By Maria Hickey, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – Two candidates have filed so far to run for the St. Louis School Board in the April election and both have children in the district.
Katherine Wessling (Wess' ling) and David Lee Jackson, Jr., both filed on Tuesday, the first day to file for the school board election.
Wessling has two children in the St. Louis Public Schools. She says she wants to bring parents' concerns to the forefront.
"Things like the transportation of the children," Wessling said. "A lot of them are having a lot of problems with the transportation, the curriculum choices, things like that. I want to be an earpiece for parents and then a mouthpiece on the board, if I'm elected."
Jackson has two children currently in the district and three other children who already have graduated.
He says over the last ten years superintendents have come and gone and educating children has taken a back seat.
"We've talked about everything but educating the kids; we talked about everything but academics," Jackson said. "And the board for some reason has been swayed from those issues."
Jackson is a consultant for minority-owned construction businesses.
Wessling is an attorney for a non-profit group.
Neither has run for public office before.
The two seats up for election currently are held by Bob Archibald and Ron Jackson.
Jackson says he's not yet decided whether he'll run and Archibald did not immediately return a call from KWMU.
Candidates have until January 16 to file.