THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 13, 1996 TAG: 9603120107
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT LENGTH: Long : 231 lines
COUNTY OFFICIALS are watching the numbers. But nobody is making any bets.
Alexander Decker, assistant school superintendent, knows that by the year 2005, a third elementary school will be needed in the northern end of the county, and that's banking on a moderate growth pattern the School Board adopted after two thorough demographics studies.
Mac Cofer, who represents the Smithfield District on the Board of Supervisors, is looking at numbers the county planning commission will confront just this month - 30 lots, 30 units, 275 lots, 305 lots.
``That's maybe 145 more children,'' Cofer said. ``At least.''
Fred Stanton, principal at Windsor Elementary School, is counting 14 mobile units, 840 youngsters filing through his cafeteria Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.
O.A. Spady, one of two supervisors who voted ``no'' recently to handing more than $300,000 to allow the School Board to begin planning the construction of a new elementary school in Windsor, is simply counting the county's money.
And Richard Peerey, chairman of the School Board and a member for the last eight years, is counting on the support of the people to get everybody through it all.
In January, after months of haggling over the number of people expected to move into this rural county over the next decade, the School Board decided that a new elementary school in Windsor is a top priority.
After Carrsville Elementary was torn down last summer to make way for a new school in the southern end, Windsor Elementary became the oldest school in the county, the most decrepit, the one with a leaking roof and deteriorating carpet.
But the board, over the last eight years or so, already had asked the county to fund construction and renovations to its educational facilities to the tune of about $34 million. Over the next five years, the board agreed, another $29 million will be necessary for schools and more schools.
Growth is expected in the northern end of the county, where the sewer connection to greater Hampton Roads will become a reality by early summer.
``There's little doubt in anyone's mind that it will occur, the debatable issue is when,'' Decker said. ``I don't see Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News becoming ghost towns. But folks are well aware of the desirability of Isle of Wight as a place to live.
``To a large degree, they are not coming from the region; they are coming from outside the region to work here and are somewhat captivated by this county.''
And growth likely will come to central Isle of Wight, where four-lane U.S. Route 460 already is making a fast commercial connection between the county and the city of Suffolk. In another couple of years, the two localities also will be connected by the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, offering the Windsor area, which sits surrounded by wetlands, development possibilities it never has been able to realize.
``It would take a crystal ball to predict exactly what's going to happen in this county,'' Peerey said.
And that's something the School Board never has had available, the board chairman said. That's why some mistakes have been made.
``The dilemma the School Board has is that we have the task of providing children with the best education we can provide,'' Peerey said. ``It's expensive, and, if we overspend, we are criticized. How do you provide what children and teachers need in facilities and do it for nothing?''
It's just not possible, he said, especially when you inherit a collection of old schools that for years went unrepaired.
Peerey admits the board's mistakes. The floor space at Carrollton Elementary, which opened in the fall of 1993, probably could have been better utilized, he said, but the school's design has won national awards.
Windsor Middle/High School probably should have been larger from the beginning. But the board, he said, was working with the money the supervisors provided. And nobody ever guessed that the new school would be filled to capacity within months of its opening in September 1994.
What about the issue several years ago concerning a consolidated high school? Well, that's one Peerey doesn't like to remember. It divided the county, filled the Board of Supervisors meeting room almost every time the doors opened, causing the sheriff's department to step in to avoid disruption.
But, was the final decision a mistake? No, Peerey said. And Pam Edwards, who represents the Windsor district on the board, agrees.
``We had definite opinions about children traveling the length of our county,'' she said. ``The strong factor was the idea that we wanted manageable schools, control. We wanted a situation where the students were known by name and parents could feel they had a relationship with the schools as a whole.''
So the board has emphasized elementary schools of no more than 750 students, high schools with no more than 1,000 to 1,200 students.
In Carrsville, where the new elementary school is in its final days of construction, targeted to open this coming fall, there was a different story. The small community near Franklin always had a school, and residents were dedicated to the idea that it always will have.
``That little spot (where the new school is being built atop the same ground that supported the old school) has been a spot dear to the hearts of a lot of people,'' said Marg Richards, a school secretary whose husband is making a videotape of the construction process to give to the library once the school opens. ``When the new school opens, it will be closely watched by a lot of people. It's an `It belongs to me' kind of feeling among the people of Carrsville.''
Once again, the School Board is pinching its pennies to build the school designed for only about 300 elementary-age students.
The old gymnasium, housed in a separate building that went up sometime in the early '50s, will stay until it has finally outlasted its usefulness, Decker said. The front entrance has been designed with the same familiar white columns as the old school, built around the turn of the century.
The library - or media center, as it is known in the world of new technology the School Board has dedicated itself to providing for every student in the county - is centrally located in the heart of the building.
Next comes the problem of replacing Windsor Elementary. Reluctantly, it seemed, the supervisors provided the money to begin planning. Spady, as did Hardy District Supervisor Henry Bradby, voted no.
``I like to know what they're going to do with the money before I say, `spend it,' '' Spady said.
First, the question, does the school need to be replaced? Stanton, its principal for three years, believes it does.
