Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 17, 1993 TAG: 9304170049
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
MATH AND SCIENCE ELEMENTARY PLANNED
Dublin Elementary School will be the site of a Pulaski County math, science and technology demonstration school opening in September 1994.It will serve children from low-income backgrounds, minority groups or who are otherwise identified as facing educational disadvantages.
The idea of the demonstration school is to see if early intervention leads disadvantaged pupils into advanced math and science courses and encourages more to pursue higher education.
Plans for the school will be made during the 1993-94 academic year and a coordinator and staff will be chosen.
"It will be a school within a school," Superintendent William Asbury told the School Board Thursday night. "I think people need to see what a prototype of the future looks like, what a classroom of the future looks like."
The demonstration school will be a testing ground for educational concepts based on the latest research, he said.
The school division could not afford to convert entirely to such concepts, Asbury said, but it can be tried at one school and what works can be expanded to the others.
Space for such a project has become less of a problem as Pulaski County copes with decreasing enrollment. Asbury is hoping the state will want to put some money into it.
"We think it's a plus, being located in Southwest Virginia. The state needs a real good success story out here," he said. "It wouldn't hurt the state at all to invest in something in Southwest Virginia."
The reasons for the choice include: an astronomical observatory, the Southwest Virginia Governor's School and New River Community College being in the Dublin area, and Virginia Tech and Radford University nearby.
"Radford University is very interested in the project and is a partner in the project," Asbury said. He said Governor's School students would serve as role models for the demonstration school pupils.
As now envisioned, the school would serve 100 children from kindergarten to grade six. It would have six classrooms, a science laboratory and a computer laboratory and several technology stations. There probably would be five teachers, one coordinator, five lab assistance and resource consultants.