ARCHITECT OPENS BIDS FOR PROJECT

The Cape Girardeau Board of Education received construction updates and heard presentations regarding the district's special education curriculum during a meeting Monday.

Architect Dennis Young of William B. Ittner, Inc. of St. Louis told the board bids for rough grading at the site of the new high school were opened earlier Monday and that 10 contractors from Missouri and Illinois submitted bids. The project is to be completed Dec. 15.

Of the 10 bids, nearly all were within Ittner's cost estimates of $1.2 million to $1.6 million.

"We're off to building a high school," Young said. "We had very good interest in this project. We're on budget and on schedule."

Over the next three days Young will analyze the proposals and meet with one or more of the contractors who submitted the lowest bids for the project.

He will present a recommendation for a project contractor during a special board meeting at noon Friday.

Superintendent Dr. Dan Steska also presented the board with a construction update on the new Career and Technology Center, saying the building was nearly 75 percent complete and on schedule to open next fall. Contractors await electrical power to the site to install heating and cooling systems.

Steska said the site should have full power within the next three weeks.

Although construction is proceeding, Steska said several projects cannot be completed until funding is available.

Completing a television broadcast studio, classroom computer upgrades in several areas and some cabinetry were excluded from the original bid proposal to control the overall construction cost. Nearly $226,000 is needed to complete the three projects, an amount Steska said is simply not available at the moment.

Steska said a portion of the classroom computer upgrades and cabinetry will be completed with funding provided by Mineral Area Community College. However, only the "most necessary" costs, including lighting, will be completed on the broadcast studio until a "more economical solution" can be found.

"Personally, I'm still not satisfied we absolutely need to spend that much money, and I wouldn't recommend we do so at this time," Steska said.

In other business, the board heard presentations regarding the district's special services curriculum.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Betty Chong supervises programs, which includes learning disabilities, gifted education, counseling, and English as a Second Language.

Among people at the school board were Emily Ponder, a sixth-grade student at Alma Schrader. She participates in the gifted education program.

Ponder said the Explorer class has benefited her because it lets her study subjects she is interested in and share information with students who have similar academic abilities.

"School just would not be the same without it," she said. "Sometimes my regular classroom teacher will stand up and go on and on about something I already know. Explorer always has new information and teaches me something new every time I go."