THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502240165
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
First Colonial High parents, teachers and students flooded a School Board meeting Tuesday, protesting a proposal to drop plans for an addition to the crowded school.
``First Colonial desperately needs your help,'' 17-year-old senior Samantha A. Leslie told the board.
School officials had proposed dropping plans for a $2.3 million addition at First Colonial next year. They said it would not be needed if the board approved a plan to move about 300 kids out of First Colonial and into the new Ocean Lakes High, which opened this year and is about 700 students under capacity.
Parents, teachers and students said, however, that the 29-year-old school needs the addition, regardless of whether new attendance zones are drawn. The need is even more acute, they said, because of a botched project to renovate the school, which was supposed to be completed in 1993 but has stretched over two years.
Students complained about calculus classes being held in business classrooms and science classes being held in a chorus room with no capacity for lab work. An art teacher must roam from room to room, her materials on a cart. Hallways are crowded.
Student morale is at an all-time low, teenagers said.
``This addition is desperately needed now to correct disparities and space problems we have had at the school for years,'' said Frank Webster, the school's football coach.
Government teacher Bess Mann said First Colonial students should get equal access to the kinds of programs students in other, newer schools enjoy.
``We're asking only for equality,'' she said. ``We're not asking to be superior.''
The First Colonial situation is a sticky one for the School Board.
The board is under intense pressure from City Council to reduce the money spent on school building projects, particularly by shifting kids from crowded schools into buildings that are under capacity.
The board is considering establishing a science and math magnet school at Ocean Lakes High, which would bring the school slightly closer to its capacity and might relieve some of the political pressure to shift kids from First Colonial High to Ocean Lakes. That would make First Colonial's addition less of a target for cuts.
The board included the First Colonial addition in its proposed capital improvement plan, which is on its way to City Council for approval. But school officials still are considering the project as one that could be eliminated.
First Colonial parent Lynda Strickler said: ``Our parents and teachers are taxpayers, and ask for their piece of the pie.''
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL BOARD by CNB