THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9602280167
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Denise Watson
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Here's a look at some of the action taken at Monday's School Board meeting:
NAMING OF SCHOOL: Three recommendations for naming the elementary school being built on Cedar Road emerged at a School Board public hearing Monday.
The names ``Cedar Road Elementary School,'' and ``Clarke Owens Elementary School,'' a name derived from two city activists, had been suggested.
The only new recommendation was naming the school after Rear Adm. Grace Murray Hopper, a pioneer Navy computer programmer, but most of the residents at the meeting stood in support of the Cedar Road name, keeping with guidelines that suggest naming the facility after its location.
But several residents, including representatives of black civic groups Chesapeake Men for Progress and Chesapeake Forward, supported naming the school after two black community leaders, W.P. Clarke Sr., who served on the City Council in the 1970s, and Hugo Owens, a former councilman and vice mayor. Clarke is now deceased.
The city of Chesapeake, the speakers said, should be proud to memorialize these two men.
``I think the city should take the opportunity,'' said Willie Cooper. ``I don't think we should take naming schools after people lightly; they should meet a very strong and high criteria. . . of community service. These men meet this criteria.''
The board will vote on the name at the March 11 meeting.
POSSIBLE SCHOOL REZONING: A proposed plan that could rezone some G.A. Treakle Elementary School students to attend Camelot Elementary School brought four or five parents to the podium.
The parents expressed concerns of uprooting children who've made strong ties with friends and teachers and moving them to a school the parents labeled ``violent,'' referring to a 1991 shooting in which a man shot at his girlfriend in front of the school. One student was injured but school officials have called the shooting a rarity.
``If this goes through,'' said Veronica Pugh, ``I will move out of the area.''
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY: Davida Mutter, assistant superintendent for budget and finance, highlighted the district's spending trends for the first seven months of the year. She had good news.
In January, Mutter warned the board that state revenue might be $300,000 less than budgeted, primarily because month-to-month comparisons of the state's sales tax receipts suggested they would fall below the norm. But sales tax receipts received in February for December were up more than 28 percent last year and now the revenue might only fall $27,000 under budget.
The word on Federal Impact Aid, supplementary money given to school districts with sizable military populations, remains uncertain but encouraging, Mutter said. It seems the district will receive the full amount budgeted, $1.1 million. Chesapeake is also due $77,000 in Impact Aid funds from 1994 and 1995, which might come through in the next few months.
Other reduced expenditures, such as lower prices on replacement copy machines, are expected and the school district could have a small stash of extra money to direct toward next year's budget. Superintendent Randolph Nichols said the school system could keep 50 percent of the money it would normally return to the City Council at the end of each fiscal year, according to a new council policy which reverts half the funds.
For the past five years, the school district has returned an average of $1.5 million each year.
OTHER BUDGETARY ITEMS: The School Board held its first public hearing for the superintendent's proposed budget for 1996-1997 school year on Feb. 22 but there weren't any citizens to make remarks. Nichols and Mutter highlighted some aspects of the proposed $187.7 budget:
Savings in some areas, such as building additions and equipment, as work on Hickory High school and the elementary school on Cedar Road is completed.
Salary increases due to reorganization and adding nearly 92 new teachers.
Requests for more money to cover the cost of computers for some schools and security monitors for middle and high schools.
The board was particularly proud of this: The school system won't have to buy portable classroom units, a first in recent years, as some school additions are completed and new schools open. by CNB