Area schools keep some traditions, make some changes

It is 1920.

From a student assembly in the high school gymnasium on Pacific Street, one of Cape Girardeau School District's oldest traditions emerges: The tiger is chosen as Central's football team mascot.

The focus on reading, writing and arithmetic expands to not only athletics but music and other extracurricular activities. In 1921, the school's first orchestra forms.

The changes serve as evidence that an emphasis on education -- once rare in rural areas -- is being realized in Cape Girardeau.

George Heider wants to attend school so badly he wakes at 3:30 a.m. every day and rides his horse from his family's farm nine miles to Central, according to a clipping from the Southeast Missourian.

It is 1953.

The Pacific Street school is changing identities. For nearly 40 years, it has served as academic home to high school students. Now it will cater to a younger crowd as Central Junior High School.

The transition is only one part of the major changes taking place across the local school district and in society.

The opening of a new high school and subsequent move of eighth- and ninth-graders to the former high school has saved space at the elementary level, allowing the district to offer kindergarten for the first time.

Outside of facility changes, the social makeup of the district is changing.

The civil rights movement and Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education ruling are beginning to have an impact.

On March 13, 1953, John S. Cobb School, the city's black high school, is destroyed in a fire. Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court's anti-segregation ruling in the spring of 1954, Cape Girardeau public schools voluntarily integrate grades seven through 12.

It is 1965.

The Cape Girardeau School District has run out of classrooms to house its growing student population.

With the construction of a new Jefferson Elementary and Alma Schrader Elementary in 1957 and 1959, respectively, there are now five elementary schools, all bursting at the seams. Another elementary, Hawthorne, is under construction.

To help alleviate the space problem, the school district constructs a new junior high for eighth- and ninth-graders next door to Central High School on Caruthers Avenue.

The Pacific Street school has become one of the first middle schools in Missouri, housing seventh-graders.

The building receives its third name in 47 years -- from Central High School to Central Junior High to L.J. Schultz Middle School.

The name honors Louis J. Schultz, Cape Girardeau School District's superintendent of 27 years.

It is 1980.

Schultz observes its 15th year as a seventh-grade center and is rededicated as such. The dedication ceremony follows the same format as the original in 1965.

In the last 15 years, Schultz has grown tremendously, from 28 teachers to 47. But with that growth, the aging building shows deterioration.

The south wall of the building buckles, the exterior bricks collapse. Emergency work begins on building a new wall.

It is 2002.

The aging Schultz building celebrates its 87th birthday with silent halls. The construction of a new Central High School on Silver Springs Road has led to a complete grade reconfiguration within the district. The building at 101 S. Pacific St. is vacant, a for sale sign on the front lawn representing the end of an era.

The building's seventh-graders have joined eighth-graders at Central Junior High. A newly created Central Middle School holds fifth- and sixth-graders.

Cape Girardeau School District now includes five elementary schools. The exteriors of the educational buildings are the same, but the interiors of the city's public schools bare little resemblance to those of 50 years ago.

Major reforms have altered the face of education. The federal No Child Left Behind Act has increased schools' accountability for student achievement. Daily curriculum revolves around the state's annual tests, known as the Missouri Assessment Program.

It's a new kind of learning system that the educators for whom many of the schools are named -- L.J. Schultz, Alma Schrader, Barbara Blanchard -- wouldn't likely recognize.

It is 2005.

The sound of hammers pounding nails fills L.J. Schultz Middle School; the for sale sign is gone. Once again, the building will have a place in Cape Girardeau's education system.

In six months, students will make their way up the concrete steps and through the glass doors, this time to attend classes at Cape Girardeau's Alternative Education Center.

The building's roller coaster life is not unlike the evolution of education as a whole in the city -- a great deal of growth, a few changes in identity but destined to help children learn.

cclark@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128