The final bell for students at St. Louis Public Schools will ring on May 30, and the start of the 2008-’09 school year no doubt seems to lie far beyond the horizon of a long summer vacation.

Not so, however, for the three appointed members of the special administrative board that has run the district under state authorization since last June. What they do — or fail to do — over the summer and in the coming 12 months could make or break the district.

Rick Sullivan, former CEO of a home-building company; Melanie Adams, director of programs for the Missouri Historical Society; and Richard Gaines, a partner in a regional insurance brokerage, were appointed after the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education yanked the district’s accreditation. That came on top of years of poor student achievement and a particularly chaotic period of governance by elected boards.

Right now, the district is putting the finishing touches on programs and services needed to get classes started in good order on August 16 — a back-to-school fair, registration procedures, bus routes, books and supplies. But as important as such details always are, larger forces and events loom over the district’s future.

The SLPS is hemorrhaging students. Yes, schools in its magnet program are in high demand, but for better and worse, the years of disappointment have begun pushing a growing share of outside resources, energy and opportunities away from traditional public schools and toward such alternatives as charter schools and dynamic parochial programs.

The SAB faces a difficult and delicate challenge, to put it mildly: To have a forceful and significant impact on the future of the schools, it must continue listening to truly concerned members of the St. Louis community and earning their support. But it also must find ways to inspire the community — quickly — with a belief in the potential for genuine progress by articulating what we could call a big vision: the kinds of things the St. Louis Public Schools might do to transform itself into the community asset our children desperately need and deserve.

The SAB, responsibly and methodically, has been working on a strategic plan and holding a series of public forums to hear ideas and concerns and demonstrate its openness and accessibility. But it has to try to excite the public imagination while this process is underway.

One local advocate for at-risk children, for example, recently put together and circulated to business and social-services leaders a short list of things that could have a drastic and immediate impact on the future of its children. They include:

• Supercharge parental involvement through persistent, intensive, even intrusive efforts that begin the moment parents have children in the district.

• Provide pre-kindergarten education beginning at age 3 to all children in the district.

• Devote significant resources to high-quality after-school programs, staffed by caring adults, that provide a safe place for kids to develop academic, employment and life skills.

• Weed out weak teachers and use financial incentives and professional development to recruit and retain those who are the most capable and highly motivated.

• Require every school principal to develop a three-year plan with specific goals for student achievement, discipline, faculty performance, technology initiatives and budget discipline. Assess progress and make the results public every year — and make it clear that the principals’ jobs depend on meeting the goals they have set for themselves.

State law empowers the administrative board to think big. Its members have the express authority — and an unprecedented opportunity — to remake the way the St. Louis Public Schools district is organized and governed. They owe the children, parents, residents and business people of the community and the teachers and staff of the district a glimpse of their vision of the possibilities, and they must present it as soon as possible.

Getting it ready could take all summer.

(Photo: J.B. Forbes|Post-Dispatch. In August 2007 St. Louis Barber Mary Hennings gives a haircut to Alphonzo Hall, 13, during the St. Louis Public Schools Back to School Fair. Every year the fair offers free haircuts at the fair.)