DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9710310220

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 19   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Nancy Young 

                                            LENGTH:  121 lines

SCHOOL BOARD RETREAT - CHESAPEAKE

Every year the School Board goes on a retreat to discuss issues and policies that may require more in-depth discussion than is sometimes allowed within the confines of a regular meeting. This year's retreat was held at Hugo A. Owens Middle School Oct. 24-25. Here are some of the highlights: Student discipline

Glen Koonce, the district's director of student discipline, went over the district's discipline policy, and, as he did so, Board members had questions about how the policy was communicated to parents and students.

One specific question that came up was whether the letter the district sends home to parents about the discipline policy led people to think that bringing a knife to school is grounds for automatic expulsion just as bringing a gun to school is.

In reality, there's more gray area surrounding the knife issue, said Deputy Superintendent William E. Russell. While a student will definitely be suspended for bringing a knife to school - no matter how young the student or the size of the knife - the length of the suspension and the possibility of expulsion depend on the circumstances. For example, a young child who forgets he has a jackknife in his coat pocket from Boy Scouts the night before most probably wouldn't be expelled, but a student who uses or threatens to use the knife might well be expelled.

The Board asked that the letter that is sent home to parents somehow reflect the seriousness of bringing a knife to school - no matter what the circumstances - while not alluding to the possibility of an automatic expulsion that may not come to pass.

The Board also discussed the need to expand formal programming for elementary-age students who have behavior problems.

``We don't have an alternative program at the elementary-school level,'' said Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols.

The district's alternative school serves kids starting in the seventh grade, although its first sixth-grader was admitted a few weeks ago.

But behavior problems start well before middle school, said Linda D. Palombo, assistant superintendent for instruction.

``Because the problems are going younger and younger, the programs have to go younger and younger,'' she said. A room with a view

If you came to a board meeting, would you feel more comfortable in a room where the School Board members were on the same level or if they were up above you?

If you prefer the former, how much would you be willing to pay for that comfort level?

Whatever people prefer, the School Board needs a bigger board room. If there was one retreat issue the Board members and the administration were most split on, it was over whether the School Board should hold its meetings in the City Council's chambers in City Hall or do the renovations necessary to have a bigger board room in the school administration building.

``There are more chairs in that room than the fire code allows people to sit in the room,'' said Board member James J. Wheaton, who advocated moving to City Council's chambers.

On the plus side, moving to City Hall would save the renovation cost of the room, as well as the cost of televising the meetings. It costs twice as much to televise School Board meetings as it does City Council meetings because of inadequate equipment and overtime costs.

On the minus side, the City Council chambers can be intimidating, and moving the meetings out of the school administration building could reduce the school division's sense of control.

``I still have a preference for us to have our meetings in the school administration building,'' said Nichols.

Making the decision ever more complicated is the district's need for a space for a studio for an educational channel counterpart to Channel 23 - for which an enlarged board room could also serve. But the future of the educational channel itself is in doubt.

``I can't even find out if we're going to get the money for the second channel yet,'' said Nichols. Part-time students

The Board decided not to take advantage of a change in the Virginia Code that would reimburse the district for part-time students who are either home-schooled or in private schools.

The Board's current policy, which the majority of Board members decided to stick with, does not allow home-schooled or private school students to attend the district on a part-time basis. Board members decided that the practical logistics involved in changing the policy would outweigh the reimbursement from the state.

Board member Patricia P. Willis was the most outspoken in favor of changing the policy, saying that all Chesapeake taxpayers have a right to send their children to the district even if it's only for one class.

``I don't think we need to be that radical, to say, `They're not full time so we don't want any part of them.' I don't think that's a very good attitude,'' Willis said. Programs for younger gifted children

At the high school level, gifted children can take advanced-placement courses, fifth- and sixth-grade students can take classes at the Lab School in the Indian River Middle School annex, but for kids younger than that, gifted education is a catch-as-catch-can affair in Chesapeake.

``What we're doing is not all that we should be doing for young kids,'' Linda D. Palombo, assistant superintendent for instruction, told the Board at their retreat.

Palombo said gifted education at the primary level differed from school to school and teachers were not required to have training in that area. She said there was a need to begin identifying gifted children at a younger age as well as expand both the programs and the number of teachers certified in gifted ed.

Palombo said that not adequately challenging gifted children at a young age could lead to trouble down the line.

``Many of the children who are behavior problems in middle school are children who were never identified in elementary school that they were academically gifted, and they were,'' said Palombo.

While the need may be there, how to satisfy that need is a more complicated matter, said Palombo. There are the questions of how to assess ``giftedness.''

``One thing we have to check on is to make sure the program is equitable,'' she said. ``We know that there are some tests out there that automatically exclude minority children for gifted programs.''

Board member Roderic A. Taylor said he was worried that expanding gifted education might have the unwanted side effect of ``tracking'' kids.

``After a while, that gets to be a horror story,'' said Taylor. ``You don't want to lock a student in the first grade as a slow learner or as gifted.'' MEMO: Next week, retreat highlights will include discussions of test

scores, school opening and closing times, English as a second language

and kindergarten hours.

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