THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 17, 1995 TAG: 9512170034
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 135 lines
Rows of portable classrooms are wedged like squat, metal army barracks on the grounds behind the red brick Great Bridge Middle School North. The 48 portables, including a cafeteria and restrooms, house roughly half the school's 1,550 students.
While parents in Chesapeake cite concerns over student achievement and school safety, school crowding has emerged as a potent issue in the city's historic first-ever School Board election on Tuesday.
Voters will elect five people to the nine-member board out of a field of 11 candidates. They will go to the polls again in May to vote on the other four seats.
As rapid growth has transformed farmland to rambling suburb, the portables have mushroomed at schools throughout the city to handle an overflow of students.
About 8,000 children - nearly a quarter of the school district's 35,000 students - attend classes in 342 of the units. For some moms and dads, the portables are an unsightly symbol of the city's failure to manage the growth that has all but overwhelmed the financial resources of the education system.
``The fact that we have kids being educated year after year in mobile trailers is abhorrent,'' said business consultant Dennis Donohue, whose daughter attends the new Oscar Smith High School.
Like Donohue, many parents say the issue underlines the importance of this School Board election.
To them, it means much more than just choosing, for the first time, the people who oversee their children's education.
What's key, they say, is that those elected will face a critical juncture in the city's history, when explosive growth is dramatically altering the landscape.
``We've got to determine how we're going to make an investment in the future - the children themselves,'' said David Ollison, father of a Chesapeake elementary student and employment director for the Urban League.
``I think the thing that would sell me most on the candidates would be not just their vision of the school system but of their vision of Chesapeake as a city.''
Parents want more classrooms and teachers, and they fret that schools are playing catch-up on technology and other supplies to equip children with skills needed for good jobs in the global workforce.
Some, like Ollison, call for creative solutions, such as year-round classes to ease overcrowding and technology-centered magnet schools.
For the past several years, the city's growth has forced the school system to squeeze in an additional 1,000 students a year. Several elementary schools house more than 1,000 students, a size usually reserved for high schools.
``I think the growth issue is multi-faceted,'' said Diane Berk, a homemaker with a son at Great Bridge Intermediate Elementary.
``When you house 1,100 children between the ages of 8 and 11 in one school, that's a great number of small bodies. It's just not good for the kids. It's like an institution rather than a nurturing place for learning and development to occur.''
Parents complain of sardine-can classrooms. Cynthia Garcia says her eighth-grade daughter at Great Bridge Middle South takes classes with as many as 38 students.
``But they don't have the money, or so they say,'' Garcia said. ``If people in City Hall and the school administration can't build more schools here, they need to stop building so many houses.''
Others agree. Joyce Shock, a substitute teacher, temporary worker at various school offices and mother of two kids at Indian River Middle, advocates charging fees on new housing developments to generate money for school construction.
Residents want the board to work more closely with City Council to better address growth, but some doubt the newly configured board will make the hard calls needed to get more money.
Donohue said none of the School Board candidates is addressing the real issue: that more money is critical for schools to be successful, and that a tax increase is needed to raise the cash.
``The crux of the issue is dollars and cents, and they're not facing up to the hard choices,'' Donohue said. ``They're not willing to make the case for increased taxes. They're saying what they need to say to get elected. And once they get elected they'll `satisfice' - tweak here and there to maximize the limited resources they're given. But if you're not given enough resources, you're doomed to failure.''
About half of the city's tax dollars are pumped into the school system, which this year is running on a $174 million budget.
City property taxes were last raised by 5 1/2 cents in 1991, city budget officials said. The current tax rate, including 2 cents for a mosquito district that covers 90 percent of the city, is $1.28 per $100 of assessed property value.
School administration officials say they've done their best to stay on top of the explosive growth. Reliance on portables, they say, has leveled off. For the past several years the district has added 40 to 50 of the $24,000 units each year, but only 10 were brought in this school year, said school planner Lenard Wright.
And the number of portables is expected to decline next fall with the planned opening of two schools in rapidly growing Great Bridge - Hickory High and an unnamed elementary school on Cedar Road.
The new schools should eliminate 12 portables at Great Bridge Primary and a few at Great Bridge Middle north and south, school officials said.
In fall 1997, the new Hickory Middle should be completed, which will replace Great Bridge Middle north, and the larger school will eliminate additional portables.
``There will be a domino effect,'' schools spokesman Tom Cupitt said. Keeping portables in check, he added, depends on the system receiving more funding for capital construction.
It's been hard to come by money for building schools.
Historically, the city has financed school construction by asking residents to vote on a bond referendum every four years. Residents approved the last one in 1992 for $58 million.
But because that process can be cumbersome and politically volatile, the City Council last year sought a more stable funding source. The city successfully lobbied the General Assembly for the power to issue Virginia Public School Authority bonds.
With that, the school system launched a $102 million building program with the bonds. It includes 16 construction projects, including three middle schools and an elementary school slated for completion by fall 1997. The other 12 projects include renovations and additions at three high schools, a middle school and an elementary school.
To carry the district through year 2000, the School Board has adopted a $173 million capital improvement plan, which includes the construction of seven school buildings. The City Council will consider that plan in February.
Parents say they want School Board members to lobby the city aggressively for the money because they will have to answer to the public - not council members who appointed them.
Without the money, ``it's going to be more of the same,'' Donohue said, and the schools will get stuck with the leftovers - including portable classrooms.
``It's sinful, it's criminal that the children just don't have someone making the case for education,'' Donohue said.
Parents say they view the election as a way to have their voices heard, and to send a message that all is not well with their school system.
``It's like a new frontier,'' Shock said. ``I will not vote for someone who feels we don't have major issues.''
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION by CNB