Today, he said, he never knows when or where the roof will start leaking or fuses will blow if somebody decides to turn on more than one copy machine or microwave oven simultaneously. And he can't even begin to imagine how many hundreds of yards of duct tape have been used to patch the old, '70s-era carpets.
The water started pouring into a boys restroom on the primary hall after a recent snowstorm, Stanton said. Water was streaming in and through electrical boxes. The electricity had to be turned off, and the restroom was closed. When workmen tried to get onto the roof to make repairs, it was so old that the material crumbled beneath their feet. Repairs still are being stalled until conditions can be made safer.
The roof is leaking in her son's first-grade classroom, on the same hall, Nancy Cutchins said. The heating system in that part of the building is so antiquated, she said, that the children in that part of the school swelter while others are comfortable. Or they have no heat at all, and they have to wear coats in the classroom.
But that's not the worst of it. Her son, Chad, has asthma. His condition has gotten worse since he started school, she said. He was hospitalized three times the first year he was in school. He must now have daily treatments for easier breathing. Cutchins believes it has something to do with the age, air quality and moisture retention in the old building.
Other parents agree. Just last year, Cutchins said, another parent asked the county Health Department to inspect the school after a child's repeated bouts of allergy-related illnesses. The department reported their findings at a PTA meeting, but without equipment to actually check the air quality, there was little to it, Cutchins said.
Spady isn't convinced the school needs to be replaced.
``If every business tore down buildings just because the buildings are old, that business would never make any money,'' he said.
But just a little paint won't do, Edwards said.
``If you went in there and fixed it up and poured money into equipping it technologically, you'd be spending massive amounts of money, and you wouldn't fix the problem,'' she said.
Windsor Elementary will be less crowded next fall, when Carrsville students who have been attending the school this year go back to the new school.
``But we still will be using most of the mobile units,'' Edwards said.
And there's a strong possibility, Decker said, that middle school students already beginning to feel the crunch at the middle/high school will begin to pour into those mobile units as early as the fall of 1997.
Meanwhile, the School Board thinks it has an answer to some of the problems. The idea is to build the new elementary school closer to the courthouse, where it possibly could accommodate some of the anticipated growth in the northern end of the county, around Smithfield, once the school population outgrows Hardy and Carrollton. Edwards said the board already has its eye on land outside the town limits.
The existing land, where the elementary school is now, would be reserved for a new middle school, another school that the board would like to see open in a couple of years. But that's another matter.
The board must concentrate now on the new elementary school. And the PTA wants to help.
Robin Kruger, PTA president, said that members of the organization already are writing and calling Board of Supervisors members.
``We're going to be circulating petitions all over the county,'' Kruger said. ``We've got to let the supervisors know we want and need a new school. It's old, it's musty. The carpets have been leaked on; the toilets have run over. The children in the mobile units have to go out in the weather for everything.''
But there's a question of money. Can the county afford to build another new school? Will the decision, as many residents fear, mean a massive tax hike?
This what Cofer has to say: There will be no money through bond sales in the county this year. There will be some savings in interest since the county will be going back to the market to refinance bonds it already has. That's the money Cofer suggested handing over to the School Board to begin planning a new Windsor Elementary.
Typically, school construction is financed in two ways: through literary bonds and through general obligation bonds. Cofer said that literary bonds, funneled through the state, are less flexible, even though the interest may be a point or two less than general obligation bonds. Literary bonds must be repaid just as a home mortgage is repaid, a certain amount over a certain number of years.
General obligation bonds likely will be the answer for financing school construction. And, although Cofer, finance chairman for the supervisors, isn't obligating himself, there may be some money available. Smithfield High, financed in 1977, will be paid for in about three years.
If the two boards working together decide that a new elementary school in Windsor is truly necessary, that could be the route to go, Cofer said. And he's confident that Isle of Wight, with a financially secure reputation in the bond market, wouldn't have any trouble getting credit.
``I think the School Board has done an excellent job, for once, of long-range planning,'' he said. ``We've just got to all work together on this.''
Peerey said the School Board is willing to do that, and he's counting on the support of county residents.
``In a lot of our decisions, the School Board has been guided by the wishes of the people, and we feel we've had their support in what we've done,'' Peerey said. ``All of the talk about spending money for schools has got to raise the issue of growth. It's a Trojan horse. It looks good, but when the doors are open, nobody wants to pay the price.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Alexander Decker, jeft, the assistant school superintendent for Isle
of Wight County, huddles with Mike Caldwell, construction foreman
for Powell Management, to review plans for the new Carrsville
Elementary School.[Color cover photo]
Newly enrolled Sarah and Anna Gies surveyed the lobby of the new
Carrollton Elementary School, which opened in the fall of 1993.
Windsor Elementary School, the oldest in the county, has 14 mobile
units to bolster classroom space.
Fred Stanton shows how duct tape holds down the carpeting at
Windsor.
Secretary Pat Glover was all smiles as she unloaded supplies in the
newly opened Carrollton Elementary School.
Graphic
Isle of Wight County Schools
Construction Projects since 1968....
Five-Year Capital Inprovement Program
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