This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, price and coverage matched limited by state law, not available in all states. "I am a real American. Fight for the rights of every man. I am a real American. Fight for what's right. Fight for your life." Due to limitations of time and information, the opinions and advice from this show are not creating an attorney-client relationship and are not subject to a malpractice suit. This is All Outlaw with Kyle Wyatt on Springfield's Talk 104-1. Welcome, man. Good morning. You are listening to All Outlaw. I'm your host, attorney Kyle Wyatt of Wyatt Law. It was just in Freedom Truck Law located at 2837 South Finger Mill Road, Unit C101, Springfield Mow open Monday through Friday, handling all of your family law and traffic law needs. And we are continuing this focus on local elections. We have yet another Springfield school board candidate. Last week we had Kelly Byrne on. And this week we have somebody who's interested in getting on the board, as you know, Steve McCoskey elected not to run again. So that's definitely leaving an open seat. All the seats are really open when you run. In this election there's going to be two candidates who get the book for. Kelly Byrne is obviously seeking re-election on that. But our next guest is David Myers, who is seeking, is this your first time running for school board? First time running for school board, yes. Tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, where are you from? Well, so I was born here in Springfield. I lived here for about eight years. And then my family moved down to the Branson West area. So I grew up in Reed Spring, Kimberling City. I graduated from Reed Spring High School in 2000. I know that's not very long ago, but it seems like so long ago now. You talk to the right demographic and they're just like, "Oh, you're just a pup." And then moved back to Springfield, lived in Christian County for a little while. But I've been in Springfield for probably 15 or more years. Okay. I think at this point. What do you do for a later? You may not know this. You don't get paid to be on the school board. Yes, I know. I've actually talked to a few people who said, "Well, so what are you going to do? Would you get this? You're just going to quit your job?" And I said, "No, are you crazy? That didn't get paid." They don't pay you for that? That's so much work. Yeah, yep, it is. I know. So I'm actually an aircraft maintenance technician by trade. Okay. And I own my own, well, I own my own fiduciary company. So I actually manage the personal budgets of disabled veterans. Oh, wow. I currently have, I think, eight clients. I'm about to get another one again. And that's been a really rewarding opportunity, I guess. I've been doing it since 2016. Right. And so their disability benefits come in from the VA. And they go into the account that I manage. And I just make sure they get their rent paid and their bills paid. And have money for groceries and gas and things like that. And at times it requires me to tell them, "No." "Hey, I want to do this." "Man, I don't think you can do that. It's not in your budget. We can work it out to where we can get to that point. But you can't do it right now. Are you willing to wait?" And just talking to them and negotiating with them at times and working with them. And it's really been a very eye-opening experience and being able to kind of work with them on that. What about wife kids? Yep. I've got a wife. I've got four kids, four boys. Yeah. And let's see. One of them right now is in Springfield Schools. He also goes to Disney. Like I used to. I don't know if that also had a context. But yeah. Like I used to go to Disney. He goes to Disney. Anyway. Here's a really good school. It is a very good school. Yeah. It's a really good area. We're pretty happy with it, with the situation. Now I will say he has Asperger's. Which presents a pretty unique challenge, I think, for the teacher, for us. He loves math. He loves music. But he can get distracted pretty easily. And his emotional reactions sometimes are not quite contextual to the situation. So it presents challenges for his fellow students and his teacher and stuff. We try to, we try to be the proactive parents and say, you know, hey, we're here for you. If you need any help and because some, a lot of times teachers aren't really prepared for, you know, for that. And for the kind of the mental health needs of their students. But the three other kids. Oh, yeah, those three. So, so one of them we, we actually homeschool. We had to pull him for, you know, reasons. He was also going to Disney. So he's it. So I've got seven, eight, 12, and 14. Yeah, so the one, the seven year old, we homeschool. Trying to get him spun up on, you know, learning and get him back into the school. And then the two older boys, they actually go to Gloria Dayo Academy. So they go to homeschool hybrid program. Yeah. Good things about that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's a, it's a really great school. The teachers there are, they're, they're phenomenal. They, they really care a lot. And, you know, that's, that's one of the things that I've kind of seen across the board. Teachers are really, really care. Right. And that's, I mean, they should, if they don't care, they shouldn't be teachers. Yeah, absolutely. Well, hey, when we come