INTERIM CHIEF AT MEADOW HEIGHTS

PATTON -- Meadow Heights Board of Education has hired an interim superintendent to manage daily operations while Superintendent Gerald Deardorff recovers from heart bypass surgery.

Jim Evans, who retired as Gideon schools superintendent last year, was hired during a school board meeting Monday. He will oversee the district for six to eight weeks, the minimum length of time Deardorff is expected to need to recuperate from his Feb. 8 surgery.

"He'll be coming in to help guide us through the MSIP (Missouri School Improvement Program) in April and the day-to-day necessities of the office," said high-school principal Dennis Holland. "Right now everybody's just chipping in and trying to help out."

Holland and other administrators, staff and board members have managed the daily operations of the district since Deardorff's hospitalization two weeks ago. A number of immediate issues will be handled by Evans, including rescheduling school for days canceled due to bad weather. The upcoming district evaluation April 2 and 3 will also be led by Evans.

School was held on Saturday in an effort to make up one of 11 days missed because of bad weather. At least two more Saturday make-up days are scheduled, but administrators said the major emphasis in the district is being placed on preparing for the MSIP review.

"School's got to go on," said school board president Dennis Mouser. "We've got a bunch of other things, but (the MSIP review) is the major thing going on right now."

All Missouri schools are reviewed by the Department of Education every five years and are evaluated in three areas -- resources, process and performance. Schools that fail one of the three areas are given provisional approval from the state and must show proof of improvement within one year after the final report. Schools that fail two of the three areas fail the evaluation and lose state accreditation until they are able to demonstrate improvement in all areas they failed.

In an interview days before his surgery, Deardorff said a lack of progress by students on the Missouri Mastery Achievement Test could cause the district to fail the performance part of the review. He was one of 21 superintendents called last year to meet with the Missouri commissioner of education, who told them their schools could fail the review because of their test scores.

"There will be some schools, possibly this one, who will fail the MSIP review," he said in the interview. "MMAT scores the last several years have not made the progress that the state said it should."

Deardorff reported the possible failure to the school board in December, and teachers and faculty began working diligently to ensure the district would pass the other to portions of the review.

Mouser said Evans didn't have an MSIP evaluation while he was in Gideon. Evans spent part of the day Tuesday with several Meadow Heights faculty members at a workshop in Poplar Bluff. The workshop was held to familiarize faculty and administrators with developing a working plan after the review process.

"Time will tell," Mouser said. "We've got our work cut out for us."