The north St. Louis school district dissolved by the state of Missouri in June after poor performance and reborn as a collaborative in a controversial move has been looking for a firm to handle all PR and communications.

The Normandy Schools Collaborative released an RFP earlier this month (deadline was Oct. 23)  for a PR to start in late November and service the district through the end of the fiscal year in 2015.

The collaborative wants PR counsel, a designated account rep available 24-7, crisis communications support, and media relations, among other duties.

The collaborative emerged from a contentious, two-year battle between state officials and administrators over the district's underperforming schools, which serve 24 municipalities in an area the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described as 97% African-American.

The Missouri Supreme Court inflamed tensions last year when it held that students who transferred out of the failing Normandy schools had to return. The state responded by dissolving the Normandy district and naming it a collaborative not subject to the no-transfer rule. 

Michael Brown, whose shooting death by a police officer in August sparked riots and protests in nearby Ferguson, Mo., was an alumni of Normandy High School.

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