By K. Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, Mo. – A citizens group announced a list of demands Thursday night that they want the St. Louis school board to fulfill before sending their children back to class next month.
The group wants the district to reinstate maintenance contracts to ensure boiler systems remain safe, and to improve the proposed bus routes.
St. Louis activist Lizz Brown says the group also opposes privatizing custodial and food service positions, saying the district's past attempts at outsourcing yielded bad results.
"They brought in people that were poorly paid, there was a whole lot of theft; principals and teachers wouldn't know from day to day who were the people that were working in the schools and had this extraordinary access to our children for seven hours a day. Therefore, that's putting our children in harm's way," Brown said.
The group also wants the board to remove Alvarez and Marsal, the interim team it hired to manage the district.
Class begins for the St. Louis Public Schools September 8.