ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010075
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: YOUR PART OF TOWN
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
Botetourt County is changing in big ways. More families and businesses are moving in, and more of the county's rolling farmland and orchards have become dotted with tract housing and factories.
The county's school system is changing, too, trying to respond to growing enrollments and shifts in where the county's children live.
"It really is quite an exciting time," said Sally Eads, Botetourt County School Board's vice chairman.
But there are also big challenges. The county schools are trying to head off crowding as the population grows, especially in the county's southern end. "Five of the six elementary schools are full - there are no empty classrooms," Eads said.
School officials hope their multimillion dollar construction program will help ease that problem.
Next fall, a new $9.1 million facility, Read Mountain Middle School, will open in Cloverdale.
At the same time, Botetourt Intermediate School will have a new name - William Clark Middle School - and a new look, thanks to a $5.2 million renovation. William Clark was an early American explorer who married a woman from Fincastle.
Despite a recent spate of bad weather, school officials expect both megaprojects to be finished in time for the start of school in September.
"Believe it or not," Superintendent Clarence McClure said, the contractors actually had people working inside the new middle school every day during last month's near-blizzard. The Read Mountain school is about two-thirds complete, he said.
The work on the middle schools is part of a 10-year capital plan the school system began in the late 1980s. The county has completed renovations or additions at James River High School and Breckinridge, Troutville, Cloverdale and Colonial elementaries.
The school system plans two other big projects before the end of 1999 - the renovation of Lord Botetourt High School and the construction of a new elementary school at the Greenfield development between Daleville and Fincastle.
McClure said three schools that won't get major work in the 10-year plan are the newest of the existing ones. Botetourt Technical Education Center and Eagle Rock and Buchanan elementaries were built in the mid-1970s.
Public school enrollment in Botetourt reached a high of 4,800 two decades ago. As the county population aged, it dropped down under 4,200. But now with more development and new families, it has climbed back to 4,500, and McClure believes it will climb back up to 4,800 by the end of the decade. "We're projecting some rather healthy growth," he said.
Changes in society and the increasing number of transplants from urban areas have brought new expectations for the schools.
McClure says the school system has responded in a number of ways. It has:
Lowered class-size requirements for elementary schools.
For example, the state limits classes in grades 1 through 3 to no more than 30 pupils; Botetourt schools try to limit those grades to no more than 25.
Added physical education teachers in elementary schools.
Added a nurse for at least three hours a day in all schools.
Expanded vocational education to include a nursing assistants program that leads to a state license. It plans to eventually add a nursing program.
Begun offering college-level courses in history and other subjects at both high schools. The courses are taught by instructors from Dabney Lancaster Community College and are broadcast between the two high schools via interactive television hookup.
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