DATE: Friday, September 26, 1997            TAG: 9709250530

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Matthew Bowers

                                            LENGTH:   30 lines

EYES AND EARS - SCHOOLS

SUFFOLK

Pardon our dust - and ear-splitting noise . . . Button affixed to computer in administration office of Old Dominion University's library, which recently had workers breaking up a concrete floor with a jackhammer on the floor below, directly beneath it: ``Be kind - we're under construction.''

Sign with 6-inch letters on third floor of library, where jackhammering was sti School supplies: pencils, paper, alarm clock . . . It was a glum group gathered in Lakeland High School's library this week to discuss options that might become necessary if the crowded school system must continue to pack 10 pounds of students into 5 pounds of school buildings. The Alternative Methods Committee trotted out some of their ideas, such as year-round schools and cutting out early intervention programs for at-risk preschoolers, agreeing with the crowd that there were educational problems with all of them.

Karen Gunter, a parent and teacher, saw a different potential problem with split shifts, where half the students would attend classes early in the morning, and the other half after lunch.

Said Gunter, ``We know that high-school students don't really peak until 11 o'clock in the morning, so . . . .''

For one of the few times that evening, there was laughter.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu