Character education

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Read more on Page 11A about the Kiwanis Club of South County’s Outstanding Students of the Month.

Library news ............... Page 2AOpinions ..................... Page 4ABirths .......................... Page 5AChurch news ............... Page 8ACalendar...................... Page 10AOur town ..................... Page 11AAround the kitchen ..... Page 1BNuptials ...................... Page 5BHomes and gardens .... Page 6BClassifieds ................... Page 7B

Inside the CallHouse Speaker Tim Jones, R-St.

Louis County, said the chairman of the committee investigating a report of improper behavior by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster intends to issue a report before the end of the year. To read this story and view other web-exclusive content, go to www.callnewspapers.com.

Web exclusive

Sunset Hills aldermen advance impeachment-related measures

Business boasts three lottery winners;odds good it’s luckiest office in America

Until new Lindbergh elementary built,district to face ‘a compromising time’

County Council to weigh recommendationsfor Lemay developments, Affton rec centerBy GLORIA LLOYDStaff Reporter

The County Council is set to take up recommendations made by the Planning Commission on three housing develop-ments in Lemay and a 24-hour recreation center proposed in Affton.

However, other proposals in Oakville have either been withdrawn by the devel-

opers or held for further study.The planning panel is holding all pend-

ing proposals for cell towers in light of a new state law that appears to restrict the county’s ability to deny the towers. That includes a tower proposed at St. Francis of Assisi in Oakville, next to the school’s playground.

(See WEIGH, Page 14A)

Mehlville, Lindbergh, Fox all receivenational character education honors

Volume 17, Number 47 2 Sections, 28 Pages Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014 callnewspapers.com9977 Lin Ferry DriveSt. Louis, MO 63123

First of two partsBy GLORIA LLOYDStaff Reporter

In a sign of the growing importance of character education locally, officials from the Mehlville, Lindbergh and Fox school districts accepted national character awards for their districts or schools in a ceremony in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

This year’s list of the Character Education Partnership’s new National Schools of Character was dominated by Missouri,

largely due to the five schools honored in Mehlville, which was also named a National District of Character for the first time.

In the partnership’s program book for the national ceremony, it called the Mehlville phenomenon the “Missouri Magic” and asked, “What is special about the water in Mehlville?”

Lindbergh Schools first gained the Dis-trict of Character recognition in 2008 and was renewed this year, and Sperreng Middle

(See NATIONAL, Page 12A)

Missouri Lottery Executive Director May Scheve Reardon proclaims real-estate broker Norm Polsky’s south county agency ‘the luckiest Coldwell Banker office ever’ as she presents agent Jenifer Elam with a $3.8 million check. Pictured, from left, are: Kim DeLapp of Arnold, Jamie Bone of Lemay, Reardon, Elam and Elam’s partner, Lea Harthcock.

See related story, Page 6ABy GLORIA LLOYDStaff Reporter

The Sunset Hills Board of Aldermen continued to move toward impeaching Mayor Mark Furrer last week, conduct-

ing a first reading of two impeachment-related bills and trading allegations of bullying with the mayor.

While aldermen took no actual votes on the impeach-ment front, before and during the meeting, two aldermen publicly made statements that the Board of Aldermen is

being bullied and intimidated, with one calling the mayor a bully outright and the other implying it.

When Furrer asked veterans in attendance at the Nov. 11 Veterans Day meeting to stand up and be recognized, the

(See ADVANCE, Page 6A)

By MIKE ANTHONYExecutive Editor

While construction of a new elementary school set to open in August 2017 will alle-viate Lindbergh Schools’ booming enroll-ment growth, the next 36 months “will be a compromising time” for the school district, according to Superintendent Jim Simpson.

Lindbergh’s enrollment growth has been

far stronger than district officials had an-ticipated, Simpson told the Call.

