SCHOOL SEEKS HELP MAKING A PAYMENT

MARQUAND - At the direction of his school board, Marquand-Zion R-VI Superintendent Gerald L. Deardorff has sent a $31,237 bill to Gov. John Ashcroft for expenses incurred in asbestos removal.

Deardorff asked that the state reimburse the district.

The superintendent noted that as part of the federal court-ordered desegregation plan in Kansas City, the governor had ordered $9 million be diverted to the removal of asbestos in those schools. Deardorff said those funds were being withheld from the foundation formula for public schools.

"The Marquand-Zion Board of Education reasons that the problem of asbestos in schools is a national and statewide problem, and does not have anything to do with unequal education or equal education denied in the past or present, to minority students," said the letter, dated Dec. 10.

"The payment to the Kansas City schools for the removal of asbestos containing materials can be legal only if the same payments are made to every public school in Missouri, in the amounts spent by each school, for this purpose."

Attached is an itemized bill outlining 12 specific payments the school district had made for asbestos removal from its buildings.

The letter contended the fact a federal judge ordered the payment "has no bearing on the legal right of the public schools of Missouri to receive appropriate reimbursement for removal of (asbestos) from their schools."

Deardorff could not be reached Saturday for further comment on the letter.