Nell Holcomb district voters to weigh Proposition Hawks on April ballot

Cape Girardeau County voters will soon have the chance to vote on an operating levy increasing the Nell Holcomb School District’s tax rate by 47 cents to $4.07.

The levy will appear on the April 7 ballot for voters within the school district and could help meet some of the school’s immediate needs, including improvements to student safety, the purchase of two new buses, improvements to mathematics and science curriculum, updated technology and retaining small class sizes, according to the district.

Nell Holcomb, which has about 260 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, has the lowest tax rate of any school in Cape Girardeau County. Should the proposed 47-cent increase be approved, Nell Holcomb would still have a lower tax rate than its closest neighbor, the Cape Girardeau School District, which has a $4.15 levy.

The district will host two upcoming town hall meetings for parents, voters and community members to learn more about Proposition Hawks. The first meeting will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday and the second will be at 7 p.m. April 2. Both meetings will be held in the school cafeteria at 6547 Highway 177 in Cape Girardeau.

“We encourage everyone to attend one of these meetings in order to get the facts surrounding Proposition Hawks,” district superintendent Bleau Deckerd said.

Nell Holcomb is seen Wednesday in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

Immediate needs

The No. 1 priority for the district is to improve safety, which starts by maintaining a full-time school resource officer (SRO), Deckerd said. In 2018, the school board decided to bring a SRO on full time, he said, noting Cpl. Heather VanGennip is a commissioned officer through the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Department.

“Based on our research, in the case of an emergency, there would be a minimum 25-minute response time for law enforcement,” Deckerd said. “In the case of an emergency, where every second counts, that is unacceptable.”

Other safety improvements, according to a Proposition Hawks flyer, would include additional security cameras, updating door locks and entrances, installing panic devices and additional training for teachers and staff.

Should Proposition Hawks be passed, Nell Holcomb would immediately purchase two to three new school buses and begin the process to roll over its entire fleet within five years.

The district’s buses cover between 400 and 500 miles each day across six routes, Deckerd said. This year alone, Deckerd said the district’s buses have experienced around 10 to 12 breakdowns, forcing combined routes with longer bus rides for students.

Asked why the district doesn’t use a contracted transportation service, such as the Cape Girardeau schools’ Robinson Transport fleet, Deckerd pointed to “tremendous savings” for districts willing to run their own fleets.

Before he was superintendent for Nell Holcomb, Deckerd spent eight years as superintendent for Altenburg schools and three as the associate superintendent of business operations for Jackson schools. In those roles, he worked closely with transportation and conducted analyses that found savings of 40% to 50% for districts that maintained their own school bus fleet, he said.

With an increased levy, the district would be able to put additional money toward textbooks, instructional materials and professional development for mathematics and science, Deckerd said. It would also update technology in all grade levels and classrooms, especially for middle school students who are preparing to enter high school.

The most important benefit Nell Holcomb provides parents, Deckerd said, is its small class sizes, which he noted is the No. 1 factor for student success at school.

“The more our teachers can work with each student, the better,” he said.

Small class sizes offer opportunities for individualized instruction, collaborative learning, group projects, hands-on learning and experiments, Deckerd said. It also means more time spent teaching and less spent on classroom management and discipline.

“This is something parents and community members want to see continued into the future,” he said.

Financial strain

The school has been plagued with financial issues since 2011, Deckerd said. Back then, the district had about 46% reserves for fund balances, which is “really where a district our size needs to be,” he said. In July, Nell Holcomb finished the fiscal year with 8% reserves.

A few factors played into the financial troubles, including a new gymnasium, which was deemed necessary after a safety audit concluded the old gymnasium was structurally unsafe, Deckerd said.

“This was around a $700,000 hit to the district,” he said.

The district took another hit when, thanks to self-funded insurance, it “ran into a bit of bad luck healthwise,” Deckerd said, and over an eight-year span, the district lost around $750,000.

“The good news is that we have been able to get into a consortium with several other districts across the state,” Deckerd said, “so we have corrected that and now have protection from a group.”

Contributing to the financial strain is a recurring cost that has increased for the district over the last 20 years: tuition for Cape Girardeau and Jackson schools. Because Nell Holcomb is a kindergarten through eighth-grade district, it is responsible for high school tuition at receiving schools, Deckerd said. This year, Nell Holcomb will pay out more than $670,000 in high school tuition, according to a Proposition Hawks flyer.

“Tuition has ballooned out of control over the past 10 years,” Deckerd said, noting the district used to pay around $4,000 per student for tuition to both districts. “Currently, Jackson’s tuition is $8,762 and Cape is at $9,000.”

Currently, the district is sending 75 students to Cape Girardeau and Jackson high schools, according to Deckerd.

And while tuition costs have been on the rise, Deckerd said state and federal funding have fallen.

“Transportation funding from the state is supposed to be at 100%,” he said. “Last year, our transportation funding was at 23%.”

Special education funding from the federal government should come in around 45%, Deckerd said. In 2019, the district received 25% funding, and Deckerd said the amount has dipped as low as 11% in past years.

“The requirements and mandates are still there, but the revenue is not,” he said.

Should Proposition Hawks not be approved by voters and Nell Holcomb’s financial decline continue, Deckerd said consolidation with neighboring districts could be a “real issue on the table.” For now, that’s not part of the conversation, Deckerd said.

“We want to stress to district voters that the increase with Proposition Hawks is still less than they would pay if it came down to merging with our neighboring district,” he said.

For more information about Proposition Hawks, attend one of the upcoming town hall meetings, visit www.nellholcomb.k12.mo.us or call Deckerd at (573) 334-3644.