“... The size of the growth is much higher than we expected,” he said. “We were looking at growth at about 100 to 150 (students) a year, and now we’re at the 250 range. So it’s a different speed of growth, rate of growth, and so that somewhat has us

(See COMPROMISING, Page 4A)

By GLORIA LLOYDStaff Reporter

When Lemay resident Jamie Bone won $1 million in the Missouri Lottery last year, her fellow real-estate agents at Coldwell Banker Premier Group’s south county office considered her pretty lucky.

When the office’s top-producing agent, Kim DeLapp of Arnold, won $100,000 on a scratch-off ticket last year, she thought the coincidence of two co-work-

ers winning the lottery was “surreal.”But last month, agent Jenifer Elam of

south county won $3.8 million. Now it’s undeniable that real-estate broker Norm Polsky’s agency at 4044 Butler Hill Road is the “luckiest Coldwell Banker office ever,” as Missouri Lottery Executive Director May Scheve Reardon phrased it when she presented Elam with her mil-lions — and, of course, her big check.

No one disputes that the south county(See ODDS, Page 2A)

Page 12A - Call Publishing, Thursday, November 20, 2014

Mehlville only district in nationwith five Schools of Character(Continued from Page 1A)School became the district’s sixth school to be named a National School of Character.

The Fox School District is already a National District of Character, and Sher-wood Elementary in Arnold also earned the school designation for the first time this year.

The five Mehlville schools named National Schools of Character this year include Blades and Oakville elementaries and Oakville, Bernard and Buerkle middle schools. Beasley, Bierbaum, Hagemann and Trautwein elementary schools and Mehlville High School have already received the national honor, bringing the total to 10 Mehlville schools.

Mehlville Board of Education President Ron Fedorchak called the district’s nation-al award a “tremendous honor.”

“You’re talking about tens of thousands of school districts around the country, and we’re one of three this year, and we’ll get to fly that banner for five years,” he said. “It’s very, very cool, and it’s a feather in the cap for the whole district. And really the whole community.”

The honors are not just a local achieve-ment, but one for the region and state as well. County Executive Charlie Dooley told the Call he is impressed that Mehlville and Lindbergh comprise two-thirds of the country’s National Districts of Character this year.

“Congratulations to those schools, they’re doing a great job. There’s no ques-tion about it,” Dooley said. “There are some great schools in St. Louis County, and we’re very proud of them.”

Out of 50 schools honored this year, Mehlville was the only district with five schools named National Schools of Character.

To reward the leadership at individual schools and the district for their efforts, 17 administrators from the district and the five schools made the trip to Washington, D.C. Oct. 30 through Nov. 4 for the 21st annual National Forum on Character Education. Mehlville, Lindbergh and Fox accepted their awards in person and gave presentations on best practices in CEP’s 11 principles of character education.

“This was a special year for Mehlville,” said Superintendent Norm Ridder, who went on the trip with district administrators and staff to accept the district’s award. “We probably had the most (schools honored).”

So to answer the CEP’s question: What is in the water at Mehlville?

“In Mehlville, it’s not just something that we put on a shelf, it’s not just something that we do in addition to our curriculum,” said Lisa Counts, assistant superintendent-super-vision of schools, who oversees the district’s character efforts. “It really is who we are.”

The district paid for the trip, which cost roughly $1,000 a person, through money the district saved from grants it received for community donations made at the Goodwill trailer across from Mehlville High School. Attendees included Ridder, Counts, Blades administrative intern Laurie Tretter-Larkin and a principal, assistant principal and teacher from each honored school.

Although it has been embraced by the entire Mehlville community, character education in the district was also champi-oned by former Superintendent Eric Knost, who left to lead the Rockwood School District this summer. He told the Call that one of his chief regrets in leaving was that he would not be able to attend the national awards ceremony for Mehlville.

