And much like a school teacher clapping her hands to stir sleepy, apathetic students, she found a way to do it. Burnett resigned, unexpectedly, from the Kansas City, Missouri school board earlier this week, after serving six years.

“I wanted to make this clarion call to the community – ‘Hey, we’re not going the right way!’” she said.

Burnett was first elected to the school board in 2002 and again in 2006. An educator for 30 years, she is employed by the Independence School District as a school counselor at Procter Elementary School. She is married to Missouri state Rep. John P. Burnett.

Burnett said she also resigned from her position “as a matter of principle and conscience.”

“I was not feeling I was being as effective as I needed to be at this time,” she said. “I was in opposition to the way some very important decisions were being made. I was not effective in changing this.”

Chief among her concerns is the hiring of a new school superintendent to succeed former Superintendent Anthony Amato, who was asked by the board to resign in January. Former Grandview Superintendent John Martin was named interim superintendent, but his last day is Oct. 31, and the board has yet to hire anyone.

“It’s up to us to develop that vision and find a superintendent who can take us there and we haven’t done this work,” she said. “Without a clear picture and articulation of what we are looking for specifically in our leader, there is inevitable failure there.”

The board, she said, will probably appoint another acting superintendent Oct. 31.

Burnett said the board also focuses more on micromanaging the school district than on its intended purpose, which is governance.

“Real dysfunction is going on,” she said. “It was the dynamics I found very discouraging.”

It is a sentiment echoed by former Kansas City School board member Dr. Bill Eddy, who wrote a scathing indictment on the failures of the school board earlier this year. (http://kctribune.com/article.cfm?articleID=18365)

Burnett’s decision to resign was one she said she gave great thought to and first considered when Amato left in January.

“It’s unnerving to me. We went through this really structured process and identified this candidate that everyone thought was a good choice,” she said. “But leadership styles between (Amato) and the school board clashed. That really shook me.”

This ongoing “dysfunction” of the Kansas City, Missouri School District and Board has not gone unnoticed by the Missouri State Board of Education. In 1999, the district lost state accreditation; it earned provisional accreditation in 2002.

In the spring, the state BOE again reviewed the district as part of its goal to return it to full accreditation by 2010, or step in and take over the district altogether. Following the review, the state requested the board participate in the Missouri School Improvement Plan.

“But no energy is being placed there as a board,” Burnett said. “From the time we received the report, we’ve done no work on that.”

Like her former cohort, Dr. Eddy, Burnett believes she can achieve more to help the flailing district and board by working outside of it.

“I’m open to opportunities to improve the educational outcomes in my school district where I live; in opportunities to make a positive impact and work collaborately with a group of people to advance the agenda of education for children.”

Does this mean she is planning to once again run for state office? In 2006, she ran unsuccessfully for the Missouri state Senate, 10th District, against Jolie Justus.

“Not at this time,” she said. “I want to get some distance from this and try and figure out what I want to do next, and with some time on my hands, see what opportunities present themselves.”

She would, however, be open to a state appointment to an education board.

“My favorite part of school board work was with the Missouri School Board Association, shaping the policy of education at the state level,” she said.

But Burnett is ready to announce one new role she will assume in February.

“I will become a grandmother,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to that.”