
DATE: Sunday, November 16, 1997             TAG: 9711160017

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SERIES: First of three parts.

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS AND KATRICE FRANKLIN, STAFF WRITERS

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:  172 lines

LIMITED RESOURCES LEAD TO HARD CHOICES SUFFOLK BALANCES EDUCATION NEEDS, ECONOMIC GROWTH

Choices.

Schools. Roads. Fire stations. Water and sewer lines. All desperately sought by residents in this growing area. But city officials say they can't afford everything.

Instead, they must weigh needs and wants. They must make choices.

It's a balancing act. Schoolchildren and tax dollars. Modern-equipped schools, and industrial parks that one day may help pay for them. Quality education, and other things that make up a quality of life. Spinning plates all that the City Council must keep from crashing down.

Every year, parents come with their vision for their kids' futures. They'd like top-notch schools equipped with new technology and hallways free of buckets that gather rain from leaking roofs. They want their children to have school grounds filled with play equipment instead of mobile units as makeshift classrooms.

On Wednesday, these parents will go before City Council as they do every year, and plead for money to build new schools and expand and update old ones. Next month, the council will approve a Suffolk construction list for the next year. And it will probably be a great deal less money than the school system wanted.

Meanwhile, Talmadge Darden, principal of John Yeates Middle School, counts floor tiles in his cafeteria. He's learned over the years that spacing his tables 5 1/2 tiles apart works best - it lets him cram in the most students for each of his four lunch shifts, the first of which starts at 10:20 a.m.

At 955 students, Darden is about out of space at his school, which this fall is teaching children in two new classrooms carved out of part of the library and in four mobile classrooms - the first at the middle school.

``I don't have any place to put them, unless they bring in another row of mobile units,'' Darden said.

The school system has asked for $142.2 million over the next six years - $35.3 million of that for next year alone. School officials say they need the money to handle surging enrollment.

The city has its own list of non-school building needs that total $82.6 million over the next 10 years, including $27.5 million for new and renovated buildings.

That comes to $224.8 million in requested obligations, $43.5 million for next year. City officials already have pared down the lists to what they believe Suffolk can afford next year: $17.1 million, with more than half of that - $8.9 million - for schools.

Some may question whether that is enough. Others will say it's too much. What does Suffolk lose if it holds back on building new schools as fast as school officials say they're needed? What does it give up by postponing water service or fire protection to a section of the city? Many question whether it can afford to do either anymore.

What happens when a growing city's needs outstrip what it's willing to pay? That may be where Suffolk is now.

Skimp on schools, studies show, and children don't learn as well in crowded, outdated facilities. Fall behind on roads and other basic services, and economic development dries up.

``They should think about the youth first,'' said Brandy Ruffin, an eighth-grader at Forest Glen Middle. ``They should think about our education, how we're going to be.''

No one in the Municipal Building or the School Board offices disagrees. But council members wonder why fewer, larger and relatively cheaper schools won't do. School officials answer that quality suffers when principals and teachers have too many students to know their names or their parents, or when special-education classes must be held in storage rooms.

Choices. And needs.

About 700 homes pop up each year along Suffolk's once-rural roads. And the state's largest city, in terms of area, still has plenty of acreage open for development.

Not surprisingly, school enrollment has shot up almost 16 percent in the past three years, to more than 11,000 students in 16 schools. One in five students studies in 84 mobile classrooms. School officials say they need four new schools and additions to five others.

``We'd love to do it all, but the bottom line is we have to do a good job in balancing the needs against what we can afford,'' City Manager Myles E. Standish said. ``That's a commitment that council has made.''

Two years ago, the City Council passed limits on how much Suffolk can borrow annually for building needs. While state law permits localities to borrow no more than 10 percent of the assessed value of their real estate, Suffolk restricts the debt ratio to 7 percent. With already existing debts, that gives Suffolk $56.4 million for next year.

The pared-down list for next year's building budget includes renovations to the municipal center and the former Suffolk High School building, start-up money for a new public safety building, and funds for a new main library and a regional juvenile-detention facility.

