Chamber announces school board endorsements

The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors has endorsed three candidates for the Springfield Public Schools Board of Education and thrown its support behind a Greene County sales tax.

Following written surveys and candidate interviews with a chamber education task force, the board’s endorsements went to incumbents Kris Callen, Andy Hosmer and Bruce Renner.
 
Callen, the ministries coordinator at Messiah Lutheran Church, is past-president of the school board and is serving in her ninth year. Her stated goals to the chamber include working to close the achievement gap and identifying expansion programs for early childhood education.

Hosmer, an attorney at Hosmer King & Royce LLC and a six-year school board member, said he’d steer the schools away from the Adequate Yearly Progress and Missouri Assessment Program test scores to emphasize knowledge and skills based education, according to the chamber’s March newsletter.

Renner, who serves as a special education consultant at Missouri State University, plans to promote the community school concept, address early childhood education and look to maintain facilities and incorporate appropriate use of technology.

The chamber also has endorsed a county-wide 1/8-cent public safety sales tax that will go before Greene County voters April 3.

According to the March newsletter, the proposed sales tax would generate an estimate $5 million a year for public safety and law enforcement.

At its Feb. 21 meeting, the chamber's board of directors voted to endorse the initiative, dubbed the Greene County Public Safety Initiative, saying that without it, there could be a negative impact on economic development and quality of life in the area.[[In-content Ad]]