DATE: Tuesday, August 19, 1997              TAG: 9708190257

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ALETA PAYNE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   50 lines

BEACH SUPERINTENDENT TO TAKE A SEAT IN NATIONAL BACK-TO-SCHOOL CONFERENCE RISING ENROLLMENT IS THE FOCUS, AND HE'LL BRING LOCAL EXPERIENCES TO THE TABLE.

Superintendent Timothy R. Jenney will be in the national spotlight Thursday morning as he and three other educators from across the country take part in the U.S. Department of Education's Back-to-School press conference.

Jenney was asked to participate in the annual event last week by Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Educators from such large school divisions as New York City, San Diego and Broward County, Fla., also will take part in a panel discussion at the press conference in Washington.

The focus of this year's press conference will be rising enrollment and its impact on school divisions - from the need for more teachers to the demand for more and better buildings.

Jenney is expected to discuss the impact on Hampton Roads as a whole, but he also will discuss the situation Virginia Beach is facing with some of its older buildings.

During years of rapid enrollment growth, the Beach division's focus was on the demand for new buildings.

Now that growth has slowed, the need for renovation and modernization of some of the city's oldest buildings has become apparent. The School Board recently asked the City Council to place a $63.5 million bond referendum on the November ballot to modernize the city's eight oldest elementary schools and to study the needs of 16 other older school buildings.

``We're honored and excited that Dr. Jenney was invited to participate in Secretary Riley's Back-to-School news conference,'' said Kathy Bulman, assistant superintendent for media and communications development.

Jenney was invited to take part after he interviewed Riley for his twice-monthly TV talk show, ``The School Picture.'' Bulman said this presents the division with the opportunity to go national with ``a common problem'' of aging schools.

``We have the challenges on both ends. We have the challenge of building new schools and we have the challenge of fixing them on the older end,'' Bulman said.

``This allows us to share this challenge nationally. And then, of course, there's the issue of finance.''

Thursday, After comments from Riley and the commissioner for the National Center for Educational Statistics, each of the educators will speak briefly before taking questions from the media. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Superintendent Timothy Jenney was invited to take part after he

interviewed Secretary Richard Riley for his TV talk show.

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