Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993 TAG: 9307180057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE LENGTH: Long
It will have only 10 when students return to classes in the fall.
That's probably the biggest example of downsizing in the state this summer. But with rural school systems in Virginia facing shrinking budgets and rising costs, it's not the first - and it won't be the last.
Neighboring Pulaski County, for example, closed Jefferson, its oldest elementary school, in June.
Jefferson had been around for 69 years. Its pupils will be redistributed among three other schools in the fall under a detailed plan worked out by school officials with input from parents.
But Jefferson was one school, and there was time to work out any problems rising from the change. In Carroll, the announcement this summer that one intermediate and five elementary schools would close shocked all communities involved and has generated anger in many of them.
That anger spilled out earlier this month when county and school officials tried to explain the move to hundreds of parents at an outdoor meeting.
"We believe very strongly that we can do more for our children with the available funds organized in this fashion," said Superintendent Oliver McBride.
He and others were heckled and shouted down when they tried to speak.
"One of these days, we're gonna find a way to get rid of you," Gary Dean Suiter of Cana shouted at County Administrator Billy Mitchell, one of the speakers.
"We moved into this area primarily for the school system," Suiter said later. His family had moved from Fairfax County seeking classes small enough for students to receive ample individual attention from teachers. His two children have been on the honor roll at one of the elementary schools slated for closing.
"So the school system is important to us," he said.
The Carroll County School Board approved the closing plan June 29 after the Board of Supervisors increased local funding for next year by $82,000 instead of the $1 million requested to cover losses in state and federal funding.
Although some have complained that the local support is not enough, it is $112,000 more than the locality is required to provide next year under state Standards of Quality mandates.
The schools being closed had between 44 and 80 students at the end of the 1992-93 year - 373 of the system's 4,039 students.
"In the situation that we faced, I believed it was the right thing to do," School Board member Hurley Vernon said. The crowd called for his resignation.
School officials say it could mean a stronger program: a single principal for each remaining school instead of shared principals, the possible elimination of grade-combination classes, adding art and physical education for all students in kindergarten through fifth grade, and more advanced technology for instruction systemwide.
People in the communities where the schools will close disagree. They are investigating legal action to keep the schools open.
It could have been worse. A Virginia Department of Education study team recommended last spring that Carroll close 12 of its 16 schools by mid-1997 and revamp grades and buildings.
"The issue of school consolidation has been around for a while, and some school districts have bit the bullet sooner, and some later," said Jim Foudriat of the Department of Education's public relations office in Richmond.
The state has encouraged the idea.
A locality could borrow an additional $1 million from the state's low-interest Literary Fund for school construction when the construction is made necessary by the closing of two or more schools.
"That is a moot issue, simply because the Literary Fund has not been available for school loans for quite a few years," Foudriat said. "But it's on the books; it's there . . . In normal times, it would be an incentive."
A better incentive is language in the current appropriations act that offers school systems an unchanged level of funding for five years after consolidation.
Previously, Foudriat said, state financing worked against consolidation. "If they close schools, they lose state funding." Now, he said, "not only do they not lose money, but any savings based on consolidation become gains."
Many school divisions west of Pulaski and Carroll counties face the same problem: many small schools serving a dwindling student population. Since state money is based on the number of students, funding also has declined.
In Pulaski County, the School Board and Board of Supervisors have formed a joint commission to study their remaining buildings and see how they can best be used as the system continues to lose about 100 students a year.
The commission's next meeting is Aug. 10. It's expected to name representatives to a countywide task force to consider such factors as enrollment losses, available money and how downsizing can best be accomplished.
Some of the school divisions east of Pulaski and Carroll face a different problem: how to cope with student population growth with dwindling funds.
Franklin County is one place where "the student population has been growing in the past two or three years," said Lee Cheatham, business and finance supervisor. "We've got overcrowding in practically every school."
Bedford County has a new facility - Forest Middle School - under construction. Montgomery County opened its new Falling Branch Elementary School in Christiansburg in the fall of 1992 and will complete a new Blacksburg Elementary School by the fall of 1994.
Roanoke County voters passed a $17.8 million bond issue in 1992 for public needs. Nearly half, $8.5 million, will go for education.
It will fund repairs to school buildings, classroom additions and improvements, including air-conditioning at all schools. It also provided $750,000 to buy a future Cave Spring High School site when the time comes to rebuild that school.
If there is an up side to the controversy in Carroll, it may have been stated by Lynn Wilson, chairwoman of the Governor's Advisory Committee for Business-Education Partnerships.
"The thing that's good about this turmoil is that you're already over the one obstacle, the one hurdle everyone faces for educational improvement, and that's complacency," she told a group this month seeking ways to improve Carroll's educational program.
"And that gives you an opportunity to do now what few Virginia communities have dared."
by CNB