back, why don't we talk about what possessed you to decide to run for school board? What, what was the catalyst that, you know, because like you indicated earlier, it's a lot of work for no pay. Yeah. It's sometimes, maybe many time, a thankless job. You're going to have people who disagree with you one way or another. Right. And so it's always interesting to get folks, you know, what's, you know, you're comfortable. You're, you're making a living. You got a lovely family. You know, why, why the hassle? Why, why, why the headache? We'll be right back after this. All right. Welcome back. You are listening to all out law. We are joined in studio with David Meyer. He is a candidate for this upcoming April 8th. Is that right? Do I got the date right? April 8th. I just did that by memory. I'm that good. April 8th, local elections for Springfield school board. You know, I have been harping on this now since we really been a focus on it in the last five years. You don't get a more important election than April. It really, if you could only pick one, in all honesty, the April elections are the ones that you really should be. Making the time and going out because that that's the election that directly affects you. You know, you got little tax issues that that directly didn't affect people in Kansas City. Nope, it affects you here. Who's going to be responsible for your children's education? That is here. You know, it's all fun to vote for president who doesn't want to vote for Donald J. Trump, but it doesn't, you know, it's not really impacting me yet. You know, I probably feel good about it, but it has not impacted me yet. But the April elections do, and I wish we can put more focus on it. And so what in the world, Mr. Myers, possess you to get out of the comfort zone. And first, I mean, it's kind of a big task. Is it not just to even get on the ballot? You have to collect a bunch of signatures. Yes. Yeah, so you have to go around. You have to get 500 signatures. Really, you need to shoot for 650 to 700 just because some of them may not live in the district. You know, if you have other people helping you get those signatures, they might have signed more than one, you know, petition. So, yeah, you already have to get 500 signatures just to get on the ballot. And then the work begins, you know. Yeah. So, but you're already, but the good thing about that is that number one, it kind of weeds out the riffraff. And it really shows the motivation of the drive. Like if you want to do this, you've got to put feet to the ground and actually knock on doors. Because that's the, that's the only way you're going to get these signatures is to actually interact and engage with the voters. So you got yours turned in. Do you know where you sat on the ballot? I had over 800 signatures is what I had when there. So I'm number four. So Kelly Byrne is number two. I'm number four. Both the evens. We want to vote the odd ones out. I know. I'm trying to do it. It's crazy. All right. So, all right. So that's, that's the, the how, the why. So. I had never. So, okay. Let me start here. The eight year old and the seven year old are my step kids. So I gained them. When I got married to my wife, we've been married for almost three years. So before that, I was concerned about things that happened on the school board. But it wasn't, it wasn't such a direct impact to me. And so it was easy to kind of say, well, I don't, I'm, I'm going to kind of, I'm going to do my own thing because I got a lot of things going on. I'm not going to, you know, I do what I'm telling other people now not to do. I already did. You know. And so when, when COVID happened. And then all of these things are coming out about what's happening in the schools. And school board meetings are now being broadcast across the nation because, you know, people are getting arrested and people are getting charged with assault and all these things. Yeah. Terrace. Well, my gosh, Terrace watch lists and, and then, and then it's also coming out. The things that are being provided. The students in school, school libraries. Just all of this stuff kind of really hit all at once. So kind of the hidden blessings that, that COVID brought us. I mean, as devastating as COVID was. It actually revealed a lot of, a lot of things that were being hidden from the parents and the people that absolutely need to be brought out. So that's good. Right. And then, and then that caused me to look at into Springfield schools more. And also for years, I was involved in politics, local politics years ago. I managed campaigns, issue and candidate campaigns. I was involved and, and knew, knew a bunch of people and, and, you know, had kind of maintained some of those friendships. And for years, those people have been saying, you need to run for something because they liked me and my message and, you know, what I believed. And so it came back around to that. Hey, we really need you to run. And so I, I said, you know what? I think it's time. It is time. I prayed about it a lot. Really. I talked about it with my wife and I really looked at how things could go because it is, it's unpaid. It does require work. I mean, this is, this is not just a, this is not a nonprofit board position where you show up and you spend some people's money and you go away. You know, this requires a lot of hard work and a lot of effort and a