THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512020145
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
As I read the various articles, editorials and commentaries on the financial crisis in the Virginia Beach school system, I am becoming more and more concerned that politics, not the education of our city's children, has become the focus of the newspaper and those in leadership positions in this city.
I cannot recall one article concerning the welfare of the public schools and those whose job it is to provide these children the education they so richly deserve. These are my kids and yours. These are the kids I teach at North Landing Elementary and the teachers who provide my kids with the education I want them to receive.
I still have not received all the supplies I ordered in June. If two heating/air-conditioning units break in our rooms, we have to make do with one (no spare parts in the warehouse, is what we've been told). At my school, we have a mouse infestation that is disgusting (no money for an exterminator). The buildings are not as clean as they should be because there is no money for the necessary custodial services. There is a shortage of paper at many schools and just a matter of time before the shortage is citywide. Our first-grade classes have 29 children in them.
I could go on and on, but I am just one person. Where are the articles in your paper about how this money shortage is really affecting the quality of public educating? Isn't there a responsibility for city leaders to provide conditions that maximize learning and teaching?
I could understand the finger-pointing if City Council had always tried to provide the children of Virginia Beach with a quality education. But the truth is, they haven't. This city has tried to run its schools on a shoestring for years. This city didn't start growing five years ago; this city has been growing for at least two decades. Wasn't the motivation for Virginia Beach's annexing Princess Anne County so it could be the largest city in Virginia? It's about time the leaders of this city started acting like they want to be ``one of the big boys.''
Virginia Beach's per-pupil expenditure is embarrassingly low. There is no long-term planning, especially where growth is concerned. Just look at the number of schools with portables behind them. And this is not a recent phenomena; it seems to be standard operating procedure. If any of the City Council or even School Board members would ever visit a school for more than 30 minutes (and not take the ``grand tour'' with the principal), perhaps they would see what is really going on: Faculty members whose ``classrooms'' were designed as closets or storage rooms - in short, classrooms that are being used for something other than what they were intended. Classrooms that are too small for the number of children and their desks and the computers and the televisions/VCRs, the ``centers'' and the bookshelves and all the other supplies that need to be stored in the rooms because the storage rooms are being used for ``classroom'' space.
The budget crisis has been inexcusable with shades of incompetence by all parties, but this disaster was just waiting to happen. Sitting at my old, metal desk watching the mice scurry down the hall, I see it getting worse before it gets better.
Iva Nash
Virginia Beach by CNB