Tiffany Mapp Franklin

Board member-elect Tiffany Mapp Franklin was recently voted onto the school board as a replacement for Kristy Klein Davis. Davis was offered a job transfer in Florida and had to resign from her position. “I have been asked to run for the past two years, and I was considering it, but I also [was involved] with other activities that took a lot of time, so it wasn’t an ideal moment to run. When this vacancy occurred, it seemed like it was at the right time,” Franklin said.

Parkway Board of Education member Kristy Klein Davis will officially be resigning June 3 due to a new job opportunity. The Board followed a transparent process of interviewing the candidates who applied and electing the candidate they felt was the best pick to fill the vacancy. Ultimately, Tiffany Mapp Franklin was chosen. 

Mapp Franklin has been involved within the Parkway School District since her first child began attending Claymont Elementary in 2012. She is engaged in Parent Advocacy for Multicultural Excellence in Education (PAMEE) and served as Vice President, then Co-President of Claymont’s Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) from 2018 to 2020. In addition, she is involved in Project Parkway Steering Committee, which works on strategizing and implementing goals regarding students, staff and infrastructure in Parkway. 

“It’s important to have good people [in office because they] are going to make some difficult decisions for many of our community members,” Mapp Franklin said. “Knowing that our current Board does not have a person of color and we were about to lose one of the women out of the two that were left, it was important for me to try to fill that space and make sure that I was able to provide another voice at the table that might be different from those who are already there.”

In addition to working full-time for Boeing, Mapp Franklin has previous experience as a middle-school teacher and was a substitute in Parkway from 2017 through 2018. In addition, she served on the Judicial Commission, a position appointed by the Missouri governor in which she interviewed and selected judges for the St. Louis County courts.

“Education has always been important to me. I heard somewhere that education is the great equalizer, which stuck with me because no one can take the knowledge away from you. If all students are being educated well, that gives them opportunities to rise to higher positions, which creates a balanced and less-segregated society,” Mapp Franklin said. “I want to ensure that all Parkway students are getting the great education they deserve no matter their starting point.”

Mapp Franklin advocates for racial and social equity for both teachers and students.

“Our board should be reflective of our student body and our school community. It’s important to ensure — not only [for] our students of color but also for all students — that there are people of color in higher leadership positions within the district,” Mapp Franklin said. “There are often so many [negative] stereotypes about different races and cultures and that’s a way to combat these negative stereotypes.”

One of the most recent Parkway projects that Mapp Franklin has worked on is the Equity Task Force program, where she worked with school administrators, teachers and students on various recommendations. Recommendations are suggestions submitted by the community that give the School Board objectives to pursue.

“Now that we’ve gotten those recommendations and are working toward these various goals, [it’s] part of the Board’s responsibility to make sure that the goals set by the superintendent are being met,” Mapp Franklin said. 

Originally coming through the city and her children through the VICC Program, Mapp Franklin hopes to encourage other parents to participate in their children’s education. 

“I want to leave a legacy for those who look like me to get involved with their schools — whether you come from the city or the county,” Mapp Franklin said. 

The rest of Klein Davis’s term is from June 2022 to April 2023, which Mapp Franklin will be fulfilling until the next election. Mapp Franklin will be officially sworn in on June 15 during the Board of Education meeting. Although she has no formal plans to run for office next year, Mapp Franklin will be making the best of her term.

“We can do anything we set our minds to,” Mapp Franklin said. “We might have to make a few changes to our schedules, and we might have to make a few sacrifices, but it’s worth it when it comes to our kids and their education.”