THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512020192
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
The special grand jury investigating the schools' budget fi-as-co convenes tomorrow. The classrooms in Virginia Beach convene tomorrow, too. In the lead letter published on this page today lies a link between the two.
Presumably, the grand jurors won't be too hot or cold. Their quarters won't harbor mice. That's apparently not the case for some school-chil-dren.
Add these to the other appalling aspects of the school system's budget mess:
How much heating and cooling repair would the extra thousands of dollars just transferred to legal services buy?
How many reams of paper would fit in the atrium at Larkspur Middle School?
Getting into and out of the ServiceMaster contract and making other custodial arrangements have cost the system millions - and a school still has a resident population of mice?
Schools had a 1994-95 operating budget of some $340 million. Most of it paid for personnel. Would the remainder have cov-ered the maintenance and supplies basic to the function of public schools had top school administrators pri-or-i-tized wisely and budgeted prop-er-ly?
Were schools operating ``on a shoestring,'' as more than one teacher has charged, because there never was enough money? Or because too little of it trickled down to the classroom? Former Superintendent Faucette did have a way, you recall, of dangling glittery programs that can blind the world to grit un-der-neath.
That's a legacy left to Faucette's successors. So is a potential deficit at this school year's end that they are paring spending to avoid. There have been administrations and School Board members who would rather let the mice scurry down the hall - sure to make the public squeal - than unfund some other, less visible item. This is no time for such games; and I'd be much surprised if Jim Pughsley, interim superintendent, and Don Peccia, his top administrative assistant, are such games-men.
Whether Virginia Beach spends enough on its public schools is a prime topic for public debate. The report produced from the private deliberations of the grand jury could contribute mightily to it. The willingness of taxpayers to pony up more for schools depends on the restoration of their faith in schools' ability to spend whatever amount they get wisely. And the restoration of that faith depends in large part on the fullness of the grand jury proceedings and the frankness of its find-ings. by CNB