This summer, the Rockwood school board unanimously voted to place a Proposition on the ballot for a 45-cent tax levy increase. The proposed increase would mean an extra 45-cents for every 100 dollars of a property appraisal. The district has put Proposition S on the ballot in efforts to increase teacher and staff salaries, expand health care benefits, and hire another two safety officers for the entire district. However, there are many other aspects in which the additional funds will be used, if passed, Superintendent Dr. Curtis Cain said. 

“What we’re going to engage [if Prop S is passed] is a comparable rate study. We’re going to look at what is happening across the county as relates to pay for different positions, compare that to where we have our employee groups falling as a school district and then make adjustments accordingly,” Cain said. “The other component is going to be benefits. We have a number of employees that are full-time equivalent staff that are not receiving [benefits]. The other component is our SSOs [School Safety Officers]. We want to add two additional school safety officers  that will engage in what our current four SSOs are e

ngaged in on a daily basis. They’ve been a fantastic addition  to our school district, and we want to make sure that those components are all in place.”

Rockwood gets 79 percent of their funding from local taxes, coupled with the fact a levy has not been on the ballot since 1994; Rockwood is paying their faculty significantly less than the others in the St. Louis county area. In addition Rockwood is in a mainly residential area so they have to raise property taxes, while other districts can get taxes from the organizations in their borders. Cain said every district’s tax rate is different depending on what corporations are within their borders.

“There are 22 comparative school districts in St. Louis County, and every one of them has their own unique funding structure when it comes to their tax rate and their tax base as well. And everybody has its own composition in terms of what it looks like,” Cain said. “For example, there are districts that have much more commercial base or industrial base that is used to offset and ultimately inform their tax rate. There are school districts that have casinos within them. They utilize those resources to impact their tax rate. And there’s a school district that has an airport that’s within it.  And I can promise you, that makes a difference from taxation if that happens to be your reality. So it’s really a contextual, like 22 different contextual realities that school districts ultimately are utilizing whatever puzzle pieces they have in front of them and ultimately deciding their fiscal  reality moving forward from there.” 

Last year the Rockwood school district and the Rockwood National Education Association (RNEA) entered negotiations for higher teacher wages. After months of negotiations the two parties compromised on a 10 percent pay increase over two years. Cain said that Rockwood is aware they need to stay competitive in order to retain their staff. 

“Truthfully there’s been whispers literally since Prop 3 [was put on the ballot that] we’ve got a competitive issue that is before us and we need to address it. And we’re beginning to have some loose conversations to begin to frame what that would in fact look like. It was definitely a source of conversation throughout the RNEA negotiated process. But there are other employee groups  that are impacted as well and so it’s just been an ongoing issue,” Cain said.

The district has four high schools, six middle schools, and 19 elementary schools; so, where do the tax dollars go? Cain said Rockwood spends its tax stipend on a myriad of things, but an overwhelming majority of the funds goes to instructional materials in the schools. 

“Sixty-eight percent of what we receive, as it relates to funding, goes to support what happens instructionally within our schools. We have facilities, school supplies, central administration, and then transportation that break out almost fractionally when it comes to the breakout of those funds themselves,” Cain said. 

Proposition S will be on the Nov. 4 ballot. Anyone eligible to vote in St. Louis County can vote on the levy. 

Follow up: Prop S didn’t pass, what does this mean for Rockwood?

Voters in the Rockwood area headed to the polls on Nov. 4 to vote on Proposition S, a proposed tax levy for those living in the region that would raise teacher salaries, put new school safety officers in place, and provide more staff members with benefits. Proposition S was narrowly defeated in the polls that Tuesday, with only around 1000 votes being the difference maker.
The main purpose of Prop. S was to raise property taxes by 45 cents per $100. If passed, it was projected to generate $27 million annually. Without this money in place, many Rockwood residents have been left questioning, what’s next for the district?

