Things are changing at the St. Louis Public Schools. The special administrative board (which now oversees the city's schools; see here) replaced Kenneth Brostron, the district's longtime lawyer. An in-house lawyer--one who is much cheaper than Brostron and his firm--will begin work in October. For the past four years, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Public Schools has spent almost $11 million on legal fees. That's roughly $75 per student per year: twice as much--and in some cases 10 times as much--as what legal fees cost other school districts across the country. Of course, because of overregulation (not to mention our country's litigious culture) school districts are forced to spend huge amounts of precious time and money to protect against potentially devastating lawsuits. St. Louis, though, is a case-study in mismanagement. The real victims are the students. Last year alone, St. Louis Public Schools spent $2.8 million on legal fees but only $236,000 on new library books. Seems like Mound City's new school management won't tolerate such backward priorities.
"Spending millions on legal advice," by David Hunn and Steve Giegerich, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 23, 2007
