ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190035
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE
* In a 4-3 vote Tuesday, the Montgomery County School Board agreed to hire several new teachers to help alleviate overcrowded classrooms.
An additional teacher at Margaret Beeks Elementary School will be hired to reduce a first-grade class size of 26 pupils. Several part-time positions will be added to the county's middle and high schools, where more than 30 students fill some of the science, social studies and language arts classes.
Money for these new hires came from health insurance and salary savings, plus sales tax revenues withheld from 1995. Administrators calculated the savings as high as $600,000, though Superintendent Herman Bartlett warned the amount was just an estimate.
"I don't believe we're in any better shape than we were at this time last year," he said. "The money from the state does not always materialize."
School Board member Barry Worth, who voted against the proposal with Jim Klagge and Wat Hopkins, said he wanted to use more of the savings to pay for improvements to Auburn High School tennis courts and air conditioning to school cafeterias.
The board might vote next week on a proposal to spend more of the money on those types of initiatives. The board also will discuss gifted programming, and parents from the gifted advisory committee will speak.
* Wednesday, at the meeting of a joint committee of the Montgomery County School Board and Board of Supervisors on new school sites, School Board Chairwoman Annette Perkins gave an official response to the Blacksburg Middle School issue.
Perkins asked for a joint meeting of all members of the two boards to discuss the future of the new school building project. The supervisors' request that the School Board design a new middle school on the present middle-school site in Blacksburg, she said, "has left the School Board uncertain regarding the building program."
Henry Jablonski, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said he thought his board would agree to a meeting, but finding an available time might be a challenge.
The two full boards met together just three weeks ago, but didn't discuss specific school sites and failed to reach any clear consensus on what to do about new schools planned for Blacksburg, Christiansburg and the Shawsville area.
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