lot of focus to make, to improve teachers working experiences and to improve students, educational success and achievement. And so I don't take that lightly at all. And I, and I said, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it. So I said, all right, let's do it. And I talked to, talked to some key people and they said, okay, we're behind you. And I said, all right. And we got this, we got the signatures and off to the races. So. What is a, what's the, what's the experience been like then? You have to turn it in. The, the list is what in November, when, when's the date that you have to turn in your list? So the, the, for the, for the petitions to get your name on the ballot, that turn in was December 31st. So I've actually picked up my, my packet on December 9th, 8th or 9th. Oh, wow. Yeah. Pretty late because there were some, there were some decisions trying to be made. You know, do we want to, do we want to support this person or this person? Does this person even want to do it? You know, so there was some internal discussions among some different people in groups. And so, so yeah, I picked up my petition packet on the 9th of December. And we got 800 over 800 signatures by the 30th of December. That's amazing. So in what three and a half weeks and over Christmas as well. And is that where you're at on the ballot, is it the dependent upon when you turn your, or when your, I guess your petitions were approved? Yes. Yeah. When, um, well, I just, well, it's, it's when you actually turn it in. So when you drop it off. Yeah. Because I mean, so many signatures, she, it's one person that, that goes through and does. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. That poor lady. She, and she's, she was so nice. She was so wonderful. I showed up and I, I, I handed it to her and I said, good luck. She goes, ah, it's just, I do this. Well, you know, another person is really good at looking at the signatures on petition is Crystal Quaid. You know, I did, I, I did a hearing with her and I, I couldn't believe how, how, how, how just in 10 she wasn't making sure that this African American petition to run against her, you know, was correct. And she was very concerned about that, you know, because we don't want to have anyone, but you know, it may not be in the district, you know, right. Yeah. That's a rough way and we can't have black people run against Democrats. That's just, that sure seems to be the way of it. It doesn't work. But yeah, that, that would not be a very fun job. Hopefully they pay that woman. Well, we're not good compensation to be looking at that. That would be it. Got a crap job. Yes. You know, there's a lot of things that's been going on, just, just this week. Sorry. You got that clip was the, uh, congressional hearing, uh, this week. Sir, what, what was the, uh, the backs up of it? I saw the, uh, there was a congressional hearing going on. And I don't know if it was a teacher, an administrator or who. So it was talking about the, uh, number of official teachers versus the number of non-teaching staff, uh, like aides and administrators. And it was talking about 2025 versus the 1950s. I alluded to this briefly. There were 2.36 teachers for every non teacher in a school district in America. Today it's one to one. So it's stated differently for every teacher. You see in a typical district in America, there's a non-teaching, largely administrative counterpart. And so I mentioned that 100% increase in the number of students in public schools across the country. And that there was a 243% increase in the number of teachers. And I would just reiterate a 709% increase in the number of non-teaching staff from 1950 to today. So that's largely where the money is going. So what is the overall percentage of teachers that are actually in the schools? 47.5%. Yeah. So we have, we have a brand new focus this year on, uh, efficiency. We have doge. Really popular stuff. Um, we have a conversation about eliminating the department of education. Um, and what I think voters, especially parents are, are, are concerned about is, you know, are my, are my children being taught? You know, correctly, we have, we have seen the, the, this is just me. We are seeing an absolute decline in testing scores and profituencies and math and reading. Uh, since the 70s, since the, since the creation of the department of education. At the same time, we had Desi formed here in the, in the same as Europe. Um, meanwhile, you had third world countries like China who are now in the top 10. Uh, and we're somewhere in the 30 ranking. Uh, you know, you got Sweden, Finland, you got other countries that are, are way ahead of us. And parents are, are tired of it. You know, Steve, Mikoski, you know, his, his campaign and his tenure on the board, he keeps always talking about the, the four walls, right? Yeah, keep in there. You know, just, all we needed is reading, writing, arithmetic, right? Science. We needed just education, not, uh, we don't need to have, uh, children, you know, be developed to be social warriors. We don't need children, you know, wondering what, what sex they are or not. We don't need a push because I, when I grew up in the 80s, we didn't, there was no talks about, you know, we had like in security, we had a six-headed class that lasted for two days. Outside of that, that wasn't a topic. There was, there was no