Cape district say 7 students can transfer elementary schools

The Cape Girardeau School District plans to transfer seven elementary school students from Jefferson and Blanchard elementary schools to two other elementary schools in January, but five other students who want transfers will stay where they are because school officials say the district doesn't have the classroom space to relocate them.

Assistant superintendent Pat Fanger said even fewer students will be transferred if the final scores from Missouri Assessment Program tests show that Blanchard made adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind Act. "They were so close," Fanger said. But she said the final results are unlikely to change Blanchard's status.

Final figures won't be available from the state until mid-November, she said. School officials plan to wait until then to notify parents whether their transfer applications have been approved.

Ten families requested their children be transferred to better performing elementary schools after Jefferson and Blanchard schools failed to make adequate yearly progress in state test scores for the second consecutive year. The federal No Child Left Behind Act allows for the transfers.

Jefferson failed to meet this year's goals in both communication arts and math. Blanchard's black students failed to meet the goal in communication arts.

Fanger said the district plans to approve six of the transfer requests involving a total of seven students.

District officials initially reported that transfer requests were made for 11 students. But Fanger said one Jefferson School family made a mistake in filling out the application. That family's request actually was to transfer two children rather than one. As a result, the district ended up with requests to transfer nine students from Jefferson and three from Blanchard.

Fanger said the district rejected some of the transfer requests because parents asked that their child be move to a school and into a grade where no space was available.

In a letter sent to approximately 600 parents in Blanchard and Jefferson elementary schools explaining the transfer option, superintendent Dr. David Scala included a chart showing available classroom openings in each grade at Alma Schrader, Clippard and Franklin elementary schools.

The district said it has no openings in kindergarten in those three schools.

Franklin has 15 openings in its first-grade classrooms and six in third grade. Clippard has six openings in second grade, 12 in third and 18 in fourth grade. Alma Schrader had only six openings, all in third grade, school officials reported in the written information sent to parents in September.

"We told them what was available and what wasn't," said Fanger.

Some parents apparently didn't understand the classroom limitations, Fanger said.

Families were allowed to include their first and second school choices in applying for transfers.

Scala said the district did its best to notify parents of the available openings. "I don't think we could have made it any plainer," he said.

School officials said the number of available openings is based on desirable class-size standards set by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Those standards list a maximum of 20 students per class in kindergarten through second grade and a maximum of 22 students per class in third and fourth grades.

DESE has advised Cape Girardeau school officials that the district doesn't have to overcrowd classrooms to accommodate transfer requests, Fanger said.

Some families requested transfers solely for convenience rather than because their children had low scores on the state tests in math and communication arts. Those parents said they wanted to transfer their children to other schools so they could be bused to school. Those students currently live within a mile of school and aren't eligible for bus transportation, Fanger said.

Transfers would allow those children to ride school buses to elementary schools that are farther away, she said.

Under the federal law, such requests are allowed, although priority is given to low-income students with low test scores, Fanger said.

The Cape Girardeau district received so few requests for transfer that test scores or income status didn't have to be considered, she said.

Of the seven students that apparently will be transferred at the start of the second semester, four will go to Clippard and three to Franklin.

None is scheduled to move to Alma Schrader. Fanger said three of the applications listed Alma Schrader as a first choice but for grades without any openings this school year.

The seven students transferring range in grades from first to fourth, Fanger said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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