ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, May 28, 1996 TAG: 9605290009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JUDY LIGHT AYYILDIZ
I AM writer-in-residence this year in the middle and upper schools in Roanoke County. This means I spend extended time in each of these schools, which are situated in various locations. This gives me the perspective of the itinerant visitor who gets to know each institution quite well and is also able to compare them with a detached eye.
This letter to the editor is for county residents who voted against the recent school bond issue because they were of the mistaken opinion that a new middle school wasn't needed in Southwest County. Cave Spring Junior High School is hands-down the most crowded and dilapidated school in the county. The following are my observations of conditions there that do not exist in the other schools:
The room I taught morning classes in stayed at 80 to 90 degrees in February. Students moved desks toward the front so that back windows could be opened for relief. Then we had winter's draft. Healthy? Imagine that room in May and September.
The congested hallways made me wonder what would happen in an emergency, such as a fire, when students were changing classes.
Compared with rooms in the main building, the outside trailers feel spacious, quieter and of a comfortable temperature. But saints help the person who has need of toilet facilities in a hurry or in stormy weather, for one must go outside and through the walkway to the main building to locate such a facility.
Students begin eating lunch at 10:20 a.m. with the fourth lunch period at 1:20 p.m. because the old school is far beyond its intended seating capacity throughout the premises.
The teachers' planning area, adjacent to their lunchroom, is a closet. Honest. Check this out. There's a light in the closet, a desk built into one end and a phone. There's no extra space in the whole school. Most of the time, I wadded up my coat and stuck it up on the refrigerator in the teachers' lunchroom. There's one other lounge that has a bathroom, a couch and two chairs. The classrooms are in use all the time. The noisy library is full of several classes throughout the day. The chilly and light-poor auditorium is frequently used as a classroom, even though the seats do not have pull-up desks.
I heard recently that the fire marshal has prohibited the use of certain lighting equipment in the school. So dangerously crowded Cave Spring Junior High School has faulty wiring, no temperature control, a critical lack of space, no quiet study space, no planning or conference space for teachers and the craziest lunch hours in the system.
We should find a way to amend this inequality within the school system! Make Cave Spring High School a middle school and build a new high school. My taxes are high and my children are grown, but we must have good schools for our children. We all got to be the adults we are because others sacrificed for us when we were young.
With the rapidly expanding housing developments in Southwest County, residents are going to have to spend taxes on a new school whether we like it or not. Personally, I'd rather see it done before a greater problem occurs.
Judy Light Ayyildiz of Roanoke is a writer-in-residence in the middle and upper schools in Roanoke County.
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