Four Lindbergh representatives also made the trip to Washington, D.C., includ-ing Character Education Coordinator Amy Richards, along with Sperreng Principal Mark Eggers, Assistant Principal Clint Walker and teacher Shelli Manley. Four representatives of Fox also made the trip to accept Sherwood’s award.

Mehlville was honored so many times that Richards stepped in to help when no one from Mehlville could stay in the audi-ence long enough to take pictures of each award — cooperation that is emblematic of how the districts have worked hand-in-hand on their character-education pro-grams for years, through local organiza-tion Character Plus and through the South County Character Education Leadership Team, which meets to trade advice.

“I was happy that south county was well-represented,” said Lindbergh Superinten-dent Jim Simpson.

Character integral to academicsAlthough some speakers at Mehlville

board meetings in the past few months have questioned whether the district’s emphasis on character education has distracted from its greater mission of academic success, Counts said discipline referrals are down and attendance rates are up, which she attributes to character initiatives.

“These are buildings where it’s a great place to be. It’s fun to learn, people care about each other, it’s like a family. As a kid, you want to be there,” she said. “Character or academics? It’s not one or the other. It’s definitely not one or the other. It really is embedded in everything we do.”

Going by state test scores, no K-12 district knows academics like Lindbergh, which ranked as the top-performing K-12 district in Missouri in academics for the fifth year in a row this year.

Character education is a key component of the “Lindbergh Way” and directly leads to the district’s academic success, Simpson noted.

“People say, ‘I understand that it trans-lates to a pleasant way to walk down the hall, but how does character education translate to high-quality education?’” he said. “At lots and lots of schools, a large part of the day is not teaching but stopping to control misbehaviors. Lindbergh has less than that of anybody. Lindbergh can teach all day long, every minute of every day.”

At some schools, students are bullied if they care about good grades, Simpson said, but that’s not a problem at Lindbergh, which he also attributes to character-edu-cation efforts.

“In some parts, if you seem like you’re trying to do a lot of learning, people will ostracize you,” he said. “But at Lindbergh, all the students feel like we’re all pulling the rope together. We’re all here to learn.”

Next week: The Call looks at some of the current character-education initia-tives in Mehlville and Lindbergh.

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Read more about this St. Francis of Assisi third-grader girls’ soccer team on Page 13A.

School news ............... Page 3ANuptials ...................... Page 4ACalendar...................... Page 5AOpinions ..................... Page 6ASunset Hills news ....... Page 8AOur town ..................... Page 7ACalendar...................... Page 9ASports .......................... Page 13AClassifieds ................... Page 15ACrossword puzzle ....... Page 16A

Inside the Call

Board to consider steel bidfor first phase of ECE annex

Phone surveys underway for Mehlville strategic plan

Character education instills family values

Sunset Hills kicks off10-month process forcomprehensive plan

Volume 17, Number 48 1 Section, 20 Pages Thursday, Nov. 27, 2014 callnewspapers.com9977 Lin Ferry DriveSt. Louis, MO 63123


It’s an idea more than a year in the making, but Sunset Hills is kicking off a projected 10-month comprehensive-plan process with a new website and a proposal to hear from residents and businesses on what they want for the city’s future.

On Monday, Chicago-based comprehensive-plan consultant Houseal Lavigne Associates will debut a new website dedicated to the city’s comprehensive plan, linked as a subpage from the city’s main website, www.sunset-hills.com.

The new city website, developed by a committee led by Ward 1 Alderman Dee Baebler, is also set to debut Monday, provided city officials are able to work out some kinks in transferring archived

(See PLAN, Page 8A)


In the final stage of the four-month process leading up to the Mehlville School District’s new strategic plan, a consultant is now conducting telephone surveys ask-ing residents for their thoughts on

their schools and what they envi-sion in the district’s future.

The questions for the telephone survey were formulated from in-person interviews and focus groups with Mehlville residents, parents, critics, church and com-munity groups, students, staff,

teachers and Board of Education members, according to Opinion Research Specialists consultant Marc Maness.

