THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060419
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Hampton Roads Back To School
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
Two-thirds of the students and faculty left out on the street by a fire that gutted Princess Anne High School will be shunted to a nearby former shopping center to attend classes on an abbreviated schedule.
School officials decided Tuesday that Celebration Station, on Virginia Beach Boulevard a few blocks east of the high school campus, can be converted into 32 classrooms in time for Princess Anne students to start school there next Tuesday.
About 500 of the school's regular 2,000 students - most of them ninth-graders - will remain at the school site, housed in 17 portable classrooms.
The use of Celebration Station could turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the financially troubled school system, which has been trying to get out of a five-year lease on the building that officials signed in 1992.
School officials confirmed Tuesday that their insurance company will cover the rent on Celebration Station while Princess Anne students and faculty are housed there.
The school system has been paying $900,000 a year to lease the 129,000-square-foot facility but had been occupying only a portion of the available space. This summer the school system vacated the building, and the School Board hired a private attorney to help break the lease. The school district had budgeted rent only through the end of August.
The School Board had tried unsuccessfully last spring to convince the City Council to purchase and renovate Celebration Station.
School spokesman Joe Lowenthal said Tuesday that the school system will have to pay a $25,000 deductible to cover damages caused by the fire at Princess Anne High, but that the insurance policy will cover all replacement costs, including relocation and moving expenses.
No decision has been reached with the insurance company over the rent payment, but it is being negotiated, Lowenthal explained. School Board Chairwoman June T. Kernutt added that the matter would be discussed privately in executive session late Tuesday night.
Earlier in the day, Princess Anne High Assistant Principal John Curtin led teachers, librarians and aides on a tour of Celebration Station.
Students will be bused between the building and the high school campus.
Until further notice, classes will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. weekdays, and the schedule will not include school lunches. The high school cafeteria was one of the casualties of the early morning fire, and arrangements have yet to be made to feed students a midday meal.
The school day usually extends until 2 p.m., but school officials said that the schedule would be shortened by eliminating study halls, lunch periods and other nonacademic activities.
Bus schedules announced prior to the opening of schools citywide will remain essentially unchanged for students who depend on school buses to and from school, Lowenthal said.
Ample parking should be available at both campuses for faculty members and students who normally drive to school, Lowenthal said.
At meetings that stretched through the Labor Day weekend and late into Tuesday, school officials brainstormed a stopgap strategy that would permit Princess Anne students to attend classes as quickly as possible, while obstacles - such as classroom space and replacements for destroyed equipment, furniture, textbooks and related material - could be surmounted.
The good news, Lowenthal said, is that many big-ticket items - such as computers, classroom and office furniture, and supplies lost in the fire - could be replaced by stock ordered earlier for additions to Princess Anne High School and Lynnhaven Middle School.
In addition, Lowenthal said, surplus furnishings and supplies from the school warehouse could help fill the gap.
If that's not enough to get Princess Anne High School off to a start this year, school officials in Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Norfolk have offered to donate material or equipment, Lowenthal said.
The school services division of the Virginia Beach system is handling the renovation of Celebration Station.
About 540 students who attend other school programs on the Princess Anne High campus will be moved to other high schools - 500 students in the Open Campus high school program will be housed at Green Run High and 40 students in the Center for Pregnant Teenagers will move to Ocean Lakes High.
About 200 special education students will remain in the west wing at Princess Anne.
Classes for these students also have been delayed until next Tuesday. MEMO: Staff writer Aleta Payne contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT, Staff
Debbie Beaudoin, Carol Seacrist and Monica Lang, teachers at
Princess Anne High, tour Celebration Station, where classes will
start Tuesday.
KEYWORDS: FIRE PRINCESS ANNE HIGH SCHOOL ARSON by CNB