THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 1996 TAG: 9606180001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 48 lines
There's eloquence in simplicity. Explaining why five elements - three private, two governmental - have just combined to improve the Norview section of Norfolk, Norview Civic League president Bobby Hughes said:
``We want a safe community. We want a clean community. We want an attractive community. We want a good place to raise our children, to school our children.''
That's what most of us want.
But we can't create the communities we want - and must have - if we go our separate ways, indifferent to the fate of the whole. And there is strength in collective determination to join forces to make better the places in which we live and move and have our being.
So a standing ovation is appropriate for the ``Five Points Partnership'' whose members are the civic league, the Norview Business Association, churches, Norview High School and the Norfolk Police Department. The police have gotten close to the neighborhood through the popular, citywide anti-crime Police Assisted Community Enforcement (PACE) program.
No doubt some were amazed to read this spring that Redbook magazine included Norview High School among its 155-best-in-nation schools - an honor list that Virginia Beach's Frank W. Cox High School also made (for the second time).
Norview High School?
Norfolk?
Well, yes. A dozen education experts chosen by Redbook awarded Norview High superior marks for innovations that enhance students' motivation, learning, computer skills and readiness for the world of work and citizenship.
Norview also is a school that gains strength from community involvement in its programs. The school needs it. Most of its 1,600 students are from low-income families, which qualifies them for free or reduced-price lunches. Innovation and community involvement - they will enrich Norview no less than they enrich Norview High School.
Norview not only supports the high school in its midst, it also supplements the police presence with citizen patrols that keep an eye on things and report suspicious activity to authorities. Between PACE, which works with residents and merchants to curb crime, and the citizen patrols, Norview has signaled miscreants that lawbreaking isn't tolerated. The result: safer neighborhoods.
Unified communities can banish criminality and create places that enable families and commerce to thrive. Maintaining such an environment is clearly the Norview alliance's aim. Wish it well. by CNB