With the recent national spotlight shining over Missouri due to the current protests in Ferguson, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon came to Ritenour High School to lead a discussion about how students in a nearby community are responding to the recent sequence of events.

The issues concerning Ferguson have left many young Missourians to not only question what is going to be done to ensure their safety, but also their educational needs. To address those concerns, Nixon sat down with Ritenour Superintendent Dr. Chris Kilbride and 20 students, and spoke about a variety of serious topics affecting youth, specifically in St. Louis.

“Poverty, educational equality, race, police strategies, those are real hard issues,” Nixon said.

During the round table discussion, Governor Nixon introduced a three step process that he hopes will ensure the protection of the future in Ferguson.

The first part is tactically drawing down the police force, and slowly bringing outside forces away from the hot spot. The second step would be to make steps towards developing long term strategies to create police forces that will reflect the communities, and looking at laws surrounding law enforcement. Lastly, he wants to look at ways to improve education, specifically access to pre-school.

The conversation jumped around between Ferguson, student safety and education.  Students expressed their educational concerns for their own school district, and they also asked about neighboring school districts, such as the Normandy School District, which are facing accreditation issues.  Nixon discussed the issues, but deferred to Kilbride in relation to the transfer issue.

“It can be highly disruptive for students to continuously transfer from school to school, not only for their education, but also to their life. What we believe to be the right thing is that every child has the right to go to a very strong school in their community,” Kilbride said. “Where the difficulty comes in, is when despite the best efforts of many, even if there are early interventions, and there are strategies put in place, it is about results.  After a series of years, if there aren’t the results, we are only left with a couple of options, and they are very disruptive.”

While much of the discussion was about methods that will be used to create positive change,  Nixon did discuss how Ritenour students could embrace the diversity existing in the school in a positive way.

“If you all can disagree, respectfully, in this microcosm of Ritenour, you can be a real example to a whole heck of a lot of people over the country,” Nixon said. “This is one of the few school districts in the country that has that trifecta; double digits in three separate races.”

Senior Kaylee Houston was one of the panelists chosen to speak to Governor Nixon, and was honored to be chosen to speak to the governor about different issues surrounding the Metropolitan St. Louis area.

“His connection to the students was good, and it was nice to have someone in a position of power talking to us about situations going on around us.  I got clarification on certain things they are dealing with in Missouri,” Houston said.

Nixon concluded the meeting by focusing on the technology available to students at Ritenour, specifically the new radio station at Ritenour, and alluded to the fact that American students are not just competing against their neighbors anymore.

“The jobs of the future are competition of the world, it’s not just Ritenour versus Pattonville,” Nixon said.

Lastly, both Nixon and Kilbride pushed for the youth to do their part in making change come.

“You folks have to lead, most of us have had our chance already,” Nixon said.