Student participation in move a positive step

Central High School students are going to help head 'em up and move 'em out May 23 and 24, taking all the books, desks, chairs and anything else they can carry over to their new building.

Relocating to a new school, plus closing another -- L.J. Schultz School -- and reconfiguring grades five through 12 is a mammoth task. On the practical side, the district needs as many warm bodies as possible to make it happen.

But there's a mental side as well.

If the students who will occupy the new Central High School next year help move their supplies and equipment into it, they will feel a sense of ownership. It is almost the same as letting a young person take his or her belongings into a new room of a family home. That helps form an attachment.

Of course, the move can be made even more pleasant if the community helps by donating some of the items that had to be eliminating from the new Central High construction budget. The Cape Girardeau Public Schools Foundation is trying to raise $600,000 for those items.

To make donations of any amount, contact Rich Payne at 334-3358 or send checks payable to the foundation to Cape Girardeau Public School Foundation, P.O. Box 399, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0399.