CLARK ARRIVES: NEW SUPERINTENDENT BEGINS JOB ON MONDAY

Cape Girardeau's public schools get a new boss Monday morning. Neyland Clark says he's ready anxious, in fact to guide the city's public educational system.

Seated in the living room of his Woodland Hills home, Clark talked about his hopes for Cape Girardeau schools.

"This is really a good school system," Clark said. "I think it can be better, and I think that's why I'm here.

"The teaching-learning process is a dynamic process and every part of the process should be dynamic," he said. "We'll have fun and work hard to make a good system even better than it is today."

Clark takes over for Arthur Turner, who was superintendent in Cape Girardeau for 16 years. Turner will be superintendent in Greensburg, Ind., starting Monday also.

Clark was superintendent for Bullitt County Schools in Shepherdsville, Ky., before accepting the position in Cape Girardeau. He and wife, Diane, have three school-age sons.

"Art was a good superintendent," Clark said. "I see evidence of good administrative leadership. I hope to continue that tradition, but I'll do it in a little different style."

Clark said, "The whole process of educating children is what I call a `simple complexity.'

"The simple part is that parents in any given community want their children to have the same chance of success as other students. If the truth be known, we really want our kids to have the advantage, a competitive edge.

"The complexity is designing educational programs to give that competitive edge. It gets very complicated when we take into account the diversity of our student body, the diversity of our community, and the needs youngsters will have in the year 2000 and beyond."

Clark has two main goals for his first year to help address this simple complexity.

First, he said, the district needs to embark on a long-range, strategic plan.

"We need to see how we can involve as much of the community and a cross section of the community in the process," he said.

Second, the Board of Education must overhaul its policy and procedure manual.

"It's a very complicated task and requires a lot of hard work," Clark said. "But we can break it down into bites which are manageable."

The first bite would deal with personnel procedures. "Are we going after the very best people to teach our children? Are we following affirmative action and equality opportunity laws? Are people at the building and departmental level involved in the recruitment process? Are our policies fair and consistent throughout the district?"

On his first day, Monday, Clark is scheduled to meet with district office staff and support staff. "They can ask questions of me, and I will convey a little bit of what to expect to change.

"I believe in a team approach and ask for a high degree of account~ability and responsibility to those I delegate authority to," he said. "I also think you'll see a much more active role for people like Richard Bollwerk and Jim Englehart."

Bollwerk is director of elementary education; Englehart is director of secondary education.

In preparation for beginning his position, Clark has been meeting with members of the school board and other community members.

"I'm attempting to go around and meet as many people as possible," Clark said. "I like to take that initiative."

"I would like to meet with folks in city and county government, law enforcement, and local business people so we can work in a collaborative effort," Clark said.

He has met with personnel at Southeast Missouri State University. Clark also spent two days in Jefferson City and talked with Missouri Commissioner of Education Robert Bartman.

During his visit to Jefferson City, Clark said he learned about the state's proposed $390 million education tax increase.

The proposal, which would provide about $195 million for elementary and secondary education, "is not sufficient to address the needs of the state," Clark said.

He said the state's educational system needs $750 million to $800 million more "to do all the things the public expects."

"But how realistic is $800 million in a state budget. We are not the only entity out there in the state."

Clark said while he was in Jefferson City, he often heard the argument that "it's not a good law, but $195 million is better than nothing," he said. "It's just going to be a band aid."

Clark said the public must begin to see education not as an expense but as an investment. "It's a long term investment," he said. "But in 15 to 25 years, the payoffs will be tremendous."

Clark said Cape Girardeau has supported its educational system in the past.

"One thing I learned in Kentucky, you cannot mandate excellence. It has to be something the community is committed to and strives for," he said.

As part of the strategic plan, Clark hopes the school district will look at a variety of new ideas for the school system. Some examples follow.

Students at a Kansas City school are required to perform community service as a requirement for graduation. "Not that we would implement that, but I think we should talk about it," Clark said.

"I'm interested in looking at some type of preschool program and early childhood education which will enhance a child's chance of success in school," he said.

"(Middle school) is going to be an issue here, he said.

Parental involvement. "I'm interested in getting parents involved in the schools. Perhaps the Parents as Teachers program can be expanded also."

Site-based management. Decision-making is made by a site-based (school) council. "We would want to review that to see if it would be beneficial to this district."

"I'd like folks to feel schools are a warm welcoming place for parents as well as children and also for grandparents. Senior citizens have a lot of resources to offer."

"I have concerns about our at-risk students, those dropping out of school and teenage pregnancy," Clark said. "We will continue to work with the at-risk committee. I think we need to collect some very specific data and implement some specific plans."

Clark said: "I expect we will focus on the long-range plan and the policy and procedure manual. With those two goals we have a lot of hard work ahead of us. And we are going to ask folks to dedicate their time, effort and energy. If we can do that this year, the path for the next five years will be laid.

"We will have the master score to orchestrate a lot of good things for children in Cape."