SCHOOL COMMITTEES DELIVER FINDINGS

Chairmen of three long-ranging planning committees urged the Cape Girardeau Board of Education to solicit public input regarding their reports.

The board accepted reports concerning educational programs, facilities and finance at its Monday meeting.

Completion of these reports marks the end of the first phase of the Project Partnership planning process. The school board will use the committee reports to help formulate a long-range plan during its retreat July 10-12 in St. Louis.

Harry Rediger, chairman of the finance committee, said, "We are very anxious to have public input. I personally feel strongly the more public input the better partnership the school district builds with the community.

"With a needs-based plan that will further the educational process in this community, I have no doubt we'll pass it."

Facilities chairman Bob Fox added, "Any public input you can get before the retreat would be good. We want to recommend what's best for the kids."

Sue Balsamo, who chaired the citizen's committee studying educational programs, said, "I do believe when a long-range, cogent plan is put before people, we can start whittling away at it."

She said her committee felt the school district needs a clear, up-to-date mission statement. "The other thing the district lacks is a long-ranging planning document."

The committee studied, among other things, academic organization, curriculum planning, academic subject areas, special and gifted education, extracurricular and co-curricular activities.

"We were asked to dream a little about what we hoped could happen," Balsamo said. The 10-page report reflects this dream.

"It's not that we didn't think about money, but we believed we should find out what we really want and what would be the very best for children and go for that."

"Currently there are five divisions in the academic structure of the district," Balsamo said: kindergarten to grade 6, grade 7, grades 8-9, grades 10-12 and vocational and adult education.

"This arrangement is driven by available buildings, not necessarily by educational merit," the report states. "The organizational structure demands that students make at least four transitions in their school years."

Balsamo said, "We do feel whatever solution you come upon, the number of transitions should be less than that.

"We also feel the ninth-grade is part of the high school academic program, so it seems logical that that grade be included within the senior high school."

The report proposes raising standards for students participating in any extra or co-curricular activity. Students would need to maintain a quarterly grade point average of 4 or above on an 11 point scale. No student could participate in extra or co-curricular activities with a failing grade in any course. Failing is defined as completion without credit and/or a grade of "F" on a grade scale of "A-F."

A similar standard is proposed for students participating in the district's gifted education program.

The committee also recommended that the district support "any programs that cause the families to help the children be ready for school."

Balsamo said, "When children come to school ready to be educated, the school system does a good job."

Fox reported the facilities committee findings, including a building two new schools.

"Overwhelmingly the consensus was that we have got to have new construction," Fox said.

The proposal would be to build a new elementary and middle school and add classrooms to Jefferson School. May Greene, Washington and L.J. Schultz are proposed to be closed.

Fox explained that these steps would help relieve overcrowding and would replace aged buildings in the district. The middle school, Fox said, would need to include grades five and six to help leave room for growth at the elementary schools.

"The committee felt you could not do that with just one building," Fox said. "The preliminary cost estimates on this are mind boggling."

Five additional recommendations, including renovations and other improvements in the district, Fox said, were ranked about equally in importance by committee members.

Rediger said the finance committee saw a need for capital improvements, including replacing Washington and May Greene Schools and adding classrooms to Jefferson School.

But he cautioned that perhaps a middle school was not a popular idea in the community and that the two items should be presented to voters separately.

"Our committee is not opposed to a middle school. What we have heard is a lot of ideas floating around out there pro-middle school and con-middle school," he said.

He said the committee feared that voters against a middle school concept would vote down an entire package. He suggested the school board consider presenting an elementary school package to voters and following that with another school construction proposal a year or two later.

Rediger said the committee had discussed possible dates for an election. "Spring of 1993 was the one mentioned most often," he said. "We felt anything this year was too soon. There are too many hot issues. Waiting longer than that postpones the inevitable."