Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 19, 1994 TAG: 9402210335
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
And it's not all that bad really.
Even at the worst, parents seem to have a grudging respect for the plan that will move 650 of the 1,800 Blacksburg area elementary pupils, though they may believe their own neighborhood is ill-served.
And about a third of the parents at the hearings told Ray Van Dyke, the new school's principal, that he'd done a fine job. Three of the four meetings held over the past two weeks at Blacksburg-area elementary schools have drawn relatively small crowds of about 30 parents.
The redrawn school lines will assign about 435 students to the new school being completed on Prices Fork Road in the Hethwood area while another 200-plus students will be moved among the four existing elementary schools in the Blacksburg area.
Three issues came up over and over at the meetings.
The first concern was that when pupils leave, the trailers will, too, and schools' space problems will remain. The issue of space, particularly for specialty programs such as art, music, speech therapy and remedial reading, came up at meetings at Prices Fork and Harding Avenue elementary schools. This problem is not within the scope of the attendance-lines committee, composed of one parent and one teacher from each Blacksburg area elementary school. It will be decided by the central administration.
Harding Avenue's meeting drew nearly 70 parents, twice as many as the hearings at any other school. Van Dyke, co-principal at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School, said he knew Harding parents may have thought they would not be affected, because those students do not border the new school.
About a half dozen parents from the Catawba Road area spoke out at the meetings at Harding and Margaret Beeks elementary schools, most against the move to Beeks. Catawba runs 10 miles to the county line, and 26 elementary school students live there.
Some parents said they liked Harding Avenue's open classrooms and team teaching within grades. They also believed Mount Tabor, the rural area across the ridge whose children will stay at Harding, was truly part of their community. But most talked about the length of the bus ride, the slick, winding roads and their feeling that the plan is on a fast track.
"I wouldn't take my four-wheel drive vehicle to Nellies Cave Road," said Jennifer Loflin.
Van Dyke answered that a smaller, 54-seat school bus now travels Nellies Cave. "We definitely don't think there are major safety concerns, or we wouldn't even be proposing it," he said.
Virginia Slusser, a lifetime Catawba resident and that route's bus driver, said, "I will not go through Nellies Cave with that bus I've got now."
She estimated that her run starts at 7:48 a.m. and usually ends at 8:45. She picks up 62 elementary school children, most in town on Harding Avenue.
Van Dyke said it's possible that by cutting stops once the bus gets in town, the ride, 11/2 miles longer, could be shorter in minutes.
Samuel Wall urged Catawba residents to contact their School Board representative. He said the public can pressure the board, and said in the past, things had gotten so hot, "The school board either had to leave town or forget it. I already knew people who had the rail picked out. When you're talking about rural people, you're talking about some rough people."
But that district's board member, Annette Perkins, said that she had received fewer than six calls, all from Catawba residents.
Parents from several areas said they thought they'd gotten the run-around. They called the central office, who told them to call Van Dyke, who wasn't in, and meanwhile the information they wanted was at their own schools, waiting for interested parents to read.
Loflin said a secretary told her she could see the plan at the meeting. "I don't want it that night," she said indignantly. "I want it now. I don't want to go there stupid, I want to go there knowing."
Tom Allen, a Catawba parent who had the same problem, said, "That has compounded my distrust of the whole thing. I think we're being railroaded into this. I don't think anyone wants to hear what I have to say. No matter what you say, [emotions are] part of it."
Van Dyke reassured parents that the committee would examine their concerns, and that this was not "a done deal," as many parents asserted.
Yet one Catawba mother said she felt more connected to Beeks, as many of her child's friends lived in Country Club Estates, and already went there. Van Dyke said he'd gotten two letters from Catawba supporting the change.
As passionately as the Harding Avenue parents wanted to stay, five parents in the Clay/Roanoke streets area articulated their worries about going to Harding because of its open floor plan. In those neighborhoods, 64 students will be moving. David Murray moved from Roanoke last year and specifically chose the Beeks district. His wife and he were "really buying a home through the eye of a needle."
"In all fairness, we've heard good things about the [Harding] teachers. I think if it's open, you just teach the kids to focus, or else you're a goner." He said he had full confidence his daughter would adjust.
Diane Nass, a Woodbine resident whose children will move from Harding to Linkous, said she was wistful, but said, "Parents who can accept the movement of their children, their children will accept it better."
Beeks Parent Teacher Association president Jeri Reinholtz said some children had come in saying, "'My mom says I'm not going to that school no matter what.' That's not coming from the children, the child doesn't care.'"
Several parents made the points that children would know new classmates through church, sports and scouts, and they'd know more classmates when they got to middle school.
Bon Richardson, a Cedar Orchard resident whose children will go to Harding, said he asked Harding parents and teachers what it was like. "We looked for reasons why we wouldn't like it," he said. "The only thing we don't like is the change."
The committee will re-examine the plan next week, and present its final recommendation to the School Board at the March 1 meeting. Parents may address the board at the beginning of that meeting.
by CNB