REPORT CARDS HELP NEW SCHOOLD CHIEFS (MAKING THE GRADE -- PART FIVE)

District report cards are issued to inform patrons and to guide administrators as they plan for the future.

But for three Scott County school superintendents, the district report card is also an in-depth synopsis of a district they had no association with during the year reviewed.

Chaffee, Kelly and Kelso C-7 schools all have new superintendents who worked in other districts during the 1996-97 school year. Although the administrators received information about their new districts from other administrators and staff, they said their district report cards provided them information about performance in specific areas.

"I wasn't here last year, so I really didn't know any specifics about last year," said Dr. Bob Biggs, superintendent of Chaffee schools.

Superintendents said regardless of whether they were new or returning administrators, the report cards provided them with specific information concerning weak areas that needed improvement as well as surprisingly strong areas.

For example, superintendent Ron White of Kelso C-7 School District said he was surprised by the extremely small number of students eligible for free and reduced lunches. The state average is better than 37 percent, but his district had fewer than 5 percent of the students eligible last year.

"That number was very surprising," he said. "You would have thought that in this area that number would have been much higher, but actually it's only a handful of students."

Superintendent Tom Anderson of Oran schools said what appeared in his report card to be a problem with student dropouts was actually an uncommon year. The dropout rate of 8.98 percent was extremely high last year and far from the norm, he said.

"It's a one-year situation," he said. "Other years our dropout rate is around 2 to 3 percent, but last year we had a large group of kids in grades nine through 12 that dropped out."

Anderson said his report card also revealed a group of elementary school students who performed extremely well on the Missouri Mastery Achievement Test.

The districts all reported similar financial information. With the exception of Kelso C-7, all of the districts depended on state aid for about half of their incoming resources, with another third coming from local and county taxes.

Average teacher and administrator salaries and assessed valuations fell below state norms for five of the six districts. Sikeston schools were the exception, with an average teacher salary topping the state average of $31,843 by $166 and an average administrator salary that exceeded the state average of $56,978 by $301.

Chaffee superintendent Dr. Bob Biggs said although salaries are generally low for the districts when compared to state averages, they were all comparable on a regional level, which is the more important comparison.

"I think everybody would like to see (teacher salaries) higher, but we're competitive regionally, which is almost better than being competitive statewide," he said.

All Missouri public school districts were required by law to produce detailed annual reports that profile the districts' achievements and failures during the previous school year by Dec. 1.

The mandatory report cards include statistical information about finances, staff, salaries, class sizes and dropout rates. Also included is achievement information regarding state and national assessments.

Chaffee, Kelly, Kelso C-7, Oran, Scott City and Sikeston all performed similarly in most financial data included in report cards.