Website is wrong...filing closes on Jan. 7th.

Filing deadline was Tuesday, not Monday.

But through Thursday, the Post Dispatch still hasn't noticed that it ought to report who filed and who didn't. The City just isn't important to the Post any more.

This may be the first time ever that only one political party filed any candidates for any office. But that's not important to the Post.

Anyone know when filing closes for independent candidacies, and what the procedures for such a filing are?

Apparently STLguy is right. While the Election Board web site continues to show Dec. 21 as the last day to file, E Board personnel answering the phone say the deadline isn't until January 7.

Dec. 21 was the opening day of filing for the contentious city school board election in April. Veronica O'Brien has filed for re-election, and former board chair Bill Purdy has also filed, apparently defying the anti-nepotism rule that prevented him from seeking reelection last time. Also filing were Jennifer Allen and Frank W. Kriegel, Jr. Anybody have a scoop on who they are?

Frank Kriegel is lawyer, specializing in worker's compensation. His firm Kriegel and Ituarte has an office on S. Grand. He is a law partner of former election board member Kevin Coan. He is a resident of the 6th ward, in the Compton Heights neighborhood.

Website has now been updated to show correct filing deadline.

My name is Frank Kriegel and I have listed my name as a candidate for the St. Louis School Board. I am a lawyer in a general civil practice at 6100 South Grand. I was born here a bit more than a half century ago and have remained since in the City of St. Louis. My family came to South St. Louis in the 1850's. I have three children, one a lawyer downtown, one at Washington University's law school,where I went and the youngest, an R.N. at Children's Hospital. None have ever been indicted and all are altogether pleasant in their father's opinion. I have been for some 20 years an AV rated lawyer which means something to other lawyers. The significance of the same can be determined by a visit to martindale hubble's web site, the competency and virtue ratings system for lawyers as determined by anonymous judges and other lawyers. I grew up in Carondelet, comically poor. In proper Dickensian fashion, a priest sent me out of his pocket to a fancy prep school, Augustinian Academy, now burned down. In my first year among the opulent youth, he died; hence my work career began at age 13. I paid my own tuition. I went to Mizzou as a philosophy major on a series of Curators' scholarships and work study and got out at age 20. Richard Nixon abruptly abolished the draft at the same time and my already passed number 69 in the draft no longer meant I was going to be drafted. I worked for a very brief while as the operator of a circular saw making chair legs, the stuff of a thousand unpleasant recollections and way beyond the grisly of Upton Sinclair, and then moved on to another factory as a punch press operator. I got a scholarship to Washington University School of Law and graduated in 1976. Currently I am a member of the vestry of Christ Church Cathedral, downtown at 13th and Locust. I am its secretary and also its chair of finance. It has a budget of about 1.1 million per year and an endowment of about 7.5 million owing to the beneficence of dead Episcopalians. During my term, it finally arrived at a balanced budget after some 20 years. I can read, do, sing financials, all in a fairly congenial fashion. I manage and serve the Saturday Morning Breakfast Club on the fourth and fifth Saturdays of each month, serving about 220 of the working poor, women,kids and old people out of food stamps and the very many and very needy people we carry under the title of homeless. For 2 years I was a twice a week tutor with the YMCA's Y-Read program for gradeschool children reading two levels behind. I am a volunteer for Girls, Inc. I serve on the board of City Angels, a not-for-profit fundraising entity which supports City of St. Louis charities for the needy. I have taught Sunday School for middle school kids. I have served on other charity and religious boards. I tried to a successful and unanimous jury conclusion the first gay bashing civil case in the St. Louis Circuit Court. I served as the civil lawyer who broke up the old LNP Towing enterprise as part of our city's eradication of organized crime and the gang bombings which terrorized the City in the early 1980's (and please don't think I wasn't scared--it just had to be done). I have represented just about everybody in the 11th and 13th wards, the bank and tons of indigent immigrants. I've written extensively on legal topics in the Missouri Bar Journal and the Journal of the Metropolitan St. Louis Bar. For seven years I worked on translating and editing Theophylact's Commentaries on the Gospels, a three volume series of a particularly bright Greek scholar of the eleventh century, as well as the editing of another's transation of some Slavonic hagiography. Okay, enough about me.
I am running for school board because it is imperative that we as a community in collegial fashion consider the following:
1. There are 524 school districts in Missouri. Of them, more than 97% are accredited by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. There are 14 that are only provisionally accredited. The City of St. Louis is one of those 14. This fall from grace occurred in the fall of 2004. If our accreditation scores fall much further or if our provisional accreditation status lasts longer than 5 years, we will be become unaccredited. Take a look at R.S.MO 162.1100 to see what unaccreditation will mean to our community: loss of local control, prescribed tax rates, a suspension of real estate tax abatements and TIFs and a horrific list of draconian educational rules. These consequences, many of which are of economic importance to property owners, are nothing when compared against the harm which will be suffered by our children whose hard work and diplomas will be devalued and become the subjects of scorn.
2. Admirable good work has been accomplished in the last 2 years. We now have gradeschool and high school curricula which are both horizontally and vertically integrated. Transportation has been rationalized. The delivery of books and other logistical operations now actually work. Some good cost savings have been achieved, but not in every respect. There exist system wide and uniform standards of measurement and accountability. We have some truly great grade schools, and even those that are not yet great, have gotten better, with some exceptions. We need to applaud and celebrate these successes. And of course, we need to build on these successes.
3. Most of the high schools and middle schools are an academic mess. The 2004 Missouri Assessment Program scores for llth graders show our kids at this grade level to be doing very poorly: more than 70% are not at a level approaching proficiency in English and more than 90% are not at a level approaching proficiency in either math or science. These figures should be enough to dispel any nostalgia for the dysfunctional ancien regime. As I write this note, these same kids, if they are still in school, are just some 4 months from graduating and entering into the world as either workers or post-secondary education students. As a community of adults we are morally obliged to help repair our system's failure so that other young people are never treated in so insouciant a fashion in our name.
4. The big high schools don't work. The literature supports a view that smaller groupings of kids at the high school level promotes better rigor in studies and better relationships. Our big high schools, say Roosevelt, pretend to educate more than 1400 students. Take a look at the Missouri Assessment Program scores for Roosevelt and our other high schools, not counting the great performing school at 4200 McPherson, and you'll see what I mean. If the actual topography and the map in your hand don't agree, the map is wrong and throw it away. The School Board in congenial and intelligent fashion needs to urge the educators in its employ to consider means to reduce the size of these pathologically hypertrophied institutions that are simply not performing
5. We need to thank and respect our teachers and principals. We need to remember that we are all created equal members of one human family, and that although we may have different tasks to perform, all work is of equal dignity. How do we do this? We need a School Board that has the patience to listen to its teachers and principals, that honors their input and service and when wrong, clearly and sincerely speaks the truth and makes a turn to a better and wiser course.

