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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991                   TAG: 9103130264
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                LENGTH: Medium

GIFTED SCHOOL NOW BEING RUN BY COMMITTEE

"When things are going as well as they're going now, why bother them?" Susan Goforth, board chairwoman, told a reporter after the meeting.

The school has 36 students from Pulaski, Floyd, Giles, Wythe, Bland and Carroll counties and the city of Galax.

Michael Bentley, the school's director since it started last fall, submitted his resignation after last week's board meeting.

It was effective June 30, but the board granted him an immediate leave of absence to complete a textbook for science teachers that he and a colleague are working on.

Goforth said oversight will be provided by Galax School Superintendent James Stuart and Pulaski County School Superintendent William Asbury, in conjunction with Joy Colbert, secondary supervisor and coordinator of the gifted and talented program for Pulaski County schools.

Colbert, who helped get the school established last year, has been given time off from her Pulaski County duties to teach Bentley's science classes at the Governor's School and to help with the day-to-day management.

Carolyn Linkous is still the assistant director. The board accepted another resignation Tuesday, this one from part-time teacher Chris Parker, who is leaving the area for a job elsewhere.

The board had spent last week's meeting mostly in closed session, and continued that meeting to Tuesday to finish the agenda items it had not covered.

The items included Bentley's report on a recommended grading policy for the regional magnet school, consideration of a student field trip to Chicago and an overnight field trip to Virginia Military Institute.

The board postponed consideration of the first two items until its April 2 meeting, and voted not to approve the VMI trip because no school staff members would be available to go along and students, therefore, would not be covered by insurance.

Harry W. Groot, a representative of Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology, told Goforth after the meeting that he was "a little irritated" at spending time getting the VMI trip lined up and then having it dropped.

"You need to be irritated with Mike, because this board didn't know anything about it," Goforth said. "We can't approve the trip because we already had a policy on that . . . and I hate it, you know. We hate it."