Data doesn’t advocate for itself
Every map and number on this site is a starting point, not an ending one. This page is about what comes next: who to ask first, specific questions for district leaders and school boards, a plain read on what your legislator can and can’t change, and how to share a fact so it holds up when someone checks it.
Questions to ask locally — and who to ask first
A number on this site may raise a classroom question, an operational question or a policy question. Start closest to the information: ask a teacher or principal about what is happening in a classroom or building; ask district administrators about staffing, programs, budgets and how a figure was reported; ask the school board about district policy, long-term priorities, tax or debt questions and decisions reserved for public meetings. The questions below tie to sourced data or clearly labeled outside guidance, so the conversation can begin with more than an impression.
Students and staffing
“When comparable assignment data are available, what share of our courses are taught outside the teacher’s certification area — and where are those assignments concentrated?”
This measure should count course assignments, not people: a teacher may hold a Missouri certificate but be teaching outside the subject covered by it. This site is not publishing a district percentage until DESE provides the district-level Screen 20 assignment file and the denominator needed to define the measure consistently. When the data are available, ask whether those assignments are concentrated in particular buildings, special education programs, grade levels or hard-to-staff subjects — and what support the teachers and students in those classrooms receive.
“What do teacher departures cost our district — and how would that compare with improving pay or benefits where we lose the most people?”
DESE’s retention file tells us whether a teacher returned to the same district; it does not say why the teacher left, where the teacher went or whether the departure was voluntary. A useful local estimate should separate retirements, resignations, nonrenewals and transfers where possible, then count recruiting, screening, onboarding, mentoring, substitute coverage and training. Pair that estimate with exit interviews and compare it with the recurring cost of improving the salary or benefits at the career stages where departures are concentrated.
“How many of our teachers are here on the Baseline Salary Grant, and what happens to their pay if that grant isn’t renewed?”
MNEA’s statewide summary reports that 274 of Missouri’s 518 districts (why 518?) rely on the state’s Teacher Baseline Salary Grant to reach the $40,000 statutory minimum teacher salary. The matched salary-schedule map identifies 272 grant users among 510 district records. The grant is a yearly appropriation, not a permanent guarantee. If your district is one of them, it’s worth knowing before a budget conversation rather than during one.
“How many teachers have we hired from another Missouri district in the last two years, and do we know why they left their last one?”
Statewide, 82% of first-year teachers stay in the teaching profession, but only 73% stay in the same district — the gap is teachers moving district to district, not leaving the field. The Rural vs. Suburban page has the mobility and retirement numbers behind that pattern. A district that knows why it’s losing teachers to a neighbor is in a much better position to do something about it than one that only knows its vacancy count.
Money and long-term costs
“What would a ten-cent increase in our levy actually raise per student — and how does that compare with another district?”
This is the exact question the dime-test calculator answers. A 10¢ levy raises about $39 per student in Missouri’s property-poorest K–12 district and $716 in its wealthiest — an 18-fold gap from the identical tax rate. Use your own district and a relevant comparison before the meeting, so the conversation starts with actual dollars rather than a statewide extreme. The gap measures local tax capacity; it does not by itself decide which tax, spending or state-funding choice the board should prefer.
“When we build or renovate a facility with bond money, what recurring costs will it create — and what recurring operating revenue will pay them?”
Bond proceeds finance capital work and are repaid through debt service; they are not a recurring source for teacher salaries or the annual costs of operating a building. A project can add staffing, utilities, maintenance, insurance, technology and replacement costs long after construction ends. Ask for that operating estimate before a ballot question or construction decision, along with the district’s plan for paying it. An operating-levy increase may be one option, but it is not the only possible answer.
“Which parts of this year’s budget are supported by one-time money — and what is the plan when that money ends?”
Reserves and temporary grants can help a district manage a transition, but a recurring salary or program still needs a recurring source of money. Four useful follow-up questions are:
- Which positions or programs currently depend on temporary funding?
- How many years could reserves support those expenses?
- What recurring revenue would be needed to continue them?
- At what point would the board need to reduce, replace or redesign them?