If you guys ever want to have lunch and talk about these things, to the greater glory of our fair and beloved city, give me a call at the office. I'm in the book.

Frank W. Kriegel, Jr.

Hello. My name is Jennifer A. Allen and I am a candidate for SLPS Board. I grew up in central Illinois, the daughter of an elementary school teacher and a k-8 principal. My mother continues to teach elementary school after 41 years and my father took early retirement and then returned to education in a position as an alternative school director. Early on, I learned the role of the School Board and the continuous battle to determine where the line between administration and governance lies.

I earned a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Illinois and then came to St. Louis where I attended SLU, earning both a JD and Master in Health Administration in 2000. I moved with my husband to the State of Oregon where I practiced law, representing the City of Madras, Oregon as well as assisting my employer with research issues in their representation of the local school district. Once our daughter was born, we decided to return to St. Louis to raise our family.

I am currently a stay-at-home mom to 2 year-old Mia and 7 week-old Ava. I hope to continue in this role until they enter SLPS in a few years.

I decided to run for the School Board for many reason, including:

As a mother and city resident, I want my children to attend public school. However, in the current state of the school district, I have many reservations, primarily safety and academic performance. While these issues seem to increase as the education level rises, these issues affect every stage of education. We need to revisit the issue of alternative schools. When the alternative schools are closed and those students are sent back into the regular classroom, the impact is enormous for both the students and the teachers.

While a contract was finally agreed upon, the voice of the teachers has fallen upon deaf ears for far too long. The board needs to be open to change and needs to take teacher and parent concerns into consideration. The new board needs to turn away from the poor decisions of the past and look toward the future.

I could go on and on about old textbooks, deteriorating facilities, etc... In short, this is why I believe you should vote for me for SLPS Board:

My education and practical experience have provided me with a working knowledge of the School Board and its governing role. I am dedicated to the City and to public education, including sending my own children to SLPS. I am a friend to our teachers. I am a team player yet I will not follow a voting block merely to avoid confrontation. I am not afraid to ask questions and make forward-thinking decisions.

Thanks for your time.