“We were welcomed at kitchen tables across the district,” Maness said. “It’s really been a pleasure.

(See SURVEYS, Page 10A)

For the ninth year in a row, members of Missouri Wing Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, are partnering with Wreaths Across America to place remembrance wreaths on the graves of the fallen during the holiday season. To read this and other web-exclusive stories, visit www.callnewspapers.com.

Web exclusive

Last of two partsBy GLORIA LLOYDStaff Reporter

When the Character Education Partnership sent representatives to Blades Elementary School in Oakville for site visits to see if the school and the Mehlville School District qualified as a National District of Character, they asked the students they interviewed for examples of bullying — and stu-

dents said they could not think of any.“We are all one family,” Oakville Elementary

fifth-grader Charlotte told evaluators for the Char-acter Education Partnership, or CEP.

Instead, the Blades students gave the Washington, D.C.-based CEP evaluators examples of ways stu-dents regularly encourage or help each other at Blades, including cheering for each other during

(See VALUES, Page 2A)

Mehlville school board decides not to overturn contract for superintendent-search firm

Point Elementary School students perform along with a rap song by Captain Courage during an all-school character assembly. Point Principal Dan Gieseler talked to students last week about the word of the month, courage. As an example, Point counselor Kelly Millan gave a presenta-tion about her husband, Capt. Cesar Millan, who served several tours in Iraq with the U.S. Army.


The Mehlville Board of Education decided not to over-turn its contract for a superintendent-search firm last week.

But two board members said the original vote was tainted and pushed for the board to conduct a nationwide

search for the district’s next leader instead.Board Secretary Lori Trakas and board member Saman-

tha Stormer said they have little confidence that the Mis-souri School Boards’ Association, or MSBA, will find the superstar superintendent they believe the Mehlville School District deserves.

The two also believe the community has little confidence in the search since board member Larry Felton — who is also the vice president of MSBA — voted for MSBA to conduct the search, which they view as a conflict of interest.

(See CONTRACT, Page 12A)

By MIKE ANTHONYExecutive Editor

The Lindbergh Board of Education was set to consider awarding a bid for steel earlier this week for an Early Childhood Education Annex behind Truman Middle School, 12225 Eddie & Park Road.

The board was scheduled to meet Monday night — after the Call went to press.

Four bids ranging from $319,688 to $389,365 were submitted for the steel work, which includes manufacturing, delivery and instal-lation of the prefabricated metal building. Lindbergh Executive Director of Planning and Development Karl Guyer is recommend-ing the Board of Education approve the low bid of $319,688, which was submitted by TriCo Inc. Commercial.

Officials are fast-tracking the construction of the 12,800-square-foot, single-story ECE Annex, which is scheduled to be completed

(See BIDS, Page 6A)

Page 2A - Call Publishing, Thursday, November 27, 2014

Character education helpingstudents feel safe, accepted(Continued from Page 1A)sports and returning money to a student who dropped it.

That is the culture that character education strives to instill in students, schools and school districts, and is part of what Assistant Superintendent-Supervision of Schools Lisa Counts, who oversees Mehlville’s charac-ter-education program, termed the “ongoing culture of positivity and kindness and toler-ance” in Mehlville.

Lindbergh Schools has also created an atmosphere of tolerance, and students have taken the lead in the district’s anti-bullying efforts, producing videos and mapping out blueprints of schools to identify hotspots where bullying could happen, Lindbergh Character Education Coordinator Amy Richards told the CEP.

Noting that Lindbergh is also the state’s top-performing academic K-12 school dis-trict by test scores, she added, “We are acutely aware that this distinction would not be possible without character education.”

Together, Lindbergh and Mehlville comprise two of the three districts hon-ored nationally as National Districts of Character earlier this month, when admin-istrators from both districts accepted National District of Character awards in a Washington, D.C. ceremony.

