THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 3, 1996 TAG: 9605030503
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WEEKSVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
Public schools are the key to children's futures, says Frank Jennings, who wants to make them better.
``I support the public school system,'' Jennings says. ``We pay for it. It's ours. It's a part of our community. . . . The teachers and the teachers aides have done a wonderful job in our classrooms, and we're very lucky to have the caliber of people that we have working for us.
``It's incumbent upon everyone to support the public school system.''
But the public schools have their work cut out for them these days, taking in children of various abilities and backgrounds. Jennings says the schools may be trying to take on too much.
``Our school system is going to try and teach discipline this coming year,'' Jennings says. ``And it's going to be awfully hard, because they have to take every child that walks through the door and try to acclimate them to a civilized system. And not every child is prepared to learn.''
Some children enter the system with three years of preschool, Jennings says. They know their colors, letters and numbers. They can print their names and interact with other children.
``And they will be placed in a classroom with children who have had no training at all,'' Jennings says. ``I think we should be looking at grouping children with similar academic backgrounds.
``Our school system, what we ask them to do is educate our children and create good citizens. You have to introduce some sort of standards, or our society's going to disintegrate.
``As a board member, you always hope that the children you get are ready to learn. I believe that's the basis for the Smart Start program, and I hope that'll work.''
Jennings says the schools need to work harder on teaching the basics to students.
``What I'd like to see is more concentration on the core academic subjects: reading, math and writing skills,'' Jennings says. ``Socialization skills . .
One thing Jennings would do immediately if he is elected is work for better enforcement of the district's discipline policy.
``What I would like to see is more consistency,'' he says.
When discipline problems arise, Jennings says, administrators need to stand behind teachers. Teachers have to work in classrooms that are often overcrowded and that contain children with a wide range of academic and social skills, Jennings says.
``We ought to be looking at encouraging principals to support their teachers more,'' he says, as well as finding new settings for disruptive students.
``I think our alternative school is going to increase,'' Jennings says, pointing to the district's plans to possibly convert H.L. Trigg Elementary to an alternative school after J.C. Sawyer is renovated.
``I think that's a start,'' he says. ``I'm not sure if there's any solution to it.''
Jennings also says he favors sending children to schools in their neighborhoods when the system redraws its district lines around a second middle school. Neighborhood schools will save taxpayer money and return a sense of community to they system, he says.
Business also needs to get involved in the schools, says Jennings, who farmed for 20 years before joining the Division of Coastal Management in 1995.
``When I was farming, and I hired people, I just wanted folks that would show up on time and were ready to work,'' he says. ``So many of the children grow up in homes that just don't see people going to work.
``This work ethic, I think the country as a whole has got to return to that.'' ILLUSTRATION: FRANK JENNINGS
Age: 46.
Home: Weeksville.
Occupation: Field representative, North Carolina Division of Coastal
Management; private land manager.
Education: Bachelor's degree in political science from University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1971.
Military: Served as lieutenant in U.S. Coast Guard.
Memberships: Pasquotank County Farm Bureau Board of Directors,
Albemarle Area Development Association, Reserve Officers
Association, Elizabeth City Area Chamber of Commerce, First United
Methodist Church, Staff Parish Relations Committee, PTA, Elizabeth
City-Pasquotank Public Schools Parent Advisory Commitee.
Family: Wife, Lynn. Two children in Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public
Schools this fall.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE CANDIDATE SCHOOL BOARD RACE by CNB