JACKSON SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS CITE NEED FOR HELP

JACKSON -- Dr. Howard Jones goes to work as Jackson Public School's superintendent around 7 or 7:30 a.m. His nights are spent going to school functions or on work brought home.

He even talks about school in his sleep.

"My wife thinks she's going to get some juicy tidbit," Jones said. "But apparently I only say things like, `We need to change that policy.'"

It sounds like an exaggeration, maybe even a joke, until one discovers that Jones isn't the only one working long hours. District business manager Stan Smee just began taking weekends off this month. And assistant superintendent Fred Jones was typing his own curriculum guides until a few weeks ago.

The onset of the Missouri School Improvement Review, coming in January 1997, has Jones thinking about the lack of school administrators and support staff. Even with most people in the board office working overtime, there are things not getting done, he said.

Some of those things may reflect poorly on Jackson schools during the review.

"I don't take great pride in having a small staff when I don't feel I'm doing a good job," Jones said. "We don't even have time to correspond with the people who send us resumes."

There are several reasons for the work overload.

First, according to Smee, is the district's tax base. It covers a large geographic area, but has an assessed valuation of $153 million. In relation, Cape Girardeau School District is assessed at $293 million. But both have approximately the same number of students to educate -- Jackson has around 4,010 and Cape around 4,400.

While the Jackson district receives more state money, its total amount of estimated receipts on the 1995-96 budget comes to $15.7 million, compared to Cape district's $22.1.

Another issue is office space. A high school student working part-time in the office recently did some of her work in the furnace room because she didn't have room anywhere else, Jones said. The Jackson Board of Education meets at the middle school library these days. They used to have a boardroom, but it was vacated so the district could hire another secretary.

There have been some recent improvements in the administration and office support area.

Just last year, two principals -- Joe Crain and Smee -- oversaw seven elementary buildings with 2,000 students. The Missouri School Improvement Program's minimum standard for principals is one for every 300 students.

But Jackson had some outlying buildings with fewer than 300 students -- the Burfordville, Gordonville, Millersville and North attendance centers. They didn't merit having full-time principals and used head teachers instead.

This year, the Burfordville center closed and the middle school opened, relieving the elementary schools of about 300 sixth-graders. Smee became business manager, but the district hired two other principals: Rose Tallent, who works from the Primary Annex and covers North and Gordonville, and Rita Fisher, who works from West Lane and covers Millersville. Joe Crain remains at Orchard.

The result is three principals for about 1,700 elementary students -- still not the recommendation, but better.

Jones also hired a secretary, bringing the total to four, including the two bookkeepers in the business office. By comparison, Cape Girardeau Public Schools have six secretaries to do clerical work, a receptionist and three assistants in the business office.

Potential improvements in Jackson include relieving the athletic director, Kevin Bohnert, of the two social studies classes he's teaching. Jones also would like his supervisor of special education, Don Norman, to stop spending a quarter of his time as a counselor at the Primary Annex.

But at the top of the superintendent's wish list is a specialist in educational technology to take Jackson schools into the next century.

"Our students come out with as good an education as you can get in the traditional sense, but that's not enough for the 21st century," he said. "I'd like to help with technology, but I'm worried about finding a 24-by-30-foot room to put first grade kids in next year."

Another item on Jones' wish list is a grant specialist who would go after money for the district. Right now, the assistant superintendent handles all the grants.

Having a full-time grant person is a common wish, said Dr. Richard Bollwerk, assistant superintendent at Cape schools. There, everyone does the grants for his own department.

"We've always talked about the fact that we could use someone to coordinate grants and other funding programs," Bollwerk said. "Many districts hire people to do that, and their salaries are paid out of the `indirect costs' section of the grants they receive.

"Other than that, our district is in pretty good shape."

Jones said that, while money for extra administrators eventually will come through if Jackson acts frugally, his biggest concern right now is teachers.

"If I really had an open checkbook, I'd probably start with reducing the teacher-pupil ratio," he said. "Some of the classes on the secondary level have over 30."