STUDENT REASSIGNMENT NOT NEW, SAYS SUPERINTENDENT

Reassigning students within the Cape Girardeau School District by using a random selection process has been an administrative policy for several years, said Dr. Dan Tallent, superintendent.

However, some principals have chosen not to enforce that policy if their school didn't show the need for lottery drawings, Tallent said.

"Principals were supposed to do it unless, as at Franklin, there was no need to do it," Tallent said.

The district recently received complaints from parents regarding the use of lottery drawings to reassign more than 18 kindergarteners pre-enrolled at Clippard Elementary School. Both Clippard and Franklin schools have registered more kindergarteners than their schools can handle while May Greene, Washington and Jefferson schools had low pre-enrollment for fall.

Although Franklin reassigns students from every grade every year because of the size of the student population and classroom sizes, Tallent said principal Jim Watkins has not chosen to hold a lottery drawing to decide which students were reassigned. Usually, Tallent said, the number of families moving out of the neighborhood offset low pre-enrollment numbers enough that Watkins was able to wait until after the second week of school to reassign students.

However, he said, Clippard's pre-enrollment numbers are always more substantial, which makes the random selection policy necessary.

"Normally, Franklin is not over during pre-enrollment, so (Watkins) is able to bring back all of the students in the first two weeks and determine the number who'll be staying," Tallent said. "Once school starts, then he has a better idea how many students are actually in the district and he transfers them. But Clippard has more significant numbers even before pre-enrollment begins, so it's a little bit different."

During the 1996-97 school year, three of the district's six elementary schools reassigned kindergarten students, which Tallent said is a common practice each year. A total of 33 kindergarteners were reassigned, including 17 students from Clippard school.

The lottery drawing policy was created after pre-enrollment numbers at some schools became so large that parents had difficulties, including getting through early morning registration lines, said Tallent. Parental complaints prompted the board to make the random selection policy, he said, but it was only an administrative policy and not written into the policy manual.

"The board thought it would be a way of giving everyone an equal opportunity," he said. "In cases where the numbers were over when the registration first started, there had to be some way of deciding who stayed and who was reassigned, and this seemed to be the fairest way of doing that."

Although the policy regarding how students are reassigned is administrative and varied by the needs of each school, the district does have a written board policy regarding class size. The district's policy manual, policy IHB, dealing with class size, states the administration will consider several standards when setting class sizes for each grade.

KINDERGARTEN REASSIGNMENTS

Following is the 1996-97 kindergarten reassignment breakdown by school (in the case of Jefferson, transfers were made into the school at the beginning of the year; reassignments were made after that time):

-- Clippard reassigned 17 students. Three were sent to Washington, two to May Greene, one to Jefferson, and 11 to Alma Schrader.

-- Jefferson reassigned six students. All were sent to May Greene.

-- Franklin reassigned 10 students. Nine were sent to May Greene and one to Jefferson.

-- Alma Schrader, Washington and May Greene did not transfer any students during 1996-97.