heterosexual or, or definitely no homosexual stuff going on. It was just education. Yeah. And we've gotten away from that. Yep. And so what are, so that, so my, you know, identification of problems are that we have a very bloated, uh, it feels like, uh, budget. We spend more now on, on, on kids. Uh, Landon McCarter, when he ran last year, I, yeah, like a really cool saying that as much money as we're spending, you think we'd be, you know, raising a bunch of little Navy seals. Uh, and, and, and, but we're not getting any of the bank for a buck, you know, the return on investment. Right. And so as parents, especially as taxpayers, you know, we pair a property tax and then by God, it keeps going up all the time. And school budget keeps growing. Where is that money going? And how is it benefiting our kids? Because as, as, as a community in Springfield, we're not seeing it. So what, what do you identify as the problems here in Springfield? Oh, man. Okay. We don't have enough time for all that. So I'm going to try to condense it down. So number one, I want to, I want to harken back to something that you had said previously, which actually goes to this. Um, the municipal elections in April, the highest turnout that we've had in the last about 10 years has been 15%. Only 15%. And that's just registered voters. So when you break it all down, it's a percentage of registered voters. And then only, um, only a majority of those, typically, I mean, school board race, because you can pick two seats, you know, it's a little different, but what you have is actually between eight and 12% of the total population of the city actually deciding bond issues, school board, city council mayor, anything tax, anything voting related. Um, you, you only have between eight and 12% of the actual total population deciding this for the entire city. Absolutely. It's, it's terrible. So, so that's, frankly, one of the biggest issues is that you don't have enough voter. Uh, involvement in the process. Then, um, and it, and it depends on who you talk to. Like I talked to a former administrator yesterday. Um, so I was out door knocking, um, trying to meet the, meet the voters and get them out, help them to make the right decision. And, um, one of the gentlemen that I talked to was a former superintendent. And he'd been in the education industry. Um, I can call it that for 50 years. And when you talk to him and I say to him that teachers are telling me, we have got to feel, we've got to get more support from the administration. We don't feel heard. We don't feel like, um, like we even matter. We're not being supported. This is what they're saying. And his, his initial response was to say, well, it's not the administration's fault, though. Now, he's an administrator and he pushed back and said, it's the parents that need to be more involved in their kids. And then the kids school, right? Now he's not wrong. He is not wrong. Um, but at the same time, that it, it was very telling because it, what it said to me was, this is an administrator. He was a really nice guy. This is an administrator who's been at administration for who knows how many, how many years who says it's not our fault. It's the parents fault. And the teachers would say it's not their fault. It's the administration's fault. And there's so much blame going around. And here's the thing. Everybody's at fault. Every, the parents are at fault. The teachers are at fault. The administration's at fault. There's nobody that can't take some blame for this. So instead of blaming people, we need to be working toward common sense positive solutions that are actually going to get us to where we need to be. And, and, and I said it a form just the other day. I said, it's not the person that's the problem. It's the idea. I can, I can disagree with somebody and still respect them as a person. That's called tolerance. But their idea may be something that I, that I disagree with. And so how do we work, how do we work to, to tweak and, and, and perfect the ideas without causing a rift between the actual person. I'm going to figure that out after this break. All right. We'll be right back. All right. Welcome back. You're listening to wall out law as we indicated earlier. Last segment, you know, President Trump is focusing on getting rid of the Department of Education. And here's a quick interview. We had this week is reading that. We are, we want to bring the schools back to the States because we have the worst, literally, we have the worst education department and education in the world. We're ranked at the bottom of the list and yet we're number one when it comes to cost per pupil. We want to not only have school choice, which is important, but we want to bring it back to the state so the states can run the schools. And they will be every bit as good as the top educational departments anywhere in the world. So you feel good about the states governing education issues rather than the federal government. You can go back to the states, but I can tell you 40 states will have great. And then same ones that we have problems with everything else. They probably won't do as well, but we'll help them. That's right. You handed me a shocking facts. I assume you're passing these out along. Yeah. This is just Springfield Public Schools SPS. Correct. Right. So tell me if your tax dollars are being spent well. This is talking about proficiency. Is that correct? Yep. So Springfield School students are performing below grade level in math. That number is 59.9%. So 59.9% of SPS students are performing below grade level in math. 54.6% of our Springfield Public School students are performing below grade level in English language arts. How about this number? 