Wide array of candidates run for Cape school board

Editor's note: This story has been edited to correct the job title for Phil Moore.

The five Cape Girardeau school-board candidates are strikingly different, offering an array of skills, perspectives and goals to the three open positions voters will fill April 4.

Voters have the opportunity to choose the candidates that fit their values.

The candidates are incumbents Phil Moore and Tony Smee, plus challengers Tracy Curtis, Missy Herbst Smith and Jared Ritter.

Six-year incumbent Moore is a market executive with Banterra Bank. In keeping with his profession, he is more concerned with the fiduciary responsibilities of the board than the other candidates. The conservative approach that applies to balancing budgets also applies to Moore’s desire to avoid micromanagement.

“There’s a difference between policy and procedure,” Moore said. “Procedure — that solely rests on the administration.”

Nine-year incumbent Smee, a deputy chief appraiser for Cape Girardeau County, is concerned with ways to improve the achievement of at-risk students.

“We worked hard on that, but we haven’t made as positive an impact as we need to,” Smee said.

Cape Girardeau Central High School’s graduation rate increased from 80.3 percent in 2013 to 86.9 percent in 2016, according to numbers from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The district also improved in English language arts proficiency from 50 percent of students meeting or exceeding proficiency to 59 percent, according to DESE.

The district declined in other areas. The district’s composite ACT score dropped from 22.3 in 2010 to 19.5 in 2016, according to DESE.

Disciplinary incidents throughout the district rose to 88 in 2016 from a low point of 27 incidents in 2014, according to DESE. Those incidents include 84 out-of-school suspensions, six violent acts and 12 drug abuses, according to DESE.

Although lower than 2015 (50), the district’s number of high-school dropouts increased from 38 in 2014 to 48 in 2016, according to DESE.

The district’s proficiency in math declined from 50 percent of students meeting or exceeding proficiency in 2013 to 42 percent in 2016, according to DESE.

Smee said reaching the 64 percent of students on free and reduced lunches is the key to improving those statistics.

In most cases, Smee and Moore agree the superintendent and his staff are charged with implementing the procedures that would have the chance to improve student performance.

Several school-board candidates mentioned the hiring of Anthony Robinson as deputy superintendent.

He worked as lead director of secondary education at the Jennings school district, which has about 90 percent of students on free and reduced lunches and more than 90 percent of students who graduate.

From a policy perspective, Smee is as concerned with affecting at-risk students negatively as well as positively.

“We need to make sure any policy we do create doesn’t cause a hindrance to these populations,” he said.

Smith said increasing Cape Girardeau’s preschool program, located at Cape Girardeau Junior High School, would be one way to reach at-risk students.

Smith works for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services child-care division.

She conducts licensing and inspections for daycare and preschool facilities. She said she is an expert in early childhood education.

“There’s no disadvantage to bringing kids into a pre-K program,” she said.”It’s still children learning through play that will help. ... They can learn basic writing by copying letters. In kindergarten, so many kids don’t know how to hold a pencil.”

Smith has a daughter in third grade at Clippard Elementary School. Her son, a sixth-grader, went to Cape Girardeau Central Middle School but transferred to a private school for a smaller learning environment. He had an individual education program in middle school. Smith said he should return to the district by eighth or ninth grade.

Curtis has two children in the district in second grade and middle school. She was the PTO president at Alma Schrader School. She, along with her husband, owns an agriculture company that sells feed and fertilizer.

Curtis wants to use the school-board position as an advocate. She said she wants to bring the opinions of the public back to the board. In particular, she said she wants to improve communication between the district and the public.

One way to accomplish that would be with a district app that can provide a central location for all school-related information.

Moore also said he was interested in an app.

“I see the main role of the school board to be a support system for the community,” Curtis said.

Ritter said he wants to be a representative specifically for teachers.

Before he decided to work as a real-estate agent full time, Ritter worked for two years at Central Academy, teaching sixth- through eighth-grade English.

“I’ve been inside the school system. I’ve known a teacher’s life,” Ritter said. “I feel like this is my niche, where I can help the most.”

From a teacher’s perspective, he said he feels it’s important to reach at-risk students at the elementary-school level and ensure all students feel they are on equal footing with their peers.

Ritter is the youngest candidate for school board, having graduated from Cape Girardeau Central High School in 2010.

Pertinent address: 1900 Thilenius St., Cape Girardeau, MO