Hickman Mills School Board candidates run a tight race

Hickman Mills Board of Education

By Max Goodwin

Terri Barr-Moore and Beth Boerger will both be added as new three-year members of the Hickman Mills Board of Education after the election held Tuesday. 

Barr-Moore, a former campaign manager of former U.S. Senator Clair McCaskill and current Executive Director of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, received the most votes of any of the four candidates with 882 votes (28.37%)

It was a tight race between the other three candidates.

It was a tight race between the other three candidates. Cecil Wattree, who was a professor in the UMKC School of Social Work and running for reelection, was just five votes (745, 23.96%)  short of Boerger who earned the second position on the Board of Education with 750 votes (24.12%). John Carmichael finished fourth with 732 (23.54%) votes.

Boerger focused her campaign on improving the neighborhood around the Hickman Mills schools and helping stabilize the neighborhood in order to stabilize the schools, and that the schools can also stabilize the neighborhood. 

Both Barr-Moore and Boerger said leading into the election that the most pressing priority for the district is to restore full accreditation, as the Hickman Mills School District is listed as provisionally accredited by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Hickman Mills is one of only five districts that are not fully accredited out of the 517 districts in Missouri.