challenge to juggle it,” she said. “They’re committed to doing it, and in true MRH fashion, they plow forward.”