AGED: BUILDINGS WILL FACE INSPECTION

The Cape Girardeau Board of Education is looking for trouble structural problems at the district's four aged buildings.

At an early-morning meeting Tuesday at L.J. Schultz School, the board directed Superintendent Neyland Clark to hire a structural engineer or someone to assess the condition of L.J. Schultz, May Greene, Washington and Franklin schools.

The meeting was called after the roof of the cafeteria at L.J. Schultz school partially collapsed and the west wall began to buckle. Work is under way to correct the problem.

But board members are concerned other problems may exist.

"I don't want to be an alarmist," said board member Pat Ruopp, "but I think we're sitting on a time bomb."

Board member Lyle Davis said: "I don't think there is any way to discover many problems just by looking at them. That's the real danger. There may be something out there we have no way of knowing about. Regardless of how thorough an evaluation we do, with buildings this old we are going to have surprises."

While the district has devised a plan to repair the wall and roof at L.J. Schultz, Jim Dohogne, director of buildings and grounds, expressed concern about the northwest corner of the cafeteria, which has subsided. "I think that the storm sewer down there has a hole," he said. "We don't know how bad it is."

Plans call for a backhoe to excavate a portion of the area in an attempt to determine the seriousness of the situation.

Clark said: "We are going into a planning session. I've been thinking of planning around the educational process, But we may have to change our approach somewhat. It appears we may have a safety issue.

"How much money do you want to spend on a facility that is already 70 years old?" he asked.

Board President Ed Thompson also said that the board's July 10-11 retreat has been changed from a Holiday Inn in St. Louis to the Holiday Inn in Cape Girardeau.

"We thought we could save some money," Thompson said.

He added that this year's retreat, slated to be a work session for a long-range strategic plan, will include input from a number of people, including administrators, teachers and people who served on Project Partnership planning committees.

"It's not an open, weekend-long board meeting, but we do have more people involved," said Thompson. "The fact that we were holding the retreat 100 miles away was awfully inconvenient for those people.

"We plan to follow the same procedures as other retreats, just stay at home," said Thompson.

The board also made an end-of-the-year budget adjustment and appointed Dorothy Statler, Clark's secretary, as treasurer.