GRADE SCHOOL REDISTRICTING WILL WAIT UNTIL AFTER ELECTION

How Cape Girardeau elementary school districts will change if the proposed $25 million school bond issue passes in the April 6 election is an open question at this point.

District administrators say they won't look at redistricting the schools until after the election. They say the process would last a year or more and community involvement would be sought. However, they make assurances that no major adjustments are contemplated.

"There's no reason to think we would abandon the neighborhood school concept," said Richard Bollwerk, the district's director of elementary education for the past seven years.

If the bond issue passes, Washington and May Greene elementary schools would be closed along with the seventh-grade-only L.J. Schultz School. The district would build a new elementary school and a middle school (grades 6-9) at the corner of Bertling and Sprigg streets.

Superintendent Neyland Clark expects that most of the students from Washington and May Greene will be distributed among the new school and Franklin and Jefferson schools. Part of the bond issue would pay for an addition at Jefferson, which would enable the school's capacity to expand from the current 340 students to 500.

Currently, May Greene is at capacity with 240 students, Alma Schrader is 30 over with 580 students, and Clippard is just below capacity with 489 students.

Washington and Jefferson both are full with 340 students apiece, and Franklin is over capacity with 400 students.

Cape Girardeau schools have not been redistricted since Lorimier School, now City Hall, was closed in 1975. The approximately 110 students from Lorimier were disbursed mostly to Washington and Franklin schools, according to the school's then-teaching principal Sam Jarrell.

James Englehart, longtime director of secondary education for the district, says Cape Girardeau parents are very resistant to changing attendance areas, which aside from the Lorimier closing have not been altered since the days of desegregation.

Cape's schools desegregated just before the Supreme Court's ruling in 1953 because the city's black school, John Cobb, burned. The district was never, therefore, the target of federal desegregation orders.

"As long as they were never redistricted, they were never subject to that," Englehart said.

A few minor adjustments were made in the Oak Hills area in the mid-1960s, and some streets south of Alma Schrader were added to the then-Hawthorn district, Englehart said.

Redistricting may be in the offing whether the school bond issue passes or not, Clark said.

"I have a concern that some redistricting needs to be done because of the tight availability of space."

The district also plans to institute an "open choice" system at some point. The system would allow students to attend any school they desire as long as space is available.

Once maximum class sizes and attendance areas are set, students from any attendance area would be free to enroll in another school if there is room.

"In most cases, we don't have the luxury," Bollwerk says.

Clark presided over an open choice school district in his previous job in Kentucky, and says, "Parents want to have the choice, but very few actually exercise it.

"... It actually makes the statement that we truly honestly believe that one can receive an equal education at any school in the district."

Wednesday: The series will examine the architectural plans for the proposed new school buildings and the renovations, including earthquake retrofitting.