61.5% are performing below grade level in science. And then, you know, we talk about, you know, money, the Democrats, that's their solution to everything. Yes. Well, if we just spent more, we would have, we would have better outcomes. And as President Trump has indicated that interview, we are number one in the world on what we spend per student tax dollars on each student. And yet, we have countries in Africa that do better than us. Right. And so Springfield Public Schools, you indicated off air that have the highest average wage. Right. Yep. So if you are a SPS teacher on average, you're earning more than Ozark. So that I believe the starting wage for a teacher at SPS is 40 to $44,000. Okay. So, generally higher than, you know, say, Rogersville, Republic or as far as I understand it, we're the highest in the metro area. And so they're shocking fact, 54.5% of Springfield Public School teachers lost new higher teachers left SPS school district within the first three years. 54% of them. So what they're doing is, and it was at a forum recently, Springfield Council of the PTAs. And it was, the question was, how do we deal with teacher retention? And one of the, one of the candidates responded with, well, we need to pay our teachers. That was, that was, that, that, I mean, let's be honest, this is a nonpartisan board and this is a nonpartisan race, but the people that are running are not nonpartisan. Yeah. And so the response was, we need to pay our teachers more. Here's the problem. And I brought this up because I was the next person actually to be able to answer this. I said, you know, we could pay our teachers more and that's important. But the problem is, is that teachers in Springfield who are making more money are leaving Springfield to go to surrounding districts and make less money, because they're because the morale is better. There, and, and again, I've talked to, I have talked to sitting teachers that say we're not being heard. We're not being supported by the administration or principals. We don't have discipline that we can't do discipline in the classrooms because the board won't act. And I talked to retired teachers. I talked to a lady who just retired three years ago and I said, did you go back to substitute? She said, I will never set foot in the Springfield school again. Across the board. I have yet to find out. I will say there, there are some, some retired teachers that are going back to volunteer, but they're not volunteering as teachers. They're volunteering as helpers. They're volunteering as assistants. They're, they're doing, you know, they're, they're doing what a paraprofessional in a school does, which is just basically support roles, which is fine. We absolutely need that our teachers are desperate for support. But the retired teachers don't want to go back and substitute teach. They would rather, they would rather be there as support professionals and then go home. That is what I'm hearing 100%. So the, and, and, you know, we are, we're in, we're in Missouri is in the top of the bottom rather 10% of performing schools, school performance across the nation, the bottom 10%. And depending on the metrics, depending on how you actually measure this number, we spend anywhere between 12,000 and $20,000 per student. That's a, that's a broad range, right? But, but it depends on, again, on, on what statistics you're, you're adding into that, into that, that formula. So we're spending anywhere between 12,000 and $20,000 per student. And then people, and then parents are saying, well, if we're going to spend that and not get the quality education that that kind of money should suggest we are our students. Then I'm going to pull my student from school, and I'm going to send them to private, parochial, homeschool, homeschool, hybrid programs, whatever. The problem with that, then, is that this is all cyclical. It's all comes back around. The problem with that is that we, that our budgets, Springfield schools, well, school district's budgets are based on attendance. It's called ADA, average daily attendance. Right. So if we lose, and we have a lot, we've lost 1500 students over the last, I think, five years, six years, something like that. If we continue to lose students, the amount of money that we, that we are allocated, it goes down. Right now, we're $360 million budget for the highest, highest budgeted school district in the state. And yet, our metrics across the, across the board, core competencies, math, reading science, they're all C and D level. We've got students reading two grades below level. Now it's not, they can't read the words. They can read words. It's just, it's the comprehension of what they're reading. It's the ability to, to, to take what they've read and then be able to explain it back to you. It's the, you know, the comprehension, the critical thinking skills that are, that are lacking there. And, you know, and so, and again, so none of this is to say that teachers are the problem, or administration is the problem, or parents