Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 20, 1992 TAG: 9201200107
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NEAL THOMPSON EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
TOTA MAGNET-SCHOOL PROGRAM FOREVER ALTERS SCHOOL SYSTEM
At one elementary school, children study molecules through $1,000 microscopes. At another, they learn to spell on $1,000 computers.Middle-school pupils star-gaze in a $6,000 planetarium. And at a high school, they learn to fly in a $18,000 flight simulator or in one of two $25,000 planes owned by the school system.
That's Frank Tota's legacy.
When it comes to assessing the impact of Tota's 10 years as Roanoke city superintendent, the talk is of magnet schools.
Some say the program keeps Roanoke from having a school system of mostly poor and black students, similar to Richmond's.
Others say it's a showy waste of money and hasn't worked as well as it should have.
Just as people have strong views about the man who helped create the magnet schools, Roanokers have offered widely varying opinions about the programs since the first two opened in 1987.
Either way, Roanoke's 10 magnet schools are likely to be the most long-lasting reminders of Frank Tota.
Tota's magnet schools have changed Roanoke education forever. Whether the change is viewed as better or worse depends on who you talk to.
Former School Board Chairman Ted Feinour says that when the concept was proposed, he and others visited magnet schools in Kentucky and Mississippi and thought it would be a dream come true to get similar schools in Roanoke. Tota made it happen.
Tota "prevented it from becoming a system like Richmond's, where so many people feel like they have to send their children to private school," Feinour says.
Former School Board member George Harris, on the other hand, says that while rain seeps through the roof at some schools, a big brick sign was built at Addison Middle School announcing it as the city's newest magnet school this fall.
"I can't understand why they built that big thing up in front of Addison when other schools are leaking," says Harris, who is now a General District court judge.
Harris says Tota puts his resume ahead of the students' needs. "Programs, as opposed to kids, build a beautiful resume," he says.
Magnets are a volatile concept that attempts to fight the lingering effects of segregation. Tota loves to see black kids and white kids play together at schools like Round Hill Primary. But he's not so sure everyone in Roanoke feels the same.
"You can tell sometimes from the reasons people give for wanting to change schools," Tota says.
Federally funded magnet programs have become more popular because desegregation has become increasingly difficult, says Alicia Coro of the U.S. Department of Education.
Competition for the money is tight. Roanoke is one of just 64 districts in the country to receive federal funds for its magnet schools.
Tota says that money has made a big difference in the racial makeup of city schools.
Student interest and parental involvement have helped improve performance and limit segregation at schools that had minority populations of 70 percent to 90 percent.
Federal evaluators said two years ago that Roanoke had "only minimally met" its magnet school goals. But Tota says progress has been made each year as word spreads and the programs grow.
Northwest Elementary was 92 percent minority in 1989-90. When it reopened as the magnet Roanoke Academy for Math and Science the next year, it was 83 percent minority. This year, it's 78 percent.
The goal is to match the school population to the racial mix of all city children, which is 60 percent white and 40 percent minority. Highland Park Learning Center, a magnet school, has achieved that the past three years.
Tota brought the magnet concept from Rochester, N.Y., where he helped start a program in the late 1970s to prevent white flight.
Former Rochester School Board member Frank Ciaccia says there were mixed reactions and plenty of opposition to magnet schools. "I think in some parts of the community, they were leery of it because they thought they'd become elitist schools and cater to white students."
But they worked . . . for a while.
The magnet program was a prototype. It has since been tinkered with by the Rochester School Board, and some of the commitment to the program has waned.
"We just feel here they've lost their effectiveness," Ciaccia says.
Magnets began getting federal funds in 1985 as an alternative to busing. Today, more than $110 million is spent nationally each year on magnets.
Roanoke began getting some of that money in 1987, when programs opened at William Fleming High School and Ruffner Junior High School. Two more opened this year and another will open next year, to give Roanoke 29 programs in 10 schools.
Tota says there were different reasons for starting magnets in Roanoke - more preventive than reactionary. In Rochester, segregation was so far gone there was nothing else to do. In Roanoke, the problem had not reached that point, but could have without magnets, he says.
Some argue that the success of the schools is limited and doesn't warrant the expense.
Former acting Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent Walter Hunt says magnets were supposed to revitalize the school system. "I'm not sure the magnet schools have done that," he says. "Too much moving students is expensive, and that money could have been better spent."
Tota's rebuttal: Roanoke wouldn't have gotten that money otherwise.
Since 1987, Roanoke has received more than$10 million in federal grant funds.
Addison Aerospace Science Magnet Middle School will get $330,000 in equipment and supplies and to convert an old field house into a mock space station and space shuttle - "stuff we could never afford with local money," says Mike Stewart, who helped write the grant proposal.
Roanoke has received $1 million-plus magnet grants each of the past five years. Only seven school districts across the country have received three consecutive grants.
At a time when other people prefer not to talk about it, "Frank is constantly talking about integrating the schools," former School Board member Velma Seif says.
That's the whole point of the magnet schools, she says.
"He's done some things that really have been unheard of."