The Cape Girardeau School District's revised Comprehensive School Improvement Plan outlines five key objectives, critically tied to one another, administrators say. But student performance" tops the list.

More than 50 people, many of them parents, attended Monday night's public forum at Central Middle School, where the improvement plan was unveiled.

The district has been working on the revised plan for nearly a year. The last plan was adopted in 2005 and updated in 2007. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education provides five major goals that must be included in the school improvement document. The district develops, strategies and action steps to address each goal.

Beyond student performance, the goals include:

* Developing a highly qualified staff

* Enhancing facilities, instructional programs, support

* Improving parent and community involvement

* Improving district governance

"We have an excellent school system; we want to be even better," said superintendent Jim Welker in closing the forum.

Among the objectives for improving student performance, the plan demands the district annually meet the 14 Missouri School Improvement Program standards/indicators in the Annual Performance Report.

The district met 13 in the recently released report. Programs will be designed to target and support students who aren't making the grade, while driving student achievement above grade-level proficiency.

It will have to be by 2014, when all public students must be 100 percent proficient in math and communications arts under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The improvement plan aims to lift the district's graduation rate to and beyond state standards. Gape Girardeau public schools posted a 72.9 percent graduation rate last year, while the state's latest figure was 75.3 percent.

Pat King told district officials any graduation initiative must emphasize improving what King sees as a woeful black graduation rate, at about 60 percent, according to administrators. King, of Cape Area Family Resource, said there's too much disaffection among too many black students in the district, leading to high rates of truancy and dropouts. She blames a lack of parental involvement and schools that she says don't always make black students and parents feel included.

"When you have a fourth-grader come up to you and say, 'I got two more years and then I'm dropping out,' that's scary," King said.

The improvement plan focuses on increasing the percentage of parents and guardians involved in the education process.

Robin McCollough, vice president of Alma Schrader Elementary Parent/Teachers Association, said teachers often are often fighting a losing battle, with classrooms constantly disrupted by problem students.

The plan strives to reduce behavioral incidents, through a districtwide intervention programs.

The improvement plan is replete with assessments to gauge progress, Welker said.

"This gives us more of a definite plan on how we're going to monitor this," he said. "It will be more meaningful than a document on the shelf."

The improvement plan can be found at www.capetigers.com/DISTRICTINFO/CSIPCompSchoolImpPlan/tabid/295/Default.aspx.

mkittle@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

1900 Thilenius St., Cape Girardeau, MO