REDISTRICTING PANEL PART OF SCHOOL LEGACY

Committee members looking at redrawing Cape Girardeau's elementary school attendance areas hope their efforts won't encounter the same fate as past attempts to bolster the district.

Those attempts also involved citizen committees that led to three failed ballot initiatives. The various proposals have garnered support and resistance from patrons, but no changed have been made.

Efforts date back to at least 1988, when a committee of parents and teachers began considering a middle school for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students.

In May 1989, the committee recommended the school board pursue a three-grade middle school. But many Cape Girardeau parents thought sixth-graders were too young to be away from neighborhood elementary schools.

In 1991, the school board hired Dr. Neyland Clark, a proponent of the middle school concept, to replace Dr. Arthur Turner as superintendent. But when Clark arrived, he said the community needed to support the idea, before the district could proceed with a middle school.

In July 1991, the school board retreated to Paducah, Ky., where it decided to pursue contruction of a middle school. Board members also voiced their support for a new elementary school, installation of air-conditioning in the district's buildings, an upgrade of athletic facilities, and retrofit of buildings for earthquake resistance.

When the board and superintendent returned home, they established Project Partnership, which involved various committees made up of residents and business leaders, who examined the district's finances, buildings and educational programs.

The facilities committee said the district needed a middle school, an elementary school, more money for building maintenance and a land-acquisition plan.

The finance committee suggested putting an elementary school on the ballot alone, and expressed concerns that the elementary school project would be tainted by parental concerns about a middle school.

In April 1993, two ballot issues were put to voters, a 72-cent tax increase to service bond debts and a 27-cent increase to fund maintenance and improvements.

The 99-cent tax increase would have financed a new middle school, a new elementary school, an addition to Jefferson Elementary School, and earthquake resistance, air conditioning and electrical improvements in other district buildings.

The district planned to close Washington and May Greene schools if the bond issue passed.

Some patrons said the project was too large, the planned buildings too extravagant and the tax increase too high.

Others complained about a St. Louis public relations firm hired to manage the campaign.

The ballot issues failed.

The school board regrouped and placed a second measure on the ballot in October 1993.

The proposed 51-cent tax increase would have paid for a new middle school and an addition to Jefferson Elementary School.

The tax increase would would have financed a lease-purchase plan for the building projects, and at that time, would have generated additional state money from a provision of Senate Bill 380. The legislature has since eliminated the provision.

But voters again said no. Some parents still objected to the middle school idea. Others questioned the lease-purchase plan.

Following the second defeat, Cape Girardeau's Board of Education called for public input on a variety of plans that could move the district toward a middle school. Three public meetings drew large crowds.

One proposal would have changed May Greene from an elementary school to a sixth-grade center. Students in grades kindergarten through five from the May Greene district would have a choice of which of the other elementary schools to attend. Patrons attending public meetings rejected the idea.

School district administrators said May Greene Elementary School, with a minority enrollment of 64 percent, violates federal civil rights regulations.

In November 1993, Clark asked Charles Rankin, director of the Midwest Desegregation Assistance Center, for help with the May Greene situation.

It was Rankin's opinion that May Greene school, because of its racial composition, violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees due process of all citizens.

Working with information solicited from the public meetings, the school board put a third issue on the ballot in June.

The school district asked voters to waive the property-tax rollback provided by Proposition C, the state sales tax for education.

The waiver would have added 37 cents for each $100 of assessed valuation. If voters had restored the rate to the pre-Proposition C level, it would have been $3.24. The measure required a simple majority to pass, and the money was to be used for maintenance and building repairs.

At the time it was announced, the rollback was to be the first part of a two-step plan. The school board planned to come back to voters in November and ask for another tax increase to build an elementary school.

The rollback issue was defeated and the board abandoned the November plan.

The Proposition C issue was clouded when days before the election then Central High School Principal Dan Milligan walked out of school in protest of a decision by Superintendent Neyland Clark to allow seniors who didn't meet graduation requirements to participate in the commencement ceremony.

Many patrons felt Clark's decision was ill-advised and poorly timed and that it affected the election's outcome.

After the vote a committee of district patrons asked the school board not to renew Clark's contract. The board did renew the contract.

Now the board has established a redistricting committee to look at redrawing boundary lines for the elementary schools in hopes that overcrowding can be alleviated in some north- and west-side schools, and enrollment in all the elementary schools might be better balanced racially.