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

DATE: FRIDAY, May 28, 1993                   TAG: 9305280325
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STUDENTS SEND GRIPES TO TOP

And they need to stop putting them down.

"They pick at kids," Breckinridge eighth-grader Jessica Entsminger told Assistant Superintendent for Administration William Hackley.

Entsminger remembered a teacher who made a disparaging remark to a student, then threw him against a locker when he spoke back. She blames teachers like that for the city's rising dropout rate.

Hackley listened to her concerns - and those of seven other middle and high school students - for an hour. The meeting was one of 14 requested by incoming Superintendent E. Wayne Harris, who asked his new administration to meet with all segments of the community to help set priorities for the city's schools.

Hackley will write a summary of the students' concerns and deliver it to Harris, who takes office July 1. Harris will take their concerns to a July 7 School Board planning session, at which the board will set its priorities for the next three years.

Hackley told the students to be frank - and they were.

"It doesn't hurt our feelings when they talk about teachers being unkind," he said. "We know it happens."

But those teachers are the exception, not the rule, Hackley said.

He said the administration may need to hold seminars to train some teachers to be more sensitive when speaking to students.

"You can't change attitudes," he said. `'You can change behavior. We have to model the behavior we want our students to do."

The students also told Hackley:

That longer classes would help teachers and students develop better relationships and get more work done.

That students who aren't going to college need more work-oriented programs.

That birth control and substance abuse are issues which need to be discussed as early as middle school.

That ninth-graders feel intimidated and left out of the high schools and need more programs to help them mix with other students.

Hackley said Superintendent Frank Tota, who greeted the students at the beginning of the meeting, routinely held informal talks with students each year to see how they were doing.

This is the first time the students' comments will be forwarded to the School Board.

\ DROPOUT RATES\ IN ROANOKE PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS WHO DROPPED OUT, GRADES NINE-12\ \ 1989/90: 8 percent.\ 1990/91: 5 percent.\ 1991/92: 9 percent.\ \ DROPOUT RATES OF MINORITIES\ \ 1989/90: 1 percent.\ 1990/91: 4 percent.\ 1991/92: 10 percent.\ \ STATE DROPOUT RATES:\ Overall 5 percent\ Minority: 6 percent.\