In the aftermath of the United States 2024 Election, the Democrats emerged with few victories. President-elect Donald Trump took command of the presidency, while the Republican party won the U.S. Senate and House as well. They also won the Missouri House of Representatives, where they outnumbered Democrats two-to-one. However, in a local race for District 90, which includes Kirkwood and its surroundings, KSD Board member Mark G. Boyko (D) was elected into the Missouri House seat.
Boyko started his career in politics after high school. He went to the University of Illinois and then to the University of Missouri for law school, and has been a lawyer for the past 20 years. He represents workers and retirees by trying to protect their retirement savings. Boyko believes his skills in law and education qualified him for his role on the KSD Board of Education.
“I’ve always been a firm believer in public education,” Boyko said. “I have two kids, and they have been in the KSD. As a lawyer, I thought my skills would be helpful. And I think it’s probably those skills [that] are useful to the Board.”
To obtain a seat on the Board, a Kirkwood resident must be elected. There are seven people on the Board, and each April, a few of those positions are up for election. Boyko took a seat on the board in April of 2022, and his position will last about five more months before the next election. As a board member, Boyko has many tasks, which all help improve the schools in Kirkwood.
“The school board itself has three main roles. The first one is that we hire a superintendent,” Boyko said. “The other thing we do is that we set policies, which are the laws that govern our school district [and] we approve the district’s budget. So in many ways, the budget reflects our priorities as a board, whether it’s providing more money for teachers and staff, which we’ve been able to do, or providing the money to put in artificial turf at the sports fields of the school.”
With Boyko’s term on the board coming to a close, he searched for new ways to continue his interest in public service. So, he decided to run for a seat representing District 90 in the Missouri House of Representatives.
“So ultimately the question to me is where my time would be best spent making people’s lives better,” Boyko said. “And with my school board term ending, it seemed like the timing was right to take what I’ve learned on the school board and in my career and use that to inform the state lawmaking in Jefferson City.”
Boyko’s campaign strategy for the House election revolved around assuring voters that he would improve their lives and safety. Additionally, he would try to revise laws that he viewed as roadblocks to progress.
“People in Kirkwood and voters across the district really want to feel safe, and they want to feel like their government is fair and that it’s working to do things to make their lives a little better,” Boyko said. “And so my strategy was sharing with voters the idea of that vision. I feel that many of the laws that have been passed over the last 20 years undermined those goals and I’d try to make the government work better for them instead.”
Now that he’s been elected, Boyko has multiple plans to help Kirkwood expand and improve. He will be sworn in on Jan. 8, and then will go about the process of introducing numerous bills.
“I’ll be looking to pass laws that I think will help get Missouri back on track and also study the bills that other legislators propose to see if I can support them,” Boyko said. “My first bill will be to change our sales tax on diapers and period supplies, so that those get taxed more like groceries instead of being taxed like luxury goods at a higher rate. I’m also working on bills to protect consumers from scams and to strengthen public education.”