When April Ferrao made the decision to run for the Columbia School Board, she had to quit her job at the city-county health department, one of her favorite jobs ever.
City ordinances state that employees must take a leave of absence if they run for public office and resign immediately if they are elected. This reality put Ferrao, who had worked for the city for just about a year, in a difficult spot. She initially took a leave, but it expired Monday, she said.
“It was a really hard decision,” Ferrao said. “It was just a wonderful place to work. The people that work at the department of public health are just a really great bunch of people. They're very caring, they're very accepting, they make a work environment phenomenal.”
Ferrao, a lover of math and data, worked part time for the Columbia-Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department, updating its COVID-19 hub and disseminating that information to the public. She started in the role in October 2021 as a more formal continuation of her own COVID tracker on Facebook, which focused on tracking the virus among Columbia’s school-aged children.
It was a duty she enjoyed and for which she was qualified — but if she wanted to run for School Board, a choice had to be made.
A passionate and involved district parent, Ferrao has many ideas on how to contribute to the board. She is guided by a desire to improve student achievement, create strong working and learning environments and making the best use of district resources. Serving on the board would be a continuation of service to the school district, to which she has already given over a decade of her life, she said.
"It never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t continue serving CPS,” Ferrao said. “And so in thinking about how I wanted to do that moving forward, the School Board made for a logical move.”
'She's just all in'
Ferrao serves as president of the Hickman High School Parent Teacher Student Association, where she manages concessions, the group’s social media and teacher appreciation events. She spends about 40 hours a week at Hickman, all as a volunteer.
“I wear many, many, many hats,” Ferrao said.
Her commitment to her children’s schools — she was also heavily involved in PTSAs at Ridgeway Elementary and West Middle schools — is admired by many in the community.
“She’s an incredibly hard worker. She’s always thinking about what is best for students,” said Jill Orr, an author and parent of two district graduates. “I think being on the School Board is a really tough job. You have to want to do it, and your heart has to really be in it. ... She’s just all in for Columbia Public Schools kids.”
Orr served in the West and Hickman PTSAs with Ferrao for six years and saw up close how dedicated she was to the district and its students, as well as her determination to accomplish her goals.
“She’s the kind of person who will roll up their sleeves and work to get the job done,” Orr said.
Growing up, Ferrao attended public schools in Marion, Illinois, a city about an eighth the size of Columbia. Her mother was a member of the PTA and helped with small events, offering Ferrao a taste of what parent participation was like in a public school district. Ferrao takes a bigger role in district events than her mother did but thinks this more reflects today's world.
“There wasn't as much involvement, (but) there also wasn't as much need,” Ferrao said. “Schools didn't have to do these major fundraisers to have funds to be able to supplement the library collection or funds to be able to supplement IT purchases or playground equipment.”
When it was time for Ferrao’s two children to go off to elementary school at Ridgeway, she had her first chance to make her mark in volunteering. She credits the teachers and staff at Ridgeway for motivating her to be an active participant in the school community.
“Ridgeway really taught us that education is a collaborative process between the school, the student and the parents,” Ferrao said. “It takes a village; we're all the adults here to help guide the next generation.”
What the board can do
Ferrao believes she understands the increased needs of a 21st-century public school district by having countless discussions over the years with students, teachers and parents and building an awareness of issues important to them. Her campaign has been endorsed by the Columbia Missouri National Education Association, the teacher's union, which praises her years of advocacy and community knowledge.
If she is elected, Ferrao plans to continue listening to their needs in a heightened capacity and bring this open-minded attitude to the board.
“I think that the board's role is to provide oversight, not to dictate to the administration how they implement initiatives and plans,” she said. “But I believe the board can be asking some more critical questions when they approve things.”
One of her concerns is retaining teachers. Mike Szydlowski is a science teacher at Jefferson Middle School and former science coordinator for the district; he said he is shocked at how low teacher morale has become.
“I personally am losing several friends who have only been teachers for five to 10 years, who have given up and said: ‘I’m not doing this anymore,’” Szydlowski said. “They weren’t just OK teachers — these were phenomenal teachers, who parents begged the schools to make sure their kids had. They don’t feel supported. Something has to change, or we’re going to be in more of a crisis than we are now.”
Ferrao has heard cries for help like this. She has made working to better aid and collaborate with teachers central to her campaign. She thinks teachers should be paid more, but she is also interested in making sure they’re supported when they are in the classroom.
“Teachers want to feel like they’re cared for,” Ferrao said. “Money is always a great thing. But what are other things that will make their environment and the place that they’re at (somewhere) they want to come to work?”
She said one way is to provide them with more helping hands, literally. Instructional coaches are assigned to help teachers with their delivery of core subjects, Ferrao said. An audit of the district's regular and special education services by New Solutions K12 released in February indicated the district lacks an adequate number of coaches.
“Research shows that when you have good instructional coaches, (people who) are not overwhelmed and overworked and can focus on that instructional mentoring, you improve the quality of those teachers at the core level of instruction,” Ferrao said. “It’s all a domino.”
These ideas, along with other aspects of Ferrao’s campaign, have given Szydlowski the confidence to support her candidacy despite having never worked with Ferrao on any district projects.
“I truly admire her dedication to schools,” Szydlowski said. “I’ve never seen a candidate or community member do their homework like April does. She always investigates. She always digs down to find the true answers.”
Data driven
In addition to building community connections through volunteering at schools, Ferrao has a decade of experience in informational technology. Numbers and data were a part of daily life when Ferrao worked for companies such as Allstate Insurance Co. and Verizon in addition to her COVID position with the health department.
Ferrao would like to see the district continue to use data to fix its problems in and out of the classroom. One issue she is especially concerned with is the school’s contract with TutorMe, a student tutoring service, for which the district agreed to pay $182,500 last July, Ferrao said. She knows this is an important service for students but would like a more flexible dollar figure based on how the service is being used. More data can help determine that.
“How many are logging in and using it? What is the average amount of time spent on it? Is it impacting their grades at all?” Ferrao said. “That can help us determine whether or not we need to keep the contract at $180,000 for all the students. Or can we scale that back a little bit and save a little bit of money there and maybe take those funds and put (them) towards another tutoring avenue?”
She would also like to gather data regarding bus scheduling and substitute teacher assignments, areas crucial to student achievement and ones in which she thinks the district can do better.
Columbia is home
In her committed bid for the School Board, Ferrao seems to be missing just one thing: her husband.
Avinash Ferrao is stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., working for the Army National Guard and is often gone for weeks or months at a time. He was last in Columbia in mid-March, when he watched his wife participate in a candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters.
Despite the distance, the two talk regularly about the campaign and look forward to seeing each other again in May for their younger son’s graduation, she said.
Ferrao sometimes thinks about what life would be like if the family moved together whenever Avinash was whisked away somewhere. Ultimately, though, she can’t imagine life outside Columbia.
“It’s a great-sized community with great opportunities,” Ferrao said. “I mean, my kid has taken genetics and microbiology and zoology. There were never any of those types of classes in my small town. We just didn’t have those opportunities.”