Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 16, 1995 TAG: 9509180035
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
At Pulaski County High School, nearly 150 students participate in work-release programs, being allowed to leave early to report to jobs. Eleven high school students are in a new community service class this year which involves doing work outside the classroom. Eleven spend part of their day as students at the Southwest Virginia Governor's School.
But many others are simply not taking a full load, because they don't need that many credits to graduate.
"If credits are the only reason our kids are in school, we're in trouble," Superintendent Bill Asbury told the county School Board Thursday night. "So we're going to be doing more counseling for a full day."
He said new attendance standards are being considered requiring students to be genuinely full-time. "Next year will be different," he said.
The counseling will try to get students to understand that this is their last chance for a free education and, after high school, they will pay for classes they take.
There are graduates who must seek remedial classes in subjects like mathematics at New River Community College, Asbury said, to get up to speed when they enter college. But they have often passed up the chance to take math courses they would need while still in high school.
"It has been something that has grown up over the years," he said. "Over time, those numbers have crept up and more reasons have been accepted as reasons for not coming to school a full day."
The irony, he said, is they will come back to school after hours for extracurricular activities.
Pulaski County High School Principal Jim Kelly agreed about the need to act. "As Dr. Asbury pointed out, there's no reason for kids giving up a free education," he said.
Sybil Atkinson, a School Board member, said attendance problems are not limited to high school. She said she sometimes sees younger children in downtown Pulaski during school hours.
"When you see kids walking down the street in the middle of the day with backpacks on their backs, you know good and well their parents think they're in school," she said.
Atkinson asked whether town police or county deputies could not check on youngsters during school hours to make sure they were not skipping classes. She said she had picked up children when she knew them, and taken them to school, and said people who see youngsters running around during school hours should question them.
"Some of us do," Asbury said, recalling his stopping of three youngsters one day and asking them why they were not in school.
"And they said, 'Teachers' work day.' And it was," he said. "I said something stupid like, 'Well, I just wanted to make sure you knew.'"
by CNB