THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501200261
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
School officials this week offered a revised version of the six-year capital improvement program they first unveiled earlier this month.
But the new plan is no less expensive than the first: It would cost anywhere from $320.1 million to $573.9 million, depending on how many projects the School Board decides to approve.
The high price tag is forcing board members to make some tough choices between desperately needed projects and the need to appease a City Council that likely will be concerned about cost. The board also will have to decide whether to go directly to voters for permission to pay for part of the plan by issuing bonds.
``All those projects are critical, if we are going to provide the level of service we're currently providing to the city,'' said Kenneth B. Lumpkin, a school system demographer who led the drafting of the plan.
Lumpkin and other staff members recommended that the board approve a $408.8 million plan, which would pay for a substantial boost in school technology, solutions to air quality problems in eight schools and nearly all the building projects that schools need to handle growth over the next six years. The plan also would include about $97.8 million for five new schools: two elementaries, two middle schools and one high school.
The staff's proposal would buy:
More than 8,000 computers for classrooms and computer labs. Labs would be provided at each school. Old computers would be phased out.
All instructional computers would be networked and would have the ability to access the Internet.
Secondary schools would get an interactive, distance learning classroom, which would allow them to broadcast classes to other schools or receive them. That would allow students to take more specialized classes, such as advanced placement or college-level courses.
Administrators' computers would be upgraded to handle new software.
All schools would be renovated to include the necessary wiring and electrical capability to handle increased technology. Schools that don't have computer labs would get them. Air conditioning would be added to labs that need it.
School libraries would be renovated to become the schools' technical centers.
The renovations would take place over five summers, starting with high schools and ending with elementary schools.
Board members continued to express concern this week about what kind of technology the school system would purchase, how it would be funded and whether the school system could put so much new technology to its best use.
Lumpkin acknowledged the challenge.
``If you're engaging the staff in using technology, then you're going to have to provide support with staff development,'' he said. ``And that's expensive.''
A more aggressive, $68.7 million budget to add onto the schools that are the city's most crowded.
Schools scheduled to receive additions this year - Kings Grant, Thoroughgood, Holland, B.F. Williams, Alanton and John B. Dey elementaries, Princess Anne and Lynnhaven middles and Kempsville, Princess Anne and Bayside highs - would be added to as planned.
Other schools would get help sooner than originally scheduled. Hermitage Elementary would get a gym in 1996. Point O'View and Plaza elementaries, not scheduled for additions until 2000, would get them in 1997 instead. Strawbridge and Red Mill, originally not scheduled in the six-year plan, would get additions in 1998. Rosemont and Indian Lakes would get additions in 2000.
Green Run Elementary's addition would be delayed from 1996 to 2000. College Park would remain on schedule for an addition in 2000.
At the middle school level, Landstown would be added to the schedule in 1998 for an auxiliary gym.
At the high school level, Green Run had been scheduled to receive an addition in 2000, but it would be removed from the six-year plan.
The relocation of Linkhorn Park and Seatack elementary schools, which are in Oceana Naval Air Station's crash or high noise zones. City Council has promised to provide the school system with the $18.6 million estimated cost.
A new technical center in the northern part of the city, at $9.7 million.
Further renovations to Celebration Station, a former shopping mall on Virginia Beach Boulevard the school system now is using for office space. School officials want to spend $8.4 million to revamp it to hold the gifted education program and more office space.
A $3.8 million renovation for the old Kemps Landing Intermediate School on Kempsville Road, which was closed this year when Larkspur Middle School opened.
School officials want to put a math, science and technology magnet school there.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOLS BUDGET by CNB