The city also is proposing to improve several recreation centers and develop two industrial parks. The main school project listed is renovating 43-year-old Booker T. Washington Elementary School.

City officials argue that while education is a priority, Suffolk has to balance many priorities, such as economic development.

They point to neighboring Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, which in the past decade experienced the same rapid growth, as proof that their approach works. Those cities also struggled to provide adequate roads and fire protection and watched mobile classrooms sprout on school grounds until schools could begin to catch up.

Economic development helped them meet their needs. Suffolk officials are proposing about $1 million next year to continue construction on two new industrial parks.

New companies add money to the tax base, reduce unemployment and add to the quality of life, Vice Mayor Charles F. Brown said. That money then can be used to pay for expanded city services.

``Without economic development, we don't have money for schools or any of our other needs,'' Brown said. ``The only other way to produce schools is on the back of taxpayers. And from the trend, no one wants that. So, we have got to put resources into industrial development.''

Not all taxpayers agree. Brenda Galen, head of the city's PTA Council, said most parents want city officials to take the long view - the children are worth it.

``If it means paying $50 extra a year or whatever, I don't mind, as long as it goes for the children,'' Galen said. ``If we don't invest the money in them now, what's going to happen to them in 10 years? . . .

``I know there are other issues, but schools have to be a priority. In 10 years, 15 years, these children are going to be adults. And what will Suffolk have done for them? . . . They're going to leave.''

Crowded schools - and accompanying concerns about education quality and safety - have scared some families out of the city, and others out of the public school system.

Linda Gerrek sent her older son to private Portsmouth Catholic Elementary School to get him into smaller classes. ``I don't care if they meet in someplace that leaks, as long as they have enough aides,'' she said.

Others also are less concerned with amenities than quality.

This year, 51 percent of Suffolk's sixth-graders passed on the first try all three parts of Virginia's Literacy Passport Test, which is required for high-school graduation. That was the lowest rate in South Hampton Roads; the state average was 68 percent. Suffolk regularly lags behind the state average in other standardized test scores.

``The first thing homebuyers with kids ask about is the schools in the area,'' said Elaine Alfiero, a relocation manager with Long & Foster Realtors. ``They ask about the schools' SAT scores, programs and class sizes. Mobile units has never come up as an issue.''

Rogers doesn't think they should.

``Everybody is assuming the mobile units are bad, and we have two neighboring cities that have done the same thing,'' Rogers said. ``I would sooner see our classrooms experience the growth in the teaching staff, in the books and in the curriculum, if there is a choice between that and new buildings. Educating the children is what should be important.''

Agreed, said Mark A. Croston, the School Board chairman. But quality education must start with decent facilities.

``If you keep delaying projects that need to happen because you're afraid to deal with the tax issue, you put yourself into a Catch-22 situation,'' he said. ``At some point, these things will come due.''

But city officials say that doesn't mean they aren't keeping up with the school system's growth.

Under the proposed building plan for next year, 52 percent of the money is going to schools. And city officials say they'll eventually fund the school system's building plan - it'll just take 10 years, instead of six.

They also point to the smaller number of mobile units that the schools are using this year as proof that the city is handling Suffolk's education needs. Last year, 91 portables were used as classrooms. The number dropped to 84 this fall, as renovated Oakland Elementary School reopened and school officials decided to keep open old Florence Bowser Elementary School to house kindergartners.

Doing that killed the school system's plan to establish in Bowser a daytime alternative program for troubled students. Choices. MEMO: Suffolk faces spending millions on schools and other needs. How

those dollars are invested now will impact the future of a growing city.

Coming tomorrow, Part 2: How another school system did it. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Brenda Galen

Graphic

ROBERT D. VOROS/The Virginian-Pilot

BUILDING A SCHOOL: WHAT IT COSTS

SOURCE: Suffolk Public Schools

[For complete graphic, please see microfilm] KEYWORDS: SCHOOLS BUILDING