SCHOOL BOARD SOLICITS IDEAS ON RESTRUCTURING

Cape Girardeau's Board of Education is asking residents to voice their opinions and make suggestions on the school district's plan to move toward a middle school.

Three open forums have been scheduled this month with the first set for Wednesday night at May Greene Elementary School.

School board President John Campbell said he envisions each of the three meetings operating something like congressional testimony seen on CSPAN. Individuals will be given three minutes to present their plans, suggestions or comments.

"We have not made any decisions," Campbell said. "We have not made a decision about reconfiguration. We have not made any decisions about resubmission of something to voters."

At each meeting school administrators will discuss some of the different suggestions already on the table.

A number of different options have been proposed. The one receiving the most attention so far would change May Greene Elementary School to a sixth-grade center. Students in grades kindergarten through six at May Greene would be given a choice of attending any of the district's other elementary schools.

"Generally the topic is reconfiguration," Campbell said. "We hope to take comments and listen. We probably won't get into a lot of dialog, and we don't want to get involved in direct attacks on individual persons.

"We don't want to go back and rehash the April and October votes. We are looking at where do we go as a school district from here. We want this to be as constructive as possible."

Each person will be asked to limit his or her remarks to three minutes. The board is asking for written comments and suggestions also.

Superintendent Neyland Clark said: "We wanted to give people two or three different avenues to communicate with us. Some people may feel the three minutes is too restrictive."

"People should not expect to pose questions to the board and then expect to enter into a dialog with the board," Clark said. "They are there to listen. I suspect we will get some good ideas."

Campbell said that the meetings will last two-to-two-and-a-half hours. If any of the meetings would extend past that time, he said another gathering would be planned

Since the board first talked about plans to rearrange the district's schoolchildren and asked for comments, Campbell said about six have been received.

Meetings are planned Wednesday at May Greene Elementary, 1000 Ranney; Nov. 9 at Alma Schrader Elementary, 1360 Randol; and Nov. 15 at Central Junior High School, 1900 Thilenius.

All three meetings begin at 7 p.m.

Written comments are also being solicited. People may send letters to any school board member or the district's central office.