The Missouri Association of School Administrators offers free materials organized around three practical jobs:
- Understand: Revenue, Reserves & Financial Reality and Following the Dollars
- Plan: Fixed vs. Flexible and Leading a 10% Budget Reduction
- Communicate: a community presentation and companion worksheets for stakeholder conversations
View the MASA Tight Times initiative and current resources →
What Jefferson City controls, and what’s local
State and local government share responsibility for a Missouri public school’s funding, calendar, workforce decisions and accountability. Knowing who controls what keeps a conversation aimed at the people who can actually change it.
- The foundation formula — how state aid is calculated and how much the legislature appropriates
- The $40,000 starting-teacher salary floor set by Senate Bill 727
- Career Ladder funding
- The Teacher Baseline Salary Grant — the annual appropriation that props up the $40,000 floor in districts that can’t reach it locally
- The statewide calendar guardrails: at least 1,044 hours of actual pupil attendance and an opening date no earlier than 14 days before the first Monday in September. State law adds day-count rules for districts in charter counties or cities over 30,000 and, beginning in 2026–27, requires voters in those districts to authorize a four-day week (RSMo 171.031; RSMo 171.028)
- The required statewide assessment system — including the subjects tested and the state testing windows administered through DESE (RSMo 160.518; DESE Assessment)
- The board adopts the actual school calendar within state rules: the starting date, four-day or five-day schedule, length of the school day and last day of school. For districts covered by RSMo 171.028, voters must first authorize a four-day week beginning in 2026–27
- The district’s salary schedule, employee benefits and hiring decisions — within state and federal law, the state salary floor and the revenue available locally
- Curriculum, daily instruction and locally chosen classroom or benchmark assessments — while still teaching the state standards and administering required state tests
- The board decides whether and when to ask voters for an operating-levy increase or authority to incur bonded debt; voters decide the ballot question. The board then sets the annual levy within the authorized ceiling and allocates it among permitted funds (RSMo 164.011; MO Constitution Art. X §11(c); MO Constitution Art. VI §26(b))
- How the district spends the money available to it — staffing levels, programs, facilities and other operating priorities
- Explain how the formula handles unequal local tax capacity: a ten-cent levy raises about $___ per student in my district and $___ in a comparison district. Which parts of Missouri’s foundation formula are intended to offset that difference, how well are they working, and what specific change — if any — do you support? Use the dime-test calculator to replace the blanks with real districts. The calculation demonstrates unequal local capacity; it does not by itself determine whether state aid is adequate or fair.
- Make career incentives usable: could Career Ladder and National Board funding be structured so smaller rural schedules can actually use them? Statewide, only 260 of 518 districts (why 518?) participate in Career Ladder and just 76 pay for National Board certification. The tools meant to reward experience and credentials are not reaching most rural schedules in the first place.
- Make the salary floor dependable: is the Baseline Salary Grant secure enough, budget cycle to budget cycle, that a district can build a multi-year staffing plan around it — or does it need to be a standing commitment rather than an annual appropriation?
- Make competitive compensation possible everywhere: if teachers in my district are paid less or receive fewer benefits than teachers in wealthier communities, what will the state do to help our schools offer compensation competitive enough to attract and keep qualified educators? Local boards set salary schedules and benefits, but they do so within a revenue system designed and funded partly by the state. Property-poor rural districts and high-need urban districts compete in the same labor market with less local capacity. The question is not whether every district should pay an identical amount; it is whether state funding makes a genuinely competitive package possible in every community. See the rural compensation comparison or the city–suburban comparison.
How you reach out matters almost as much as what you say
Legislative staff who track constituent contact consistently rank it in roughly this order — not because email is wrong, but because effort and specificity are themselves a signal.
A face-to-face conversation — a town hall, a district office visit, a moment after a public hearing — carries more weight than anything else on this list, and it is the hardest to fake. That is exactly why it counts for more.
It takes visible effort to sit down and write one by hand, and staff notice. A short, specific letter — your name, your town, one number that matters to your district — outperforms a much longer typed one.
Even a call that only reaches a staffer gets logged and counted. Give your city, one sentence on why the issue matters to you, and ask where the legislator stands.
Legislative offices can spot a form email fast: identical subject line, identical phrasing, a dozen copies inside the same hour. Those tend to get counted as a batch, if they get counted at all. An email in your own words, about your own district’s numbers, still works — a copy-pasted form letter mostly doesn’t.