are the problem. Everybody has a role to play in the, in the devastating numbers that we're getting out of our schools. Even to, even to say things like on the website, on the Springfield school district website, they tout 94.4% graduation rate, 94.4% of students were graduating and we're sending them out the door with some par education level. They, on the site, they say, this is good. This is an uptick. This is improvement. Well, if you know what the number is that they've, that we've improved from, you wouldn't call it an improvement. The number that I saw was 93.7%. So 93.7% of students graduating to 94.4% of students graduating, that is an improvement and motivation that we need to continue striving for. No, what we need to strive for is well educated students who are ready for the workforce and ready for adult life. And what I tell my kids is we need our job as parents is to train you to be good adults. And that is a broad spectrum analysis. We're talking about education. We're talking about common sense. We're talking about how to do regular things like book a doctor's appointment, you know, simple things like that that you have to do as an adult that kids don't know how to do personal finances, things like that. We're, we train our kids to be good adults, and that's what we need to be doing in our schools. This is how we need to have our mindset. Everybody, parents, teachers, administrators, the board, because at the end of the day, if the students aren't getting the education that they need, we're not doing our jobs. All right, well, we talked about what the symptoms are when we come back, let's talk about some of the cures that we can try to implement and help our young students will be right back. Earlier this week, Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon was on Fox News, and discussing the test scores and what's issues. We're talking about the symptoms, what we're experiencing right now with our students and then the parentheses and math, science, English, language, reading. Here's a here's a here's a clip of that. Clearly, when I take away education, the president never said that he's taken the bureaucracy out of education so that more money close to the states, better education is closest to the kids with parents with local superintendents with local school boards. I think we'll see our scores go up with our students and we can educate them with parental input as well. Well, she's very angry. And over the weekend, I posted on X that it would be nice if Randy were ever angry about the abysmal eighth grade and fourth grade reading and math proficiency. You see those numbers like 18%, 22% of proficiency or above it in fourth and again, we rank near the bottom globally on these standards before it's shocking given how much we're putting up a graphic given how much we spend. I can't even. Yeah, I mean, it's terrible. Well, I'll tell you it's unbelievable. And when you think about high school seniors that are graduating, only 30% of them are reading proficiently, that doesn't mean that they can't read words. Hello, they can't read cognitively. And that's what we're missing. You know, you read to learn up until third grade and then after that you, I mean, you're learning to read up until the end of third grade, then you're reading to learn. And if you can't read after the end of third grade, you're going to be behind in your reading. And so that's what we have to focus on. Yeah. So what are, you know, what are some suggestions, you know, what are your ideas to address this? I mean, does it start, you know, I generally, most of these things start from the top. Yes, it is a superintendent doing a good enough job is, you know, the school board then underneath her, or actually the school board on top, really, really starts there. Yes, they act like a lot of times the superintendent is up top. Right. But I think really, you know, it's a school board that has to be in charge. So what's, what do you think, what are some solutions. So I've been in the Army Reserves and National Guard for 16 years. Actually, my 16th year was the 9th of March. So just this past weekend. In that amount of time, I've had the opportunity to be able to lead, be able to learn, be able to fail, be able to get back up. I have there every quarter I'm able to teach about 250 soldiers on resiliency skills. So basically how to communicate, how to deal with life as it's coming at you. I've had this opportunity that I don't think really the board members, some of the board members have. Dr. Miriam clearly has leadership skills. Kelly Byrne clearly has leadership skills. He's got, you know, good business background. Steve, Steve does too, but unfortunately he's, he's leaving us. And so, you know, we're left with the other four who are educators who have education experience, but they don't have. It seems anyway, based on their, their actual positions. They don't have budgetary experience. They don't have strong leadership skills. They are. Yes, men for the, or yes, women, I guess, for the superintendent. So what we need talking about solutions, what we need is somebody who can stand up and say, listen, this is how this is going to go. This is how this is not going to go. What we're not going to do is, you know, and, and I have the ability to say, no, now, I'm a bridge builder. I pride myself on being able to bring people