`FRESH': SCHOOLS SET FOR ARRIVAL OF CHANGES

Speakers at Cape Girardeau Public Schools annual staff meeting Wednesday foretold a season of change for the coming academic year.

School begins Sept. 3 for students, but staff members ranging from teachers and administrators to cooks and custodians reported for their first day of work Wednesday at the Show Me Center.

Local business and community leaders were also on hand to hear about the changes in store for local public education. In all, about 400 people attended.

Board of Education President Pat Ruopp said, "Change, when positive and progressive, is good.

"The board has felt a breath of fresh air this summer," he continued. "We have new people in key positions in the district."

New superintendent Neyland Clark began July 1.

"We are looking at a bond issue also. We are going to be moving in the direction of a middle school concept, a new school, air conditioning and implementing the recommendations of the athletic task force," Ruopp said.

His comments about air conditioning for all school buildings drew applause from the audience.

"One of our goals is to make the path of learning as smooth as possible," Ruopp said.

He then asked teachers to "be positive and supportive of the district."

Ruopp added, "Seize every opportunity to be imaginative and innovative."

"Change is inevitable," Clark told his new staff. "And it's amazing how fast things have changed in one year."

He said with the change comes a degree of anxiety and apprehension. "That's good. It shows you care," Clark said.

"Yes, there's change ahead, folks," Clark said. "And it scares me a little bit too."

As part of the change, Clark said he will expect a little more from everyone in the district.

"This new guy comes in and is going to ask me to do more," he said. "That's right. I am going to ask you to do more.

"We must expect our student to know more and to do better," he said. "As teacher expectation increases so goes student achievement.

"When we invoke change, that's not to say what we have done has been poor, but to say that what we've done can be so much more."

The new high school basketball coach, Rod Gorman, has a slogan, "Old Traditions, New Beginnings," Clark said.

"Next year, this school district will celebrate its 125th anniversary. We have a wealth of tradition, and I'm happy to be part of this educational team."

Clark said he called all the different employee groups together to generate synergy. "Synergy the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Collectively we are stronger than as individuals. And being here today, you should feel the strength and excitement."

Southeast Missouri State University President Kala Stroup said, "You can take a great deal of pride in what you do. In the United States, we still educate more of our young people from kindergarden through graduate school than anywhere else in the world.

"That doesn't mean we can't be better."

She said cooperation between the public schools and the university will continue. Stroup cited two cooperative programs under way this year: Reading Recovery, a project to help the lowest first grade readers catch up, and Grow Your Own, a program to direct talented minority students into the teaching profession.

Terry Stewart, assistant commissioner of education for Missouri, said, "The purpose of teachers is to beat the odds."

"The odds are that some students will do well, some will do average and some will do poorly," Stewart said. "The odds are they can do that without you for a teacher. The purpose of a teacher is to beat those odds."

The way to beat the odds likely means change, Stewart said.

"You will have to do things differently. You may have to change the way you teach."

Stewart said teachers who "teach the same old stuff in the same old ways" have a "reputation that proceeds them."

"Kids know who are the good teachers. Parents know. Our colleagues know. It's no secret. Your reputation proceeds you everywhere," Stewart said.

Of teachers who follow the same path time and time again, Stewart said, "We cannot have you teaching our kids."