Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 1, 1995 TAG: 9506010090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Barbara Epperly is happy that some stones from Stonewall Jackson Middle School will be saved, but she has no complaint about plans to raze part of the building in a $6 million modernization project.
"I don't see anything special in the Jackson school. I went to Jefferson High, and it was unique, but I don't see it in Jackson," she said.
Epperly has a daughter, Karissa, in fifth grade at Morningside Elementary School. She will go to Jackson when it reopens in the fall of 1996.
Epperly likes the educational plan for the revamped school and the high-technology laboratories that will be included in it.
"I think it will be great for the children," Epperly said Wednesday night at the last in a series of informational meetings in Southeast Roanoke. This one was held at Morningside.
Another mother, Nannette Czap, is enthusiastic about Jackson's future, too.
"I'm concerned about how my children are taught - not the building," said Czap, who has three children at Morningside who will go to Jackson.
R.W. Barbour is retired and does not have children in school, but he still likes the Jackson project.
"It's 40 years too late. I don't care if they tear it down. Just get us a modern new school," said Barbour, a member of the Southeast Action Forum.
Opposition to the razing apparently is not as widespread as it previously had appeared, a welcome development to Superintendent Wayne Harris and the Roanoke School Board.
At four public meetings during the past two weeks, there has been limited objection to the razing plan.
The sessions, which were arranged by school officials to explain and defend the plan, were peaceful, with little debate in the last three meetings.
At the first meeting, opponents pressed Richard Kelley, assistant superintendent for operations, on the reasons why the 72-year-old building can't be renovated.
But they said the fight, for practical purposes, was over before it started, because City Council refused to intervene.
The protesters did not attend the final three meetings. Robert Zimmerman, a protest leader, said it would have been a waste of time.
"The School Board and City Council have made up their minds. At the first meeting, Harris and Kelley hogged the time. They let you ask one question each," Zimmerman complained.
"School officials have a deaf ear. They are going to put the wrecking ball to it, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. It's a done deal. I'd like to get a chain of people and halt it, but we can't."
About 30 people attended the first meeting, sponsored by the Southeast Action Forum. At the second meeting, about 40 fifth-graders at Garden City Elementary School supported the plan. Only 10 people attended the session at Fallon Park Elementary School, and only five showed up at Morningside.
At the meetings, Kelley stressed that part of the building needed to be razed to provide technology laboratories and other facilities for a modern middle school.
He cited the advantages of the razing plan: four technology labs, more space, new construction, a bus drop-off and total accessibility for handicapped students.
If the old classroom wing had been renovated, Kelley said, the school system would have had to spend so much money to meet fire and safety codes and make it accessible for the handicapped that little would have been left for laboratories and educational technology.
"This is our best effort to prepare students for the 21st century," Harris said. "For the amount of money that we have, this is the best facility we can provide."
But opponents of the razing argue that renovating the old classroom wing, which was built in 1923, would not necessarily have been more expensive. School officials should have given more consideration to renovation, they said.
The school's gymnasium and cafeteria, which were built about 1960, will be renovated and linked to the new classroom building.
Razing the old classroom wing will permit the development of an off-street bus loading area, Kelley said. Now, buses have to stop on Montrose Avenue, blocking the street, while students are getting on and off. He said this was a key safety issue.
The school system will turn Jackson over to the contractor June 19. The project is to be finished by July 1996. Jackson students will attend other middle schools next year.
by CNB