Central office prepares to relocate

Now that the majority of the Cape Girardeau School District classrooms have been moved to new buildings district officials are looking to the next thing to be moved -- the central offices.

Superintendent Mark Bowles said the current offices will move into the old vocational technical school on Clark street when renovations are complete in mid-July.

Bowles said students from a building trades class at the Career and Technology Center have been working on the building all year.

"They tore out walls, redid electrical wiring, removed plumbing and put up dry wall," he said. "They really worked hard."

Bowles said the future of the current building remains uncertain.

Future uncertain

"At one point we did have it with a realtor and we saw a proposal, but we took it back off the market because we weren't certain if that was what we wanted to do at that time," he said.

Bowles said he will meet with school board members and district staff personnel next week to discuss what could be done with the building.

"I really think this building is something we need to keep ahold of at least until the dust settles from the transition," Bowles said, referring to the reconfiguration of grades five through 12.

"It has the potential to be very valuable for us if we need storage, and also very valuable to sell if we're not going to have any use for it."

He said a final decision regarding the Clark street building's future should be reached by the end of the fall semester.