together, bring ideas together, make things work. And I think what we need is we need to take an honest look at what's happening in our schools with our students with our teachers. And even if it's hard, we deal with the problem. You don't, you don't say, well, let's just, let's push it down the road. You know, no, we got to deal with this. So if that means getting with, getting with these school board members and saying, Hey, look, how can we make this work? Not how can we avoid it? How can we actually address it and make it work? That's something that I want it that I can do. And I want to make happen on the school board, even to, and working with a superintendent and saying, listen, you're the one that is responsible for executing our policy. So one of the things that the board has done kind of traditionally over the last many, many years is defer to the superintendent. This is your issue. Now, and, you know, Dr. Lathan's only been there for this, I think she's going into her fourth year. So before that, it was, it was Dr. Jungman. I think that's how you pronounce it. And they've traditionally, they've just kind of acquiesced to what the superintendent wants to do and how they want to do it. And that's not leadership. There's nothing leader leadership about that. So, and you'll also have people saying, well, we need to spend more money. We need to do more money. No, we don't need more money. We need better management of the money that we have because you can't keep going back to the taxpayers and saying, Hey, we didn't do a good job here. Give us more money. We'll do a better job. That never works. You hit it on early on when he talked about how school board and here in the city of Springfield, if you're a resident in the city of Springfield, they're always there called non-partisan elections. Non-partisan positions, but we know it was leaked out of it was last election cycle or the one before where the Green County Democrat Party was pushing hard on their candidates that they wanted to go. You know, can't get out of the bag. But it is important because there are two different schools of philosophy. We're dealing with it right now in a culture where the Democrats, and if you're Democrat minded, you are all in favor, all on board of pushing boys into girls sports, and you have a battle. It's a stupid battle. It's an 80/20 issue. You ask 80% of Americans, they're going to say, I do not want men in my little girls bathroom. I don't want my girl and I have a daughter. I don't want her competing against other guys. It's not fair. It's not even close. And so as a school board member, will you vow to protect our girls in the locker room, the bathrooms and sports unequivocally? Yes. Do you believe there's any room for critical race theory in our school? Absolutely not. You know, and see, that's the problem. I think so many of these people, you know, I looked at the people you're running against, you know, I guarantee you, they're not going to stand up and say what they're really for. No. And is there going to be an open forum before April 8 where all of you are at someplace? Yeah, so there have been forums that we've talked to the Springfield Council of the PTA, so Parent Teacher Association. We did a forum with the Springfield Daily Citizen hosted about school choice. Kelly and I were at, we attended a forum at Calvary Chapel on Thursday night. Wait, sorry, Tuesday night. I forgot what day it is. We were there on Tuesday night and talking to talking about issues and answering questions that people had. We were the only two that were there. Gail had, I think it was her mom's birthday, she said, and Sarah had, you know, concerts with the kids, so they didn't just not show up. But Kelly and I were there to answer questions. Yeah, there are, there are some other, and I can, I can look them up and I don't know if we can put them on. Yeah, I think it'd be good because I think people need to be able to come because those are questions I think parents want to know, because we don't want to get, look, the education ABCs 123s. And that's all there needs to be a focus on. Yes. You know, it's all the latest statistics, which is just, it's just bizarre. Eighth graders across the country, there's 30% are saying they're gay, right? With, with, with, with, and don't, so this whole notion that they don't push sex or whatever in school. There's not, there's not 30% of America's gay. No. And so there's an issue, you know, and when you, when you sexualize children and ask them, you know, who do you want to sleep with in school? That's just weird. It's bizarre. We didn't do that when I was in school. I don't know why we need to do that now. Yeah. And so we need to have a policy where, where there's no more safe place safe space stickers. You know, how about this? If you bully somebody, regardless of what it is, it's wrong. Right. You know, they're, they're, what about the fat kids in the world? Where's their safe space? You know, and, and we just got to get out of this mindset. Yeah. Because it's, it's just, it's just weird. It's bizarre that the government is pushing this. And I'm hopeful that if the department of education does slowly go away and eventually goes extinct, Desi would soon be right behind. And then parents can have a direct impact on their education. But guess what? You have no impact. If you don't go out and