Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 8, 1993 TAG: 9309080195
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Let's go ladies, the bells have rung! And gentlemen. The sun's not shining in there," she told a couple of boys wearing ball caps. "Look at those baby steps," she admonished another group of students poking along toward homeroom.
"Let's go!"
Another school year, another batch of students to shepherd into class. But Carr, a hall principal for William Fleming juniors, loves every minute of it.
"This is my 30th first day of school," she said. "And they're all just as exciting as the first one. If you don't get excited about seeing a back-to-school sign, or you don't cry at graduation, then maybe you shouldn't be here."
Things were particularly exciting Tuesday, as Fleming students walked into a school transformed by a multimillion-dollar federal magnet grant. New, instructional murals adorned the walls, new light fixtures hung overhead, more computers filled the classrooms and the cafeteria looked less like an institutional eatery and more like a shopping mall-style food court.
Roanoke's new school superintendent, E. Wayne Harris - on the job since July 1 - was on hand to observe the opening of the city's latest magnet school. Harris intends to tour seven schools a day until he sees each of the city's 29 schools in session this week.
Harris said he was "pleased with the condition of the buildings" at the new magnet center and with the smoothness of the first day.
"Things are orderly," he said. "The kids are well-behaved."
While the most visible changes at Fleming appeared on the walls and in the hallways, the biggest changes came in the curriculum. Under the two-year, $7 million grant, Fleming combined with adjacent Ruffner Middle School to create three learning centers - Global Studies, Unified Arts and Science and Engineering.
"Everything here will be international in perspective," Fleming Principal Alyce Szathmary said.
The Fleming-Ruffner Magnet Center also will apply this year to be accredited as an international baccalaureate site, one of 450 worldwide.
The changes mean renamed and restructured course offerings for Fleming and Ruffner students, who will travel between the middle and high schools for class, Szathmary said.
"We're one school," she said. "We share staff. We share students."
Twenty-four hundred of them.
Not just from inside the city, either. As a magnet center, the schools draw students from all over the Roanoke Valley, Szathmary said. Magnet schools are part of a federal integration initiative that installs special programs at predominantly black schools as a draw to white students.
Under the new system, foreign languages, English and social studies will be taught in the global and international studies center. The science and engineering center will house math, science and technology courses. All classes related to the arts will be combined into one center.
And while students are sorting all that out, they have one other change to get used to - block scheduling.
Instead of six classes a day, each 45 minutes long, students at Fleming and Patrick Henry High School will take three two-hour classes each day, splitting the six classes between two days. Days "A" and "B" will rotate.
Junior Chad Waybright thinks that's something of a mixed blessing.
"I don't like the classes being that long," the Fleming student said.
On the other hand, Waybright, enrolled in the magnet center's aeronautics program, will get more consecutive flight time - a tradeoff he figures makes up for it.
Carr said the longer classes will give teachers more flexibility to do hands-on projects they couldn't accomplish otherwise.
And there are other benefits, too, Patrick Henry Principal Betty Lee said.
Teachers will waste less time taking roll call, students will waste less time changing classes and will have fewer homework assignments each night, she said.
Patrick Henry will see its biggest change this year in a new student health clinic, part of a $400,000 grant from Carilion Health System. The grant provides for an on-site double-wide house trailer that will serve as a clinic, and for a nurse, secretary and part-time social worker to staff it.
A second clinic has been installed at Ruffner. Both will provide health services to students - regardless of family income - provided that parents give them written permission.
The clinics can give out information about sexually transmitted diseases and birth control but cannot dispense birth-control pills or condoms, said Karin Musselman, the nurse practitioner who will work at Patrick Henry.
She envisions becoming involved in family life education classes, promoting healthy lifestyles for students and treating minor illnesses or injuries. Some mental health counseling and referrals also will be available when the clinic begins offering services in October.
Another change coming to Patrick Henry this year will be an automated attendance system being tested for the state, Lee said.
Attendance lists will be scanned into a computer, which will automatically dial the home phone numbers of students who are absent. The computer will leave messages on home answering machines to alert parents their children missed school, she said.
Patrick Henry parents will also have access this year to a homework line and a "tips line," an off-hours answering machine on which they can leave information - anonymously if they wish - about individual students. Lee said the machine will be on from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and will allow people a chance to share information they might otherwise be reluctant to bring forward.
The number is 981-2803.
All of these changes, Lee said, were approved by the school's site-based committee and intended to foster better communication between the school and community, as well as raise student achievement.
"We're going to build in as many features to help with the success of a student as we possibly can," she said.
Fleming junior Kenneth Willis said he wasn't sure what to make of all the changes at his school. As he stood outside waiting for the first bell to ring, he was more excited about one thing that hadn't changed - the ROTC Step Team.
Willis, 16, will be a commander this year of the team that performs its half-marching, half-dancing routines at parades, basketball and football games.
"I'm excited to see who's going to be on it this year," he said.
by CNB