Representatives from Sperreng Middle School in Lindbergh and from fi ve schools in Mehlville — Blades and Oakville elementaries and Oakville, Bernard and Buerkle middle schools — accepted National School of Character awards at the ceremony. Lindbergh now has six National Schools of Character, and Mehlville has 10.

And while the numerous national awards for Lindbergh and Mehlville this year are the crowning achievement to years of effort by both districts on character education, the biggest reward is in the atmosphere of acceptance at their schools.

That is especially true at Mehlville, where a “laser focus” on developing character over the past fi ve years has amounted to a total transformation in the culture of Mehlville’s 18 schools, then-Superintendent Eric Knost told the Call in May after the CEP announced that the district raked in the national honors.

While Mehlville is gaining unprecedented national recognition for its character educa-tion this year — the phenomenon of fi ve schools gaining national honors the same year is what the CEP called the “Missouri Magic” — students and parents agree that the district’s character initiatives have trans-formed the district over the past few years.

Representatives from the Washington, D.C.-based CEP make site visits to schools to determine whether districts merit the nationwide honor, and the group, a non-profi t organization, also takes into account a school’s surrounding community.

Writing about Oakville Middle School, the CEP noted how Mehlville’s students, staff and community welcomed transfer students from the Riverview Gardens School District with open arms, adding that none of the new students were bullied — a real possibility if the transfer students had transferred to schools in other districts.

As part of the CEP’s site visits, evaluators

talked to parents, administrators, students and staff. Bus drivers at Bernard told them about the positive impact that character education has had on behavior on buses — which is backed up by statistics that disci-pline referrals have decreased districtwide.

Mehlville board President Ron Fedorchak said he can see the difference character education has made through his daughters. His younger daughter, who goes to Oakville High, was nominated for an award by a bus driver after she helped a disabled student who was being bullied on a bus, he noted.

Mehlville parent Kelly Kennedy is part of the character team at Blades and gave the credit for much of the success of the dis-trict’s character education to teachers, who go “above and beyond” what they have to do for students to become young adults of char-acter — and encourage students to develop their own ways of showing character.

Character education is inexpensive to implement and is not a specifi c curriculum or a lesson plan, but a philosophy teachers weave throughout the school day, Counts told the Call.

The ideas focus on the 11 principles from CEP and on the 12 words of the month, which were selected by a survey of the Mehlville community. Individual schools also come up with their own variations, such as Forder Elementary’s “Forder 5,” and their own ideas for how to weave character les-sons into lesson plans, Counts noted.

“We’re not just spouting off the words or just using them on a surface level, but it really is how we approach everything we do in our building,” she said.

Students are endlessly creative with com-ing up with their own ideas, especially when it involves helping out a fellow stu-dent, Counts said.

One of the pictures Mehlville submitted with its application is of Blades students Katie Townsend and Ella Roth assisting their fellow students, cancer survivors Parker Givens and Jacob Bartola, as they walk down the hall at Blades. As the other students hold hands with each other, Townsend holds Bartola’s walker.

When Mehlville High student Ali Hayes, then 16, was diagnosed with leukemia, the district banded together as “Ali’s Army” and raised money for her and her family.

Even elementary students are proposing and carrying out their own service projects, Kennedy said, listing some of the recent projects her Blades fi fth-grader participated in. At Blades, older students mentor younger ones and help teach them responsibility.

“When they’re raking leaves for their neighbors and working at St. Patrick Cen-ter (in Soulard) serving the homeless, those are the types of things they will continue doing as a young adult into adult-hood,” she said. “They’re learning about responsibility, integrity, caring, kindness ... That’s making them into great human beings for society.”

In its program book for the national hon-ors, CEP said that its goal for character education is to make all students nation-wide feel as safe and accepted in school as Nikki, a Mehlville High School graduate the group interviewed.

“What I love about Mehlville is the way I feel like I’m a part of something when I walk in the door,” Nikki said.

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