Rockwood Superintendent Dr. Curtis Cain said with the bill not passing, Rockwood is not in a state of emergency, but rather a state of evaluation.
“I think people need to understand this does not put us in a position where we need to panic. We just need to go through the mathematical exercises and calculations that we’ll go through, continue to pay attention to the landscape, both legislatively and fiscally, that is in front of us for the upcoming spring and then ultimately move forward,” Cain said.
Furthermore, Cain said Rockwood is in the hands of individuals who, though saddened by the defeat of Prop. S, are continuing to work for a stronger Rockwood.
“Our fiscal team, as well as the leadership team, being a cabinet, and the Board of Education spent a lot of time making sure that we’re being as measured and aware as we can be of what fiscal reality looks like,” Cain said. “We are not in a position where we’re going to have to engage in reduction in force or elimination of positions. That’s not where we are, because we’ve had a very fiscally responsible perspective when it comes to our dollars and how to ultimately deal with the tax dollars and other funding sources that we have, and that doesn’t change,” Cain said.
Public campaigning for the proposition began in the early months of the school year. In the campaign trail for Prop. S, Cain said that he and his staff worked tirelessly to promote the bill.
“We had 102 presentations [to campaign], and I think that the effort to get the word out speaks for itself. Those numbers aren’t debatable. We were everywhere in just over seven weeks to really get the word out so our community had an awareness. We laid it all out there to get that word out. Whether it was arriving at a location before 7 o’clock in the morning, so you can share the news of what the proposition would have been for our community, all the way to evening presentations stretching past 8 o’clock at night, we were everywhere,” Cain said.
The belief in Prop. S was apparent to those in and outside of the Rockwood community. Cain said that the support given to the bill was one of his greatest takeaways from the election process.
“What I saw, not just in our schools, but all also in our community, was tremendous support, tremendous appreciation for what our staff does on a daily basis. There are patrons that are not staff members that are some of the most ardent supporters of the Rockwood School District that you will find, I believe, on this planet. There’s a myriad of responses and reactions to what people have seen, and I think that all of that has to be taken into account. But there is still, and I believe there will always be a tremendous appreciation and pride for what happens within the Rockwood School District,” Cain said.

A lot of the support for Prop. S, Cain said, came from students from all Rockwood schools.
“I can’t tell you how uplifting it was to see the involvement and awareness of our student body, from all four high schools. We have students that are aware and want to be informed, and want to share a balanced story. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the behavior that I have seen by students at every single one of our high schools. We actually had students show up at one of the community engagement sessions. That was 7 o’clock in the morning. High school students were there to witness and participate in a community engagement, ‘Coffee with Dr. Cain’ session. That says so very much. I’m so proud of our students,” Cain said.
Even though the result was not the outcome Rockwood was hoping for, Cain said that the community must not lose the ambition they have.
“Don’t lose hope, please don’t lose the drive that you wake up with every day. You do what’s in the best interest of students, whether it’s directly supporting them in the classroom and leading instruction or whatever your role happens to be. Someone shared something [with me] that I’ve picked up and I’ve been utilizing, and it was that the puzzle only works if you have all of the puzzle pieces. And the whole thought behind Prop. S was making sure that we take care of those who take care of our kids,” Cain said.
Though it can be a hard pill to swallow, Cain said that this election helped to emphasize the true spirit of Rockwood students, staff, and patrons.
“The truth is, in life, you don’t control all of the variables. The great question is, when you are knocked down, what do you next do? What [do] your next steps look like? Do you find the strength to get up and keep moving forward?” Cain said. “The very first place I visited the day after the election was a school. And I can tell you, I could feel, really from staff, that [they had] an awareness of what the outcome happened to be with the ballot. People have a right to go through and work through whatever emotions and thoughts that they happen to have, but what I saw is what I’ve seen every day in our school district. Teachers being laser-like focused on making sure that kids were OK, that the school day was up and going, and that instruction was happening in every space, and students looking forward [to be] with their teachers. I saw Rockwood being Rockwood, and that isn’t going to change. There is nothing that’s going to happen at the ballot [for] anyone else in time that’s going to change us from our focus and our dedication and our commitment to be what is in the best interests of our kids. And as long as we hold true to that fact, we are ultimately going to be OK as a school district,” Cain said.