
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990                   TAG: 9005110054
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Jack Chamberlain
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THAT ICE CREAM RULING'S A STICKY ONE, JIM

Oh, my, Jim Burns. We were so impressed - still are! - with your progressive ideas about academics for Pulaski County schools. And we were impressed with your initiative in getting some of them started - computer instruction, the regional magnet school, higher standards for high school graduation.

Hey, nobody got mad about those, far's we could tell. Sounds like you're doing good work over there. We just hope you hang around long enough to see it through and not run off to another job in Georgia with three years to go on your contract.

So, you stepped on a few Pulaski County toes, ruffled a few feathers.

Didn't they tell you down there in Vero Beach, Fla., never, never to hint that academics just might be more important, in the grand scheme of life, than Cougar football?

Didn't they tell you never to hint that school Nativity scenes at Christmas could be a constitutional problem?

You were new in town, so this was understandable. But how could you let this stupid ice cream thing happen?

I mean, you've got some parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles really upset - and rightly so - because a couple of your principals refused to allow ice cream sales to kids whose parents haven't paid for their textbooks.

Teaching them responsibility, the principals said.

Really, now.

If anyone needs lessons in responsibility, it's school administrators who punish children for the sins of their parents.

What's next? Keeping Mom after school when her kid's bad?

If anyone needs understanding and empathy, it's single parents who are scrimping along on welfare and minimum-wage jobs, and their children who had to watch other kids eat ice cream.

So, maybe some parents can't afford $21 for books, but they can come up with 40 cents once in a while so their kid can have an ice cream.

Maybe some of these parents were the cause of some of their own financial problems. Not enough skills. Too many children. But they also are the products of their own families, our society and their schools.

Are their children headed for similar fates?

Jim Burns, you're one of the movers and shakers among the Southwest Virginia school superintendents badgering the state to do something about the disparities between the haves and have-nots among Virginia's school systems.

Talk about disparities.

What could be sadder than little kids without ice cream watching kids with ice cream?

Isn't that something like how Southwest Virginia school officials feel when they peer through the fiscal fence at the riches of Northern Virginia and Tidewater schools?

In some school systems, children who get free or reduced-priced lunches also get free books. Isn't that something like what you want the state to do for Pulaski and other poor school systems?

Can't the same be said for ice cream snacks at school?

So, where's the PTAs when you need them? Can't they help buy ice cream for the have-nots?

When we were kids, how many times did a teacher tell a gum-chewing classmate: Did you bring enough for everyone? If not, get rid of it.

Maybe the same goes for ice cream at school. This is a problem that won't melt away.

by CNB