FOUR SEEK ELECTION TO NELL HOLCOMB SCHOOL BOARD

Two three-year seats up for election on the Nell Holcomb R-4 Board of Education have drawn four candidates for Tuesday's election.

The seats up for election are those held by board President Daniel Taylor and Treasurer Karen Fornkahl, both of whom have filed for re-election. Former board member Robert Rubel and newcomer Bob Woodard have also filed for the seats.

Fornkahl, 45, and Taylor, 41, a mechanical planner at the Procter & Gamble plant north of Cape Girardeau, are each seeking their second full term. Fornkahl first joined the board to fill an unexpired one-year term.

Expanding the school's curriculum is one of her concerns, said Fornkahl, adding that some courses not already available.

"I would like to see some type of foreign language, and maybe our reading program expanded somewhat," she said. "It wouldn't hurt to expand the reading program in the whole school, but especially in the sixth and the eighth grade."

Nell Holcomb is a kindergarten through eighth grade district with one school building. This year the school departmentalized its sixth to eighth grade classes, Fornkahl said. Students in those grades now have different teachers for math, science, social studies and language classes.

Said Fornkahl: "Always before they were self-contained with one teacher."

Taylor said he too would like to keep building onto the school's curriculum.

"We'd like to build on to make our science class stronger," he said. "We have a very good teacher out there now. He's brand new, but he's doing a very good job." The teacher, he said, is Mike Frazier.

Fornkahl said her experience would make her a good choice for re-election, as well as her attendance of a number of workshops for school board members. She said she has attended workshops on financing and curriculum.

Taylor said one reason voters should choose him in Tuesday's election is because he has a 12-year-old son in school at Nell Holcomb. Another son, 15, attended the school up until this year, he said.

He pointed also to the school board's budget.

"Since before I was elected we never really budgeted for any big items at the school," he said. "We're learning how to work with the budget and plan a year ahead. I think that's one of the reasons our school's not really financially hurt with all the cutbacks."

The only thing the school has had to cut, he said, is its kindergarten program, but that was due to lack of space and not finances. Starting next year, he said, the school will have half-day kindergarten classes rather than full-day classes.

The time to serve is one reason Woodard said he's a good choice for the board. Woodard, 53, of 2748 Oakshire Circle, said he retired from the Air Force, in which he served as a pilot and aircraft maintenance officer for 20 years. He's also retired from the manufacturing industry in St. Louis, where he worked as a welder and later as a manufacturing superintendent.

"I'm seriously interested in the quality of our public education," he said, adding that he has a bachelor's of science degree in industrial education from the University of Maryland at College Park. "So I was trained as a teacher."

Originally from Fort Collins, Colo., Woodard said he grew up as a "military brat" and moved to the district a year ago, he said. His wife, Patricia Reagan-Woodard, is director of University Museum at Southeast Missouri State University teaches in the university's fine arts department.

Woodard believes he would bring a useful diversity to the board and because he's new to the area, a "fresh look." He also doesn't have a child in the school, he said, so he doesn't have "an ax to grind."

"I think that's an asset for somebody on the board. There's a compelling need for citizens to get involved in improving their local schools. Not only do I believe that, but our national leaders are calling for that," he said.

But Taylor said he feels that a board member wouldn't do as well a job if he or she didn't have a child attending the school.

"I just think that a good school board can make better decisions if they have some kind of (bond) to the school. And part of that is if you have one of ... your children in that school, naturally you're going to work harder to make it as good as you can," Taylor said.

Rubel, 40, of Cape Girardeau Route 1, said he wanted to get back on the board and touted his board experience as a plus. He lost a re-election bid to the board last year after serving on it for nine years, he said.

"A lot of things were happening when I got off," said Rubel. "They're still happening and I still want to be involved in those.

"I helped hire this new superintendent (David Fuemmeler) we have. I'd like to be able to work with him for a while."

The candidate said he wants to work on reducing class sizes, but that the effort depends on state funding. The school has worked to reduce class sizes, he said, but they need to be a little smaller. Taylor said the school's average class size is about 30 to 35 students.

Rubel said the school has large classes coming in, he said. The last two years, he said, has brought 40 to 50 kindergarteners in each.

"For the last few years before that we were averaging 30 to 35. So it's getting close to double what we were having," he said.

Fornkahl said the district needs to have both short- and long-term planning with public input. For instance, she said, in reducing class sizes, it needs to be asked how the district will handle the matter.

"We need to have their input to see what they would like to see done," Fornkahl said of the public.

Fornkahl has a child in the fifth grade; Rubel has two children who are students at the school.

Woodard said the school board needs to address improvements in education and establish long-term educational goals that go far beyond school reviews.

"That seems to be where they are. They're not looking for enough beyond," he said.