HAROLD HAGER IS LOGICAL CHOICE FOR SCHOOL BOARD

The surprises from the Cape Girardeau school board keep coming. Less than a week after voters elected two new board members, John Campbell resigned from the board. This is another bump in what has been a rocky road for the school board for the past year, starting with the unpopular decision last May to allow students to participate in commencement who hadn't completed all the graduation requirements.

There had been hope prior to Tuesday's election that the board could make an effort, with two new board members, to put the past behind it and look for constructive ways to move the district forward. Now there will be three new board members, one of whom will be appointed rather than elected.

The road to making a decision on replacing Campbell is fraught with potholes. For example, some concerned district voters may be wondering if the existing board might try to choose someone who is aligned with the current board majority. The existing board's last meeting is Monday, and it will conduct business before the new board members are sworn in.

There is a choice for the appointment that is so patently obvious that it will be difficult to understand if the board makes any other decision. In Tuesday's election there were four candidates. Two of them were elected because they got the most votes. The No. 3 vote-getter was candidate Harold Hager. It is only logical that he should be appointed to the new vacancy left by Campbell.

This choice would represent the will of the people who voted in Tuesday's election. Hager expressed a desire to make a contribution to the district by seeking election. The voters have had a say in the matter. Hager is someone the voters know already and whose qualifications are familiar and up-to-date.

To make any other choice would very likely be seen as another act of arrogance in a community that already feels it has been kicked in the shins by the outgoing board majority that extended Superintendent Neyland Clark's contract -- and then tried to keep the decision a secret for three days.

The contract extension was just the latest of the yearlong board oddities. In addition to the graduation decision, the board began a process of redistricting attendance areas for schools. The effort looked more like a ploy to put another bond issue on the ballot. Then sloppy records regarding district expenses, particularly travel expenses, was exposed. This has led to major changes in the way the district handles its accounting procedures, and a district credit-card account has been closed to prevent further abuses. Another glitch came shortly before the election when Ed Thompson, the current board president, withdrew as a candidate for re-election.

District voters and taxpayers would be justifiably outraged if the current board decided to replace Campbell with Thompson or Lyle Davis, another board member whose term expires Tuesday and who chose not to run again.

There are significant issues facing the school district. Among them is the graduation policy for Cape Girardeau Central High School. With about a month to go before this year's commencement, the board has yet to take any formal action on recommendations being developed by a committee at the school. And the issue of redistricting has acquired some fresh twists. Should the process continue without some direction from the new board?

What the school board -- new or old -- does in the next few days will be crucial to the community's ability to have renewed confidence that the policies and administration of public education in Cape Girardeau is in good hands.