Independence superintendent says Missouri audit ‘unlike anything that I’ve ever seen’

As Republican Scott Fitzpatrick mounted a campaign for Missouri state auditor, he vowed to go further than his predecessors and audit school districts over how they’re teaching students.

Fitzpatrick, who was elected in 2022, is now following through on part of that promise and last month launched an audit into the Independence School District, one of Missouri’s biggest school systems.

The probe, which began on May 14, will look into the district’s finances. But it will also go further and examine the school district’s “overall performance as it relates to providing a quality education to students,” his office said.

The move marks a significant shift by the state Auditor’s Office. While previous auditors have audited schools to ensure against the waste of taxpayer money, Fitzpatrick’s investigation into the performance of Independence schools is uncommon if not unprecedented.

It comes after the Independence School District last year became the largest district in the state to move to a four-day school week in an attempt to attract teachers. Lawmakers targeted the move this year and passed legislation requiring voters to decide whether large school districts can shift to four-day weeks. Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed the bill into law last month.

Fitzpatrick spokesperson Trevor Fox said in an email that the audit was still in its early stages, but that it would provide an objective and unbiased review of how the district is performing.

“An audit is never a bad thing but is instead an effective accountability tool that can provide parents and residents of the district with a more detailed understanding of how effectively their tax dollars are being used to educate our young people,” he said.

Parents and taxpayers will have a better understanding of where the district is excelling and where it needs improvement, Fox said. The factors that led to the audit included the district’s “size, geographic location, and unique aspects including the 4-day school week,” he said.

However, Fox said that the audit has been on the office’s audit schedule since January and “predates any actions” from lawmakers and Parson.

Dale Herl, the superintendent of the Independence School District, said that the auditor’s office told the school board it initiated the audit because of the shift to a four-day week. He criticized lawmakers for targeting four-day weeks and said it was ironic that an audit shortly followed.

“The fact that they told us the reason we’re getting audited was because we went to the four-day school week does make this situation unlike anything that I’ve ever seen from the state Auditor’s Office,” he said.

The Missouri Auditor’s Office has historically looked for waste, fraud and financial accountability in state agencies. Auditors have had the power to audit school districts since 2008. However, unlike most audits, Fitzpatrick launched his Independence probe unilaterally without a citizen-led petition.

Fitzpatrick said in a news release that the audit is part of a plan to review the performance of schools across the state. Previous auditors have only audited an average of one school district each year, he said.

School districts, he said, are rarely audited on their efficiency and effectiveness.

Fitzpatrick’s most recent predecessor, Democrat Nicole Galloway, issued just more than 20 audit reports related to public school districts and charter schools during her time in office. But Galloway never audited a school over its curriculum — something that Fitzpatrick vowed to do on the campaign trail.

Fox said that Fitzpatrick’s office was still conducting survey work, which includes reviewing the district’s policies and compliance with state and federal laws. Once that is finished, the office will establish an audit plan.

He signaled that the district’s curriculum could be part of the audit.

“For curriculum, to the extent that there are rules and regulations on how it is determined, that is also something the SAO (state Auditor’s Office) has full discretion to audit,” Fox said.

While serving as state auditor, Fitzpatrick has garnered respect from lawmakers of both parties for how he’s handled the office — a rarity for statewide officeholders.

Supporters of Fitzpatrick also point to his time in the state legislature — where he served as budget chair of the Missouri House in 2017 and 2018 — and his previous role as state treasurer as indicators of his financial expertise and willingness to work across the aisle.

A testament to Fitzpatrick’s bipartisan support, lawmakers unanimously approved legislation this year that would expand the auditor’s powers to investigate certain political subdivisions such as smaller ambulance and sewer districts. Parson has not yet signed or vetoed the bill.

Fitzpatrick made school district oversight one of his top priorities during his campaign for auditor. During a candidate forum in Lake Ozark in 2022 and on his campaign website, he said he was concerned about the large percentage of Missouri students who test below proficient or advanced in math and science.

He had promised to review school costs and compare the performance of Missouri’s schools with the amount of taxpayer money allocated to those schools.

But in addition to looking at performance in schools, Fitzpatrick’s campaign rhetoric also caught the attention of some critics. Some worried that he would use the auditor’s office — and school districts — to promote partisan politics.

Fitzpatrick had previously said on his campaign website and in a 2022 interview with The Star that he wanted to investigate schools for lessons on gender, sexual identity and so-called “critical race theory.”

“I’ll ensure schools are following the law and keeping politically divisive curriculum like Critical Race Theory, and discussions relating to gender or sexual preferences out of the classroom,” Fitzpatrick wrote on his campaign website at the time. The quote no longer appears on the website.

Critical race theory is a college-level academic theory that is not widely taught in Missouri’s K-12 schools, but the phrase has become a shorthand among conservatives for any lesson that delves into systemic racism’s role in U.S. history or politics.

Fox, in the email to The Star, distanced the Independence audit from those issues, pointing to the fact that Missouri lawmakers have not passed legislation that would ban lessons on critical race theory or systemic racism. Lawmakers have tried to pass similar legislation over the last several years.

“While Auditor Fitzpatrick anticipated the legislature would act to provide statutory guidance on the types of curriculum you are referencing, they have not yet done so,” Fox said. “Any information related to the use of inappropriate curriculum will be considered within the context of relevant laws, rules, policies, and regulations.”

Herl, in a phone interview, said that the Auditor’s Office told the district that the audit would not probe the district’s curriculum and that he was not concerned about any potential investigation into its lessons. He added that he didn’t think audits “are necessarily a bad thing.”

“I think we do a phenomenal job in the Independent School District and we’ve always had clean audits previously,” he said. “If there are things that we can do better…it’s a way that we can find out how we can operate better and possibly more efficiently.”

Rep. Robert Sauls, an Independent Democrat, in an interview, declined to criticize Fitzpatrick’s audit before the results are released. However, he said he trusted the school board and the Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education or DESE.

“It’s pretty hard to know what the audit is going to show,” he said. “For the most part, I would say that I trust the locally elected school board and DESE to kind of come up with a curriculum that meets standards…and we’ll just see what the audit says.”

Sauls, who filed legislation this year aimed at requiring voters to decide whether schools can go to four-day weeks, said he hopes that the audit will study how four-day weeks have affected the district.

“That was at least my hope that the audit would go in that direction as opposed to the curriculum that’s being learned,” he said. “The main question I would have and what I hope the question that he gets into is ‘has the four-day impacted education?’ And I’d be interested to see those results.”

The legislation Parson signed last month requires school districts in charter counties — Jackson, Clay, St. Louis, Jefferson and St. Charles — or districts that serve more than 30,000 residents, to receive approval from a majority of voters in the district by 2026 in order to keep a four-day week or to begin offering it.

It would directly affect the Independence School District and much of the debate inside the Missouri Capitol centered on the district’s decision to shift to a four-day week.

Under current state law, school board members can decide whether a district shifts to a four-day week. The legislation would not affect smaller districts in more rural parts of the state.