ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060025
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE AND PAUL DELLINGER
* Tuesday night, the Montgomery County School Board voted unanimously to begin a two-part study that will examine whether there are inequalities in punishment in the county's middle and high schools. Members of the local chapter of the National Advancement of Colored People, along with some black teachers, have been urging the board to look into racial tension in the schools for months. They say much of the conflict is spawned by administrators who don't treat black and white pupils the same, especially when disciplining them.
School administrators proposed a study that would examine recorded discipline matters since this school year began. It wasn't until this year that the middle and high schools began using the same form to record problems and punishments. Anything before that time, they said, would not give consistent data.
But some board members said they wanted the study to go back further. Vice Chairman Dave Moore said he wanted to include interviews with parents and students so that the racial climate could be examined. Just using the data, he said, wouldn't give the full picture.
Conceding it was a place to start, the board agreed to the administration's proposal, which will begin with this year's records of one school as a pilot. Plus, the board added another pilot at Christiansburg Middle and High schools, where records from the past three years would be examined to find any trends. If one, or both, of the tests work, the study will expand to all the middle and high schools.
Beginning next year, freshman in Montgomery County schools will face some tougher graduation requirements. In a 5-3 vote, with Barry Worth absent, the School Board agreed to add a "principal's" diploma.
Students working toward a standard diploma would be steered toward the "principal's" diploma, which requires more math and science classes. It would lower the number of electives allowed from 12 to eight. Students still could opt for the standard diploma, with parental permission.
Board members Jim Klagge, Annette Perkins and David Moore voted against the addition without much comment. In the past, some members had said they objected to the drop in elective hours or thought the present requirements were fine.
* Pulaski Town Council postponed adoption Tuesday of a five-year update of the town's comprehensive plan because of other matters commanding its attention, such as the appointment of a new mayor, and a scheduled goal-setting planning session scheduled for Feb. 21-22 in Roanoke. "If we do it tonight, we don't really feel we'll be giving it the attention it deserves," said Vice Mayor Rocky Schrader.
The town Planning Commission had developed the plan and recommended it following its own public hearing Dec. 9. Council has 90 days to approve, amend or disapprove the document. Commission Chairman Roy David Warburton said he had no problem with council postponing action to give the plan fuller consideration.
Attorney Sam Campbell, representing two enterprises run by H.W. Huff Jr. in Pulaski, did suggest two revisions. The plan calls for rezoning an area behind the Wendy's and Wilco businesses south to the Norfolk Southern railway tracks, where Huff's Down East business owns property, from industrial to business categories. "That is prime industrial area because you have utilities readily available and it is not suitable for business because of the lack of road frontage," Campbell said. Campbell's other objection was rezoning an area north and west of U.S. 11 to a point west and south of Morehead Lane from business status to the residential-and-offices category "because, let's face it, where else in the town are you going to locate a significant retail business facility?" Warburton pointed out that adoption of the plan does not automatically bring about the rezonings, and the residential-and-offices recommendation had been proposed to create a buffer between other types of developments.
Bea Draper and other local residents objected to the U.S. Forest Service temporarily closing Forest Service Road 6861 to the county's only trout stream because of litter problems. They also gathered some 700 signatures on a petition objecting to the closure. "We understand the problem," said Ricky Jones of the Mount Olivet area. "Speaking for the [Pulaski County] Sportsman's Club and myself personally, I would be happy to go back there and help clean that stuff up." A four-mile trek is necessary to walk to the trout stream.
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