ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 14, 1996 TAG: 9611140023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: COMPILED BY PAUL DELLINGER
* A building program for Pulaski County schools should be made public in the next two or three months, School Board Chairman Lewis Pratt said Tuesday night. Tom Simpkins, a Hiwassee resident with two children attending Snowville Elementary School, asked the board to provide any assistance it could to teachers dealing with overcrowded conditions there. Pratt replied with the information about the building program, which grew out of a series of public meetings in which citizens were able to express their priority preferences on building needs. "I think it will be very much to your liking," Pratt said. School Board member Rhea Saltz said the bond issue to do the work will require public support. "We will need your help and your support when that comes along," he told Simpkins.
The School Board gave permission for brochures and "penny drive" donation containers for a proposed 12,000-square-foot playground to be placed in the county's elementary and middle schools. "We support the project," Superintendent Bill Asbury said. "If we can help in that way, we'd be glad to do what we can."
The board learned that the school system is down by 30 students since last month, for a total student population of 5,130. If such drops continue, they could have a significant effect on state funds based on numbers of students.
* Upcoming:
The Southwest Virginia Governor's School board has some misgivings about total state support for a planned "virtual" governor's school farther west in Virginia, because the state pays less than half of the support for the existing school located on the Pulaski County High School campus. The planned virtual school, one of the initiatives supported by Rep. Rick Boucher's Commission on the Future of Southwest Virginia, would use telecommunications and computer technology for classes that could be held in many different high schools at the same time. The existing school has students from the counties of Pulaski, Giles, Floyd, Carroll, Bland, Wythe and Smyth, and those localities pay more than half the costs of supporting the school. The board of the existing school, which met Tuesday, would like to see full state funding there, too. Pulaski County School Superintendent Bill Asbury noted that such state support might allow localities to put their money into a fund for future building construction, for a facility to replace the school's present overcrowded facilities. The board also learned that its Governor's School Scholar's Fund, to support some of the students whose tuitions for attending half-day Governor's School classes are not fully funded, got its first contribution Tuesday of $2,500.
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