THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507210514
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
School officials vowed Thursday to forge ahead with plans to open the city's first ``magnet'' school for elementary kids, even though they'll do it without federal grant money.
Officials learned this week that the U.S. Department of Education had turned down their application for an $8.7 million grant for magnet programs in six predominantly black schools.
``Norfolk's not on the list,'' said Melinda Kitchell Malico, a department spokeswoman. ``It is the official word.''
Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. had promoted the magnet schools as a way to improve academic offerings, to increase school choice and to integrate black community schools by luring white students.
School officials said the federal rejection will not halt plans this fall to open a math, science and technology magnet program at Chesterfield Heights Elementary, one of the six schools targeted for the grant.
``We'll just have to regroup,'' said Kenneth Russell, a former elementary school assistant principal who was hired this year to run a new magnet school office. ``We have to go on, regardless. The district will pursue it with whatever resources we have.''
A survey sent to parents last month showed that they overwhelmingly favored magnet programs and would be willing to send their children to them, regardless of the school's location.
Russell said parents of 565 students from outside the school's attendance boundary have applied to enroll their children in the Chesterfield Heights program.
Children who now attend the school are guaranteed a slot there, Russell said, and space is available for about 150 of the 565 applicants.
To improve the racial mix of the school, which is more than 97 percent black, most of the 150 new slots will be filled by white students, Russell said.
Malico, the Department of Education spokeswoman, said magnet grants were awarded to 60 of the 176 school districts nationwide that applied. Selections were based on a point system, but officials could not say Thursday why Norfolk was turned down.
It will be three years before Norfolk will be eligible to apply for the funds again, but Russell said he hoped the district would be able to open additional magnet programs. Currently, the system runs a science and health magnet program at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
``We can't sit and wait for three years,'' Russell said.
The grant proposal sought money over three years to open a magnet program in one high school, Booker T. Washington, where officials wanted to offer an International Baccalaureate program.
The other magnets would have been opened in elementary schools: Jacox, visual and performing arts; Camp Allen, foreign languages and international studies; James Monroe, Montessori; and Tidewater Park, traditional studies. by CNB