vote. That's right. You've got to get involved. Yes. That is the biggest thing that we, that we are pushing people to do is you've got to get out and vote. You've got to tell your friends, your family, your neighbors, get out and vote. Because if you don't vote, you don't have anybody else to blame, except yourself. And, and I, that sounds harsh. But guess what? It's the truth. Right. And again, I, I mean, that, that doesn't show it. That I'm going to stand up, that I'm going to be the one to stand up and say, this is the truth and let's deal with the truth. Then I don't know what will. So yeah, we absolutely have to get our solution would be is a, is a, is a make it into a lottery that will have one voter who will win $100,000. You know, seriously, how many people think would go out to vote then? That's things like that. I've actually been talked about this. Well, they did it for the COVID shot to give you a Chick-fil-A gift card or some kind of. Oh, I, I got to, so I had to get it because I, I needed to go to a school for the military. So I had to get it. Thank you, Joe Biden. Yeah. And it was, it was a very, very difficult decision for me, but I ended up getting a, I got the non MR and MRNA shot Johnson Johnson to Johnson shot. That's literally the last one in the county, actually. I got that one. And because it counts as a double dose, I got a $100 gift card to Walmart. There you go. So I was like, well, it's not bad. I don't know. You all have any better ideas. Give us a message. How we can get more people out there to vote. You know, I, I, I got in it some time ago at a Republican meeting that, you know, maybe we move into November. Can we know that's when people, you know, that's a huge push for November. But we got to come up with some idea because it is important. Our children. Good God. Yes. That, that, I mean, that's who we're going to be relying on to take care of us. There's no other, listen, your pride, your pride is not important. I don't care about your pride, your ego. I don't care about money. I care about the students. And if we are not doing the best that we can for our students, then we shouldn't be there. Just period. Our students, again, we're doing a disservice to our students by sending them out with subpar education. And, and again, it's not to say that the teachers aren't doing their jobs. Everybody plays a part in this. And I think to a certain extent, even the parents, I mean, I was, I was, I'm a parent. And, and I did this to a certain extent, two years ago, you, you send your kids to the, to those four walls that, that, that Steve was talks about. And they're hidden behind the four walls. And then you don't have to think about it. Now, and that's not to say that parents don't care about their kids. Of course, we care about it. I mean, I will, I will lay down my life for my children. But we send them to those schools and we think, okay, they've got it. I don't, I'm done. My, my hands off. And then I pick them up. And then my job starts again. No, you need to show up. And it's not just showing up to say, you got a problem. There's a problem. You know, I'm here to exit. No, sometimes it's showing up to say, Hey, teacher, what can I do for you? I remember, I remember this as a six year old at Disney Elementary. My mom. Getting to getting with it with the class with my classmates and making my teacher, Nancy ghost, my first grade teacher, a T shirt, like a, we appreciate you. We love you. You know, Mrs. ghost. Making this T shirt. And we had, I think it was our handprints and, you know, finger paint kind of stuff. And it was really, I remember that my mom getting involved and saying, we're supporting you. Nancy ghost remembered my name 25 years later when I just walked into the school to do something. She's coming at the hall with her, with her class. And she says David Myers and I go, Oh, I don't know if that's good or bad right there. That's awesome. Well, that's what parents want. They want their kids to get an education. They want them to be safe. All right, we didn't get into that. There's a lot of stuff. Well, Mr. Myers, hopefully you have the, the best of luck. Get out there and vote April 8th. Vote the evens. Yes, that's right. Vote the evens. All right, guys. Hope you have a fantastic weekend. Until next time. Stay tuned. [MUSIC] Work takes up most of your time. That's why you should use stamps.com to save time with your mailing and shipping. Stamps.com will simplify your postage needs and add valuable time back into your workday. So you have flexibility to focus on more important things. Stamps.com can handle your mailing and shipping needs with rates up to 88% off UPS and USPS. Send invoices, checks, certified mail, packages and anything else you need to keep your business running with stamps.com. If you sell online, connecting with every major marketplace and shopping cart is easy. 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Good Saturday morning! Here's what Kyle Wyatt covers today:Springfield Public School Board candidate David Myers joins us this morning.Dave talks about why he decided to run for school board.How do we fix some of the bigger issues that SPS faces? Why are teachers leaving SPS for other districts? Want more information on Dave? You can follow his Facebook Page: David4GreatEducation
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