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

DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994                   TAG: 9407080008
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Melissa Devaughn
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`I JUST WANT TO TEACH'

Delores Grapsas sat in the front row at the June 7 Montgomery County School Board meeting. Students sat cross-legged on the floor by her feet. They sat next to her and behind her. And the ones who couldn't get close enough to the advanced-placement history teacher, a legend among students and parents in Blacksburg, stood along the walls of the packed school board room.

One of the first orders of business at the meeting was to honor Grapsas, coach of an academic team that won WDBJ, Channel 7's "Klassroom Kwiz" competition earlier in the year.

The school was awarded $2,500 and station public affairs director Kelly Zuber praised the team and Grapsas for their hard work and excellent showing at the competition.

But Grapsas' moment in the limelight didn't end there. At the 30-minute public address, students came up one by one to blast Superintendent Herman Bartlett for his behavior at a June 2 leadership conference.

They said Bartlett referred to a May 27 Roanoke Times & World-News article on overcrowding of advanced placement classes and wrongly criticized Grapsas for cutting out assignments in her classes. He said he didn't.

Grapsas, who talked to me last week about the incident, said she was left feeling "confused and befuddled" as to why Bartlett would say anything negative about her class or the way she teaches.

"You could've just knocked me over when I began to hear people talk," she said. In the article, "I was talking about where the system is right now. Right now there is overcrowding in the APs, the college levels, the vocationals - there's overcrowding in all the classes. And it's not just in Blacksburg, it's everywhere."

Grapsas also pointed out that while she did have to cut out assignments, her classes are still exceeding the minimum requirements for the class and they are still above the national average in advanced placement test scores.

"But I don't want to play political games," she said. "I just want to teach. I love to teach."

And teach she does. When I first began writing school features three years ago, I would get calls all the time, from people wanting me to do a story on Grapsas. She coaches the school's Mountain Academic Competition Conference team, the High-Q team and the "Klassroom Kwiz" team. She also teaches tough topics, like advanced placement history, a class students refer to simply as "Grapsas history."

During her 20-year teaching career in the county, Grapsas has been selected for 10 fellowships or travel grants, some as far away as Oxford, England, the Soviet Union (when it was still the Soviet Union) and Germany. She has obtained six Montgomery County STAR grants, and has been named educator of the year and outstanding social studies teacher.

Once I went to the school to talk to Grapsas' students about the Mountain Academic team, and they spent more than an hour telling me that none of it was possible without Grapsas' coaching.

All the while, Grapsas is calling the newspaper, saying the kids need the recognition.

So as I watched those 60 or so kids and 25 or so parents stand up to give Delores Grapsas a standing ovation at the meeting, I was not surprised. And Grapsas will never forget their loyalty.

"It might have been just what I needed," she said. "You work for years and years and begin to wonder if its worth it, and then you realize it really is. The loyalty those parents and kids showed is something you can't take to the bank."

by CNB