Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 12, 1994 TAG: 9411140057
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV9 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Munching on sandwiches and chips, members of the School Board rolled up their sleeves during a Thursday work session to sort out building and equipment priorities for the bond issue.
School Board Chairman Guy Gentry said after the meeting that he anticipates the school division's requested share of the bond issue would be approximately $1.5 million, although its current capital spending proposals total much more. City Council recently penciled in the schools for $1 million of a possible $6 million bond issue to pay for several capital projects, including needed repairs to the city's water treatment plant. The issue would be repaid through higher taxes and utility and service fees.
At its meeting, the board narrowed its focus to school additions, renovations and new technology. Top priorities on Superintendent Michael Wright's list included the two library-media centers as well as the art and music classroom for Belle Heth. Money for a similar wing for McHarg is in this year's budget. The existing elementary library space would be converted to classrooms to ease crowding.
New computer classrooms at McHarg, Dalton Intermediate School and the high school, an additional classroom or two at Dalton, extensive renovation of the high school's east wing, and office-care rooms for a school nurse at all four schools also topped Wright's wish list. Board members added to the list lunch rooms at both elementary schools to free up existing multipurpose rooms for classrooms.
Additional room at Belle Heth is "absolutely vital," Wright told the board, or "our program is going to be extremely impaired." He said burgeoning kindergarten enrollments have begun to cause a space crunch for elementary pupils, a reversal from the enrollment declines of just a few years ago. Both elementary schools already house some classes in temporary structures.
Wright and the board decided to plan space to accommodate seven class sections for the elementary grades, with a teacher-pupil ratio in the low 20s. That prompted board member Chip Craig to worry that too attractive a teacher-pupil ratio might generate a flood of tuition-student applications from outside the city.
Wright said tuition students have always been accepted on a space-available basis and "it's been to our financial advantage to accept [tuition] students." But he said it "wouldn't pay you to build space just for tuition students."
Board member Carter Effler refloated the idea - raised last year by former board member Betty Plott - of moving sixth graders to the intermediate school. Wright said it could be done, but Craig cautioned that sixth graders were "too young to be up on the hill" next to the high school.
School officials also explored the notion of "in-fill" projects to take advantage of existing open spaces between wings at school buildings.
Gentry suggested the high school east wing renovation project - carrying a $726,000 estimate - be done in stages. "This is one project that is potentially disruptive to teaching," he said. The board would like to redo wall treatments, lighting, flooring and other items, plus upgrade science labs top-to-bottom. Asbestos removal could take a month, according to architect Larry Martin, who attended the session and scribbled notes as board members brainstormed. He estimated six months to complete the renovations.
Gentry-a proponent of educational technology-also plugged an extensive package the Technology Committee submitted to the board last month. Adding in hardware for the proposed computer classrooms, the list totaled over $625,000 in new equipment. Among other things, the committee asked for new or additional classroom computers in all schools as well as for a full-time staff member to install and repair equipment and train users. The committee also wants media-library aides, new televisions and videocassette recorders, video projectors, printers and CD-ROM-equipped computers for library-media centers.
Personnel costs will not be included in the bond issue request.
The School Board will firm up priorities and cost estimates in time to meet with City Council in "neutral territory" in early December to discuss the bond issue in detail, Gentry said.
by CNB