Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 16, 1990 TAG: 9003162381
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARGARET CAMLIN NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Instead, money for the school must come out of a local school board's operating budget. The matter was decided in a unanimous vote by eight governing board members. The board also agreed that all applications to the school must be channeled through local school boards.
"Gifted and talented programs are often accused of being elitist," said James Hassall, a Montgomery County School Board member who chairs the governing board. "I'm afraid if the perception were to get out that people can buy in, regardless of the position of the school board, this would reinforce the elitist perception."
The decision applies to Montgomery County and Radford, two school systems that were invited to participate but decided not to send students to the school this year.
Montgomery County and Radford parents have inquired about paying the tuition themselves, according to Joy Colbert, a key organizer of the governor's school who is head of gifted programs in Pulaski County.
"I think you're going to keep some children out because their parents can't afford it, and that's just not right," said Susan Goforth, a Wythe County School Board member on the governing board, before the vote.
Neither parents nor companies should be allowed to donate money for the tuition to their local school boards, argued Douglas Phillips, a Floyd County School Board member. Others said this would be impossible to enforce.
The governing board may never know if parents are actually paying the tuition by making a donation to their school board, said Ronald Whitehead, Giles County School Board member on the board. Nevertheless, the policy "shows that we have good intentions," he said.
Colbert said parents should be encouraged to ask their school boards to pay for at least part of the tuition since school systems receive from the state a certain amount of money per pupil as well as extra funds for gifted programs.
The governing board also agreed to give Montgomery County and Radford another opportunity to send students to the school if the seven participating divisions don't fill up all available seats by May 15.
So far, Pulaski, Bland, Carroll, Floyd, Giles and Wythe counties and Galax are sending 39 students to the school. It will accommodate up to 55 students the first year, and about 96 every year after that, Colbert said. Sixteen seats still are available for the first year.
But none of these may be available for students from Montgomery County and Radford, Whitehead said.
"This is a risk we run by not participating," said Radford School Board member Guy Gentry, who took board member John McPhail's place on the governing board.
"It tears me up," said Hassall for the Montgomery County School Board, "that we may have shot ourselves in the foot - shot our students in the foot - by not providing them with the opportunity."
The seven participating school systems will select their students by the end of April, and the prospective students will visit Lynchburg's Central Virginia Magnet School for Science and Technology in early May.
by CNB