TIMES CHANGE, SCHOOL BUILDINGS DON'T; BOND ISSUE WOULD BUILD FOR THE FUTURE

The year was 1914. Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, igniting World War I. Joyce Kilmer published "Trees." Robert Goddard began experimenting with rockets, the Panama Canal was opened, Walter Hagen won the U.S. Open, and Washington and L.J. Schultz schools were built.

At least some things have changed in the nearly 80 intervening years. Change especially in in technologies and educational philosophies is why supporters say the $25 million school bond issue to be decided at the polls April 6 is absolutely necessary.

"This is a pivotal point in the city when we will decide who we are and what we are," says Cape Girardeau Public Schools Superintendent Neyland Clark.

New bricks and mortar and a middle school concept are key to providing future Cape Girardeau students with a quality education, say Clark and the district's Citizens Advisory Commission on Education. They contend that some of the city's schools are unsafe especially seismically and outdated learning environments.

On the April 6 ballot, Proposition No. 1 allows the school district to issue $25 million in general obligation bonds to finance the construction of a new middle school and elementary school on district-owned property at the northern corners of Bertling and Sprigg streets.

The bonds also would pay for an addition to Jefferson School to include an early childhood development center, and would enable to the school's enrollment to increase to 500.

Passage of the proposition, which represents a 72-cent increase of the school tax levy, requires four-sevenths (about 57 percent) of the vote. The district's levy currently includes no debt service, the last bond issue having been retired in 1989.

If the schools are built they could open by 1995 the district would close the seventh-grade-only L.J. Schultz School, and Washington and May Greene elementary schools. The district contends that May Greene, built in 1921, and the other schools are so antiquated and in such deteriorated states that they no longer can serve the educational needs of students.

Cape Girardeau's elementary schools then would educate grades 1-5, the 1,200-student middle school grades 6-8, and the junior high and high school would be combined into a single high school campus.

Proposition No. 2, which requires a simple majority for passage, allows the district to increase the operating levy by 27 cents from the current 8 cents. The resultant 35-cent building fund levy compares to 42 cents for Jackson.

Proposition No. 2 would increase the district's Building Fund from $200,000 to $750,000 annually, an amount Superintendent Neyland Clark says is more in line with the district's needs.

He says a medium-sized shopping mall spends about $200,000 annually to maintain its roof. "We're at March and our folks have already been told that the budget has been depleted for maintenance for the year..." Clark said.

The higher levy, an additional 27 cents on $100 assessed valuation, would help pay for seismic retrofitting of existing buildings, upgrading of electrical systems, and air conditioning. Currently, only Franklin School and parts of the junior high and high schools are air conditioned.

The total tax increase of 99 cents would bring the school district's operating levy to $3.86 per $100 assessed valuation. The current state average is $3.47.

The owner of a median-priced $58,300 home would pay an additional $109.66 a year in addition to higher personal property taxes.

While it is possible that voters will approve one proposition and not the other, Clark says they are inextricable. "It'll cripple us," he said. "It would be absolutely ridiculous in this community to pass a bond issue and not money to maintain it."

The district has no Plan B if the propositions fail, he says. "We're in a position we can no longer compromise because we've waited so long in terms of doing something with the facility. So the only thing he we can do is come back with a $25 million bond issue," he said.

The recent history of the propositions dates to 1988, when a task force began to study the middle school concept of educating grades 6-8 in small groups with a core group of teachers in the same building.

The middle school movement, widespread across the country, represents a different philosophy from the junior high version of a mini-high school. Usually, the schools consist of grades 6-8 and students are taught in small groups by a core group of teachers.

It is geared to give some stability and special attention to young adolescents, and to make the transition from grade to grade less difficult, says Margaret Theobald, an associate professor in the Department of Secondary Education at Southeast Missouri State University.

"What we have now is kids going to a new building in seventh, a new building in eighth and a new building in tenth."

Cape Girardeau is one of only 14 districts in the state that still educates sixth-graders in elementary schools.

The problem of aging school buildings is not Cape Girardeau's alone. A nationwide survey of school administrators found that one in eight U.S. children attend classes in substandard buildings.

In Missouri, unlike other neighboring states, the state takes no financial responsibility for educational buildings. "People say Gov. Carnahan is going to do it or the state is going to do it," says Larry Dew, the district's business manager.

"But bricks and mortar are a local responsibility in the state of Missouri."

Last June, citizens committees created to devise a five-year strategy for the district agreed that Schultz, Washington and May Greene schools had outlived their usefulness.

The resulting two propositions represent only the first of three stages of improvements the district proposes. The second is a major renovation of Central High School by 1997 or 1998.

This would be accomplished without a tax increase, Clark says, by extending the life of the bonds.

The third stage calls for the construction of a new elementary school in the city's growing northwest end by 1999 or 2000.

No organized opposition to the school bond issue has arisen, but in an atmosphere of proposed new state and national tax increases, the pro-bonds Citizens for Better Schools has been targeting the city's 17,000 voters through a low-key phone bank campaign concentrating on demographic groups.

Support is not unanimous. Steven Wright, who is running for a seat on the Board of Education in the April 6 election, has said he cannot support the bond issue until the schools answer more questions about redistricting.

A vocal opponent has been Fred Withrow, who served as a principal of Washington, May Greene and the old Lorimier school and was principal of the Central Junior High School for 19 years.

He maintains that Washington and May Greene now are in better shape than they were 25 years ago. "An educational program doesn't have to be in a multi-million-dollar building," Withrow says.

Today's first installment of this series about the school bond issue reports the conditions in which children attend classes at Washington, May Greene and L.J. Schultz schools.

Subsequent stories will delve into the middle school concept, the architectural plans for the new schools and how building them might affect Cape Girardeau school districts.

The series also will detail the renovations to existing buildings the bond issue would finance, how various groups in the community view the bond issue, and the question of taxes.