ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 26, 1996 TAG: 9612260078
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
As of mid-November, 155 Radford public school students didn't live in this city.
They came from surrounding counties like Montgomery and Pulaski. Their families pay $100 a year to send them to Radford.
It's the highest number of tuition students in the New River Valley from one of the smallest school systems. The costs and the numbers are often debated, as are the benefits.
A few parents have spoken out and asked the school system to increase tuition costs and limit the number of additional students. But for the schools that receive state funding for additional children and for most parents who pay tuition, it's a bargain.
"I feel like it's a great deal," said Margaret Wiley, who sends her three children to Radford schools. She pays $100 for her son, now in the sixth grade, plus $75 each for her third-grader and kindergartner.
Wiley lives in Fairlawn, just across the New River from Radford and a mile from Pulaski County's Riverlawn Elementary. She said she knew of the Pulaski school's excellent reputation, and wouldn't have minded if her children went there.
But, she wanted them to continue in the school system in which they began. And she wasn't comfortable thinking ahead to high school. Wiley lives at least 20 minutes from Pulaski County High School, one of the largest high schools in the New River Valley.
"It was a size thing, really. Both my husband and I grew up in Blacksburg, and we were used to living in a town where there were small schools," Wiley said. She said Radford was always her school's rival in sports and academics - "It was an equivalent to our school."
Wiley first applied for a spot seven years ago, when tuition was lowered from $500 to $100.
Enrollment in 1986 was around 1,600 and dropping; by 1992, it had fallen to 1,400. This year, numbers are almost back to the previous decade. For the past few years, said Radford School Board Chairman Chip Craig, an average of 200 tuition students have been added to the enrollment.
Regardless of where a child lives, the school system that educates him will receive state funds. For Radford, that number is about $2,600 per child, or $403,000 for the tuition students enrolled this year.
"When you run the numbers, tuition students put no financial burden on city of Radford. Quite frankly it benefits the school system," Craig said.
Some parents have said they worry that classes - particularly in the primary grades - are too crowded, though few have spoken publicly. Claudia Van Arsdale, who dropped out of the School Board election last spring just weeks after it began, said she ran to focus attention on what she called overcrowded conditions at McHarg Elementary.
The ratio between pupils to teachers at McHarg is, on average, about 21 to 1. That's below the state limit of 25 pupils and similar to elementary school averages in Montgomery and Pulaski counties.
When contacted for this story, Van Arsdale said she didn't want to comment and said she isn't pursuing the issue any longer.
In the past, Van Arsdale has pointed to the $1.5 million spent recently to add classrooms. But Craig said the School Board has a policy not to incur additional expense for tuition students.
Tuition students are sometimes on a waiting list even before they begin kindergarten, Craig said, and new pupils are only allowed in where there's space. Priority is given to those who are already in the school and those with siblings already attending.
And, "We've turned down a number of people we had room for because they were leaving other school systems for discipline problems," Craig said. "I don't see a negative here. We're taking good students." < tuition students and costs in the New River and Roanoke valleys
Tuition cost # students
Radford $100 for first; $75 for each add. 155
Mont. County $2,175 12
Pulaski County no charge
Floyd County no charge
Giles County $100 for first; $75 for each add. 50
Roanoke no charge
Roanoke County $500 750
Salem $100 300
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB