ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996 TAG: 9607260026
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
What started out as a single cry has turned into a chorus.
And it's loud enough to potentially reverse a School Board decision and a parent/teacher recommendation that's been three years in the making.
As part of a movement spearheaded by Virginia Tech architecture professors Donna Dunay and Catherine Albright - and including a petition with 600 signatures - about 30 people met Wednesday night to discuss the benefits of keeping and renovating the cramped downtown Blacksburg Middle School.
Even though the Montgomery County School Board has voted twice to build a new school on a 40-acre site - a size available only on the outskirts of town - Supervisor Joe Gorman said that didn't really matter.
Gorman said a majority of the Board of Supervisors "would strongly support renovation or expansion of the present site." Gorman spoke on the meeting's panel, which included School Board member Bernie Jortner and Blacksburg Middle School Principal Gary McCoy.
Because the Board of Supervisors holds the purse strings to any school building project, the final decision essentially is made by that board.
Gorman even went so far as criticizing school administrators for manipulating acreage and population numbers to build their argument for a new school on a different site.
Gorman - who represents Montgomery County's smallest and most densely populated election district in central Blacksburg - said the size of the new building fluctuated between 1,000 pupils and 1,200 pupils, depending on which would require more land. And, he said even though the present middle school site is just under state requirements, the school could easily get a waiver from the state to build the school.
Arnold Sarri, a former Montgomery County school superintendent who supports renovating schools, echoed Gorman's comments.
"There's talk in the community that there are members of the School Board who are hellbent in building a new school, and they'll decrease acreage and increase populations to do it," he said.
Thursday, School Board Vice Chairman Barry Worth said that wasn't true. He said the study that estimated population growth in the county didn't include things like the potential impact of economic development spurred by the "smart" road or the planned housing development on Price Mountain.
"It may be more than 1,200 kids," he said, "we need to plan for that."
Three years ago, school administrators gathered parents and teachers to discuss options for a new school to alleviate overcrowding. That committee recommended a modern facility that would make computer connections easy, and lots of acreage for athletic fields and possibly another Blacksburg high school.
"We looked at a lot of different options and heard from a variety of people in the community," McCoy said at the meeting Wednesday. He headed the Blacksburg committee, and has struggled through the past few months of back-and-forth decisions.
Originally, the School Board supported that recommendation. But the Board of Supervisors told the schools to re-examine the possibility of renovating and expanding the present building.
Shortly after the School Board switched its decision and agreed to use the downtown site, Superintendent Herman Bartlett informed the board there was a mistake in the acreage estimate. Instead of being 25 acres, the present middle school site is only 21.2 acres, just under the 22-acre state requirements for a 1,200-pupil school.
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