ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 5, 1996 TAG: 9604050120
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
Upset about Tuesday's defeat of a $37.4 million bond referendum that included money for a new Cave Spring High School, some Southwest Roanoke County parents want to halt funding for two other projects not in their area until a study can be made of all the county schools' needs.
The parents told the School Board on Thursday night that it would be unfair now to fund the Northside High gym project and furnishings for Glenvar Middle School, which were included in the referendum.
The bond issue included $2.8 million to complete the Northside project and $1 million for furnishings for Glenvar Middle School, which is scheduled to open this fall.
Voters in North County and Glenvar voted overwhelmingly against the bonds despite the money for their schools.
"We must stop any work now being done in connection with the bond referendum and do a study across the entire county as to how we should proceed," said Mary Nasca, president of the Cave Spring Junior High Parent-Teacher Association.
"We must prioritize the needs of the county children and make sure that a gymnasium or furniture should not come before the academic needs of all of our schoolchildren," she told the board. "The alternative is to ignore the voter and to fund the entire referendum package through Virginia Public School Authority bonds. We only want equity, and funding any one part of the defeated referendum would scream of unfairness."
Another Southwest County parent, Angela Webb, said the Northside gym should be left as an unfinished shell that would be a monument to voter rejection of the bond issue.
Work on the gym, an auditorium and four classrooms has already started. The first phase of the project has been funded, but $2.8 million is needed to complete it. The gym and other facilities are being built at Northside Middle School, but the high school will use the gym for its basketball games.
School Board Chairman Jerry Canada said the school division will study all its needs before setting priorities and deciding how to proceed with other projects. But he said it asked the Board of Supervisors for funds to complete the Northside project before the referendum.
The School Board had also asked the supervisors for funds to air condition and renovate Cave Spring Junior High before the referendum, he said.
Canada considers the Northside and Cave Spring Junior projects to be urgent and said they should not be delayed for the study of all school needs in the county. But he said the supervisors will make the decision on whether funding will be provided for them.
Canada said he agrees that all school needs should be prioritized in the aftermath of the referendum's defeat. The School Board will seek proposals soon from consultants to help make the study.
While the board won't make a decision on how to deal with the space problems in Southwest County until the study is finished, he said, a new high school no longer is an option. Instead, the solution most likely will involve renovations and additions at Cave Spring High and Cave Spring Junior, he said.
While residents in other parts of the county complained that the bond issue was unfair because most of the money would have been spent on a new high school, Nasca said the children in Southwest County have been "slighted over and over again" during the past 10 years.
Nasca presented a breakdown of spending on school improvements since 1985, based on official figures, that shows the per-pupil amount spent in each section. West County has received $5,941, East County, $3,757; North County, $2,639; and Southwest County, $1,551.
Southwest County has 40 percent of the students, but it received only 22 percent of the money for school improvements in the past decade. The inequity is even more striking because Southwest County pays 45 percent of the real estate taxes, Nasca said.
She said Southwest County residents are not asking that their share of the funds be based on their tax base, but rather their percentage of all county students.
School officials said they will continue to move on plans for renovations and air conditioning at Cave Spring Junior if supervisors approve funding. But Homer Duff, director of facilities and operations for the schools, said the project might not begin for another year because plans have to be redrawn to meet new building and electrical codes.
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