LARGER CLASSES ANTICIPATED NEXT YEAR

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Enrollment projections in Cape Girardeau elementary schools for next year show a potential for large classes at some schools, reported Richard Bollwerk, director of elementary education.

The Cape Girardeau Board of Education heard a report on possible trouble spots at its Tuesday meeting.

Also at the meeting, Dr. Pat Ruopp, elected April 2 to his fourth term on the board, was named president of the board for the coming year.

Board member Ed Thompson was named vice president, and newly-elected members Gwen Bennett and Lyle Davis were sworn in.

Current president Carolyn Kelley suggested that Bollwerk, building principals and the director of special services study the enrollment projections and possible solutions for another month. She said a special study session on the matter might be called.

Bollwerk said he works toward a class size of 20 students to one teacher in primary grades.

Enrollments at Alma Schrader and Jefferson are "pretty good across the board," he said.

Hawthorn has two grade levels, fourth and sixth, "where the numbers are low, ideal," he said. But the classes have 17 and 18 students, which is much lower than classes in other schools; some class sizes approach 30 students.

May Greene has a single section of sixth grade which will have close to 30 students next year. But he said that could be addressed by moving some teachers internally at the school.

"At Washington an unusual thing has happened, we have large numbers in the first grade. We moved 11 kindergarteners to Clippard School (Hawthorn) who will be returning to Washington as first graders," Bollwerk said. "We will have 60 plus students."

He said one possibility for this situation would be to allow Washington parents an option of leaving their kindergarteners at Hawthorn for the coming year.

"Or we could pair May Greene with Washington in a similar arrangement to the one we have between Franklin and Jefferson," Bollwerk noted.

Or, he said, the district could combine the fourth grades at Hawthorn into two classes instead of three and move one of the teachers to Washington to start a third section of first grade.

"We still have a bottleneck at Franklin," Bollwerk explained. Three sections of first and second grades are now funneled into two sections from the third grade up.

At Franklin, Bollwerk said the district could add a third section of third grade utilizing another teacher from Hawthorn by combining the three sixth grade sections to two sections at Hawthorn.

He said another, more long term solution to the overcrowding at Franklin could be to build an addition at Jefferson Elementary and re-draw the boundary lines between Jefferson and Franklin.

Jefferson School, with an addition, would be the same size as Alma Schrader, Bollwerk said.

"I'd like to do a little more planning," Bollwerk said, "But I'd sure like a decision this spring about where teachers and programs are going to be."