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

DATE: THURSDAY, September 2, 1993                   TAG: 9309020696
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: S-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LYNN A. COYLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VIRGINIA HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY HAS A NEW LOOK AND LAYOUT

The kindergarten room is now the library. There's a new multipurpose room and new elevator. The front entrance has been enclosed, and its stairs now lead down to a new multicolored glass-tiled wall that overlooks Memorial Avenue.

And technology has taken over. State-of-the-art Macintosh computers will be available for pupils, and there are plans to have computer access to Virginia Tech. The library circulation system and even the school's maintenance system will be run by computer.

The school was closed for the past year while the 1922 building was completely renovated. But the 71-year-old building isn't the original school.

Evelyn Blankinship Dailey, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood, remembers starting first grade in a little gray one-room schoolhouse that sat on the back of the present school's lot. She and her friends would write notes and slip them between the shale outcroppings on the school grounds. A girlfriend, who hated her new eyeglasses, hid them in the rocks, but her mother came and found them.

Dailey, 87, who lives at the Raleigh Court Health Care Center, would love to see the renovated school. But she said difficulty getting around in a walker probably will prevent her from attending the re-dedication ceremony, to be scheduled for early October.

To help people find their way around on opening day will be recycled principal James McCorkindale. Today's pupils won't remember his last stint as principal from 1971 to 1973. But many will remember returning receptionist Maria Burke, who spent 14 years at Virginia Heights before going to Morningside Elementary two years ago.

To help take care of the new building, there will be an emphasis on student government and citizenship. "We want kids to help make rules" about how to move through the halls and conduct ourselves, said McCorkindale.

Besides the all-new furniture, interior and color scheme, there will be shifts in the curriculum, too. There will be an emphasis on global studies, the classics, physical fitness and economics, McCorkindale said. For first- through fifth-graders, two new languages will be offered: Spanish and sign language for the hearing-impaired. A preschool class for hearing-impaired children as young as age 2 will be housed at the school.

"We want kids performing a lot on stage," McCorkindale said as he showed off his shiny new cafeteria with a stage at one end. "They need to learn to speak so they don't get nervous when they become adults."

McCorkindale wants parent and community involvement in his new school, too. "We want as many parents to come into school as possible," he said. He plans to expand the school's partnerships with businesses, and he hopes the community will use the new multipurpose room as a meeting room. Groups can use the room, which has its own rest